"small universal child morning star purple flower of love"

when things are going really terribly its so easy to find yourself feeling like nothing's going to ever be right even though you know very well that that's not at all true. my mom always says that the world has a way of taking care of us. i know she's right but things falling apart and feeling awful always make everything fall apart more because of how awful you feel. and its so hard to see what you're letting yourself do because somehow feelings always get in the way of ever being able to be rational. and you don't know that you're actually driving yourself out of your mind until someone comes and says, "hey, you're driving yourself out of your mind," and then you know and can stop.

replace "you" with "i".

the past few days have been infinitely better and right now i'm sitting in my room with my new bike helmet next to me and my new apartment's keys hanging on a rubber key chain the shape of a sneaker and i'm realizing that this is it: my big fat "i told you so" from the universe, and from my mom.

i wish that people were better at dealing with change.


actually, maybe i just wish that i was better dealing with change.

this one's for jen

today was really exciting because i bought my first .005 micron that will never be used for a homework assignment. i'm not sure exactly why that feels like a big deal to me, but there is something that just feels nice about existing outside of school but utilizing the tools that were acquired there. somehow i've managed to tell myself that the approaches i took while in school are no longer valid or smart enough. maybe my brand new .005 micron will prove me wrong. maybe it will be what helps me see that i can work outside of the strict deadlines of finals and still have it's .005 line draw something that makes me say, 'yessss'.

i was talking to jen about the fact that i hadn't updated in a while and how i just don't want this blog to become more about 'this is what i did today' than 'this is what i'm working on'. but i guess since very little is being worked on (and, lets be honest, who knows when that's going to get back underway) for now the everyday whatevers are just going to have to do. i mean, in the end, it's the everyday whatevers that are going to influence the stuff anyway.

i found out yesterday that my (former) professor's son, tyler, who i was planning on babysitting for two days a week this summer got into daycare. jean offered to give me the names of other mommies but i'm really not interested in being a babysitter. i just wanted to hang out with tyler who's pretty much awesome although not very good at playing with others. at the playground on monday i taught him how to shoo away a pigeon and he proceeded to shoo away the next kid who came over to play with his toy truck.
"only with birds, tyler."
maybe daycare isn't such a bad idea.

this is so emo. i'm really sorry.

lazy sunday

today i made a really amazing lunch for myself of eggs with garlic and thyme and pecans and vermont cheddar cheese on a baguette with drizzled balsamic vinegar. and i had some cherries, which i love but always forget exist fresh until summer comes and then i remember and am happy because it means that the season is here that we seem to always be waiting for. the idea of summer is so strange, like how things seemingly become okay even when they're not. i just still feel so tired. also, i've been spending the afternoon looking online at maira kalman's the principles of uncertainty and she makes me feel so crazy and excited and scared that i'll never ever in my life be able to make something so wonderful.

this is the third night i've heard fireworks down by the waterfront and i really wish i knew what they were for. i really love fireworks.

i like how when you clean your room you're sort of also cleaning out your head.

one more thing...

caitlin and i saw this today at the museum of arts and design and i basically peed my pants.

cleaning and making more messes

i've (finally) begun the process of seriously cleaning and reorganizing my room which of course means hours of distraction and funny memories and plenty of frustration. then i started going through old emails and iphoto and decided that maybe it wasn't the best use of time and that i should just try to go to bed or something but decided to do this instead. who's to say what's a good use of time, anyway.


i bought this yarn today and the clasp is from a bunch of jewels that caitlin's mom was throwing away and laura is going to (re)teach me how to knit and i'm going to make a bag. i've been feeling sort of stuck and scared to make things (shocking) but have been having all these ideas. i'm thinking that when i actually start my jobs and have a regular schedule i'll feel less like i'm just floating around and more like i'm being a productive human. after all, babysitting and selling muffins are very productive and essential parts of any post-graduate attempt to ignore real life for as long as possible.

tuesday

two-two: me and you (guys)

i recently told a special friend that i think everyone deserves to be adored. a few days later, and under very different circumstances, i can't help but think about that. about the fortune of just having it there, right in front of me, flowing freely without effort or question, from people who have found me. people who i have found. birthdays always feel so hopeful. thanks, friends.

the moooon

i've decided that for the month of june the only real thing i'm going to be doing is sketchbooking. i kept trying to think of a good project to start myself off with but i can't imagine doing anything with much structure or commitment these days. i can't even get myself to apply for a job even though i really really need one. i've made the summer goal of drawing trees better because right now when i draw geometric things they look like they come to life but when i draw actual living things they just look floppy.
yesterday at 7 pm we took an 'impromptu' trip to coney island that we planned at noon. maybe for some spontaneity needs to be worked up to. who knows, by the end of the summer we could be making sandwiches and suggest that they be eaten on the beach and then just leave instead of planning the trip to the beach then making sandwiches to bring with us.
tonight, at the animal collective show, i could hardly see anything accept the backs of some very trendy and unkempt hairstyles. i kept closing my eyes. sometimes it feels really nice to imagine that the bass is replacing your heartbeat. it's cloudy tonight so you can't see the moon that last night was full and orange and perfect. i guess it's just comforting to know that things are there even when you can't see them.

