July 15th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
It was 100 degrees today
but then the sky looked like this!
I felt crazy today, the same crazy that happens when I decide to listen to terrible metal really loud in my car as I wind around Beverly Glen, the type of crazy that results in overpriced burrito consumption, the crazy that instills me with thoughts about Brett Easton Ellis characters (and conclusions, that perhaps I emulate the detached personalities in Less Than Zero rather than finding myself in such dispositions on my own)–and then I rolled down the window and it drizzled? I may have imagined it. But I felt a little less crazy with my hallucination.
July 11th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Housekeeping
Hey bitches! You may have noticed that I cleaned up my layout quite a bit. It’ll change over the next few days once I figure out what I want the header image to be, but I’m already happy with the way things are turning out right now. I also learned some things about WordPress that make my life a lot easier, like that you can have themes based on other themes so that one serves as a template.
My parents bought our cats a new “cat tree” recently, so Igby’s been all over it. I saw an unsuccessful attempt by him to jump from the bottom to the top yesterday. He almost seemed embarrassed when he fell down because he immediately walked in the other direction, but I know that assigning him with a human emotion is relatively foolish. I take too many pictures of him.
Working at UCLA has been good, especially since I only need to go in once or twice a week. It still requires a lot of work at home though. I finished laying out a lesson plan, but I have another one to complete soon as well as two cover designs. I’m just happy that I have another thing to put on my resume. In addition, I’ve been learning far more things about using InDesign than I did when I worked on EyeCandy. (Primarily because I only dealt with a two-page spread in EyeCandy as opposed to a fifty-page booklet.) I impressed my boss the other day with my ability to quickly convert the National Center for History in the Schools logo into a vector object. Nerdery pays off, sometimes.
I’m seeing my friend Elizabeth tomorrow afternoon and then Troy (exboyfriend) in the evening. It’ll be comforting to feel like less of a recluse. There have been things happening in my life lately that haven’t been very conducive to making me feel like a rational human being, at least in terms of intransigence. I don’t know. I never know.
Anyway, I’ve been listening to M.I.A.’s latest album sporadically over the last two days, but not because I think it sounds good. I’m actually really creeped out by it. I talked to my friend James about it and we agreed that “overstimulation” was a good term to assign to 2010. There’s definitely a lot self-parody in MAYA (yeah I’m not even going to bother with the punctuation) that extends beyond the kitschy album art, in that she’s singing about things a lot of musicians loftily push aside. The tracks are an electronic clusterfuck of memes with lyrics that praise the internet, Twitter, texting, and whatever other mediums we as a society have willingly plugged into. I’m still not sure what to make of “Born Free” (and its ginger genocide music video)–I still can’t listen to it without being constantly aware of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” looped in the background–but I thought this blog post on Lady Gaga brought up a lot of interesting points about the inherent hypocrisy of preaching individuality to the masses. To me, the most striking similarity between Lady Gaga and M.I.A. is that they’re both accused of being “edgy” for the sake of creating buzz for themselves, of putting on some crazy front so that we can talk about them all the time, even if it’s just to say that they’re insane. Lady Gaga, however, has a career that very obviously mimics Madonna’s. Inverted crosses and melodramatic performances will probably soon lose their novelty (again). M.I.A., on the other hand, seems to embody all that weird [seemingly omnipresent] self-referencing shit that I sift through when I’m browsing the internet, and sings about detachment as a result of our twinkling gadgets. Which is precisely what leaves me so horrified.
June 8th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Ich freu sich auf Sommer
Mmm so I’m pretty happy right now. I got my hardest final exam (German) out of the way yesterday at 8AM. I have two more tomorrow, but I’m not terribly worried as American television history is a subject I’m really familiar with and I’m allowed to accompany myself with two cheat sheets during my art history final exam (whaaat!). Notwithstanding, it’s clear to me that I set a ridiculous goal. Posting every day doesn’t make sense during finals week. Aha. Summer break is here in three days though! Seven-hour road trips aren’t fun but seeing my cat and eating ramen is. I’m planning to make an effort to see my friends in Los Angeles and do ‘Los Angeles things’ like go to overpriced cafes and eavesdrop on screenwriters. But I’m also looking forward to eventually coming back here… Santa Cruz feels more like home at this point. I dunnnnno. I just hope I can keep myself busybusybusy.
May 10th, 2010 at 9:35 am
“Flash filters” = colored cellophane
March 25th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Inhibited
I’m indirectly writing you all letters every time I publish something. Frustrating, abstruse self-censorship plays a large part in my posts. I could fulminate against your voyeurism, but that’s cliché and a character trait I thrive on inasmuch as it makes breaking the fourth wall possible. I am posing prose.
March 20th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
There’s a buzz in my backside
Hey man, I know that I know shit about music. I know that I like ‘experimental post-rock.’ I know that I stood three feet away from Jamie Stewart last night. I know that I felt his sweat, that I saw his pores, and that the fangirl next to me was creaming her pants at the mere thought of being in my place, despite the fact that the dude closes his eyes the entire time just like my morbidly shy German professor. I know that Xiu Xiu probably played way too fucking loud for a venue of that size, that I’m still deaf from the show, and that this paragraph should end soon before my insides turn into artificially scented ‘feminine hygiene product.’ I GOT CHILLS. THEY’RE ELECTRIFYING.
Stuffing myself in the back of a pickup truck and then getting a ride to campus from a (separate) saintly fellow led to a gathering of chemically altered states at an apartment occupied by new and old friends. I am glad to know them. It was comforting to get the jitters again and to reject my previous belief in utter unfeeling. Curmudgeonliness isn’t hip. Misanthropy is something I will inevitably return to, but I’m hoping these words will make their rounds again, that I’ll look at this memory in its less-than-transient glory (thanks, WordPress), and I’ll have some fondness for previous social successes. Feelings are funny things.
This morning was accompanied by (now familiar) wobbliness and apprehension but I resolved the latter by joining ‘old folks.’ BART, Shanghai in the 30s, food of the Vietnamese *and* Indian varieties, man. I’d like to see El Norte through the eyes of juvenile confreres, but I’m not entirely worried about that right