what's happened has happened, what's coming is already on it's way...

i don't know why now more than ever, but lately i've been having really strong reactions to music. i tried listening to cat power and i swear i was on the train in florence wearing my mom's blue coat with my ipod on trying to decipher the exact differences between the trees there and here, confused and anxious about the person who introduced me to cd but who i didn't like anymore because there was someone else who i couldn't stop thinking about. joanna newsom makes it winter and nighttime and vermont. i had listened to that album every time i drove when i was home last january. the strongest, probably because it was the most recent, was last week when i put on sera cahoone, who i listened to for the entire month of august. i actually had to turn it off and ended up pacing around the living room for a few minutes for my stomach to settle.
i'm thinking this happens because of how i've come to listen to music. i can never just listen to a variety of things depending on my mood, it has to be one or two or three specific albums at a time that, when they're on, i know how to think. i get so accustom to having them on that i don't have to think about them anymore and that's when they become part of the memory and feeling of that specific time period. they become ingrained in the portion of that moment that is just intuitive. so everything thought or felt at that time is affected by that music because the music is what's helping the thinking in the first place. and maybe that's the strongest part of memories anyway, the parts that you weren't meaning to formulate or feel or even know were happening.
in the past i've had to condition myself to not feel a certain way about music that i've done this with. it took me years to start listening again to my favorite natalie merchant album that got me through my parents divorce. years before i could put it on and not be sobbing on the floor of my empty bedroom on the day we moved out of my house. i wonder what it's going to be like in a few months when i put on mirah, or oneida, or oakley hall's second album only (i can't listen to the third right now, it's too seattle). it will be weird to feel then some unidentifiable feeling that i'm having right now even though right now it doesn't seem weird at all. because right now is actually the only time that this exact feeling that i don't know i'm having makes sense.


because i want this project to be a lot about my sketchbook, i thought it would be a good idea to go through my old sketchbooks and pick out a few gems to post. above is something i started last fall in a sketchbook, then typed, then emailed, now edited and posted. its sort of amazing how many little ideas come from just writing or drawing in a little book. sitting on the floor of my living room this morning going through a year and a half's worth of my own brain's blabber made me feel really weird, sort of like the music thing. it felt so strange to involuntarily recall where i was sitting and what i was doing and how i was feeling. and i found it way too difficult to pick and chose because how do you edit memories? so, in chronological order, i scanned a lot. i just had to.

running up and down the stars

i was talking to mercedes the other day about the way we process things. how when she looks at something she'll often try craft in her head how she would put it in writing. and how i look at things and think of them as drawings or how they could be drawn. it's sort of great to think of everyone just walking around thinking the way that they think.

sometimes we just have to get unstuck

i'm really bad at starting things. i've been thinking seriously about this blog for a week but keep feeling too anxious to write the first entry. it's like the first page of the sketchbook: always the hardest to fill. actually, i usually leave the first page completely blank. followed by a page that just has my contact information on it with maybe a little doodle on the facing page but nothing that requires too much commitment. i can't do that with this so i just haven't written anything. it's not like i didn't have time. i was home doing nothing. well, not nothing. actually, yeah, it was nothing, but in a very purposeful "let's do nothing together" sort of way (with people i'm completely obsessed with, no less). after school ended i think i leaped as fast as possible at the opportunity to get myself far away (geographically and mentally) from new york. a perfect trip to tennessee, north carolina, and vermont for just long enough to remember that life outside of pratt can exist in a way that doesn't just make you not want to pull your hair out but actually makes you remember how beautiful everything is and how much there is to be excited about. this morning i realized (after walking in to a serious post-finals house frozen since we all left over a week ago and decided, instead of cleaning, to lay in my bed with a fan on me then tend to the plants then write this entry) that taking it easy and enjoying small moments exists here too as long as you allow it. which is a good thing to remember when it comes to starting projects instead of being scared of them.

everyone keeps asking how it feels to be a graduate and i keep telling them to ask me again in september. my hesitation to start things and my tendency to be a deadline worker worries me when i think of post-graduate life. i wanted to start this blog as a way of setting up for myself some kind of project. hopefully it will serve as some record of creative discipline that i'm pretty sure that i have but am terrified i don't. it doesn't matter if you're good at what you do if you can't do it without a deadline, and today, i realized that i was relying on the same habits to start my e-life outside of facebook and gmail that is being created with the sole purpose of breaking those habits. silly me. i realized that all i needed to do was just fill that first page so i can get on with the rest of it which i know is the good stuff anyway. that being scared to start an entry is as silly as being scared to start a drawing. and that i need to chill the freak out.

i just wanna start sharing things with the world because i feel like it shares a lot with me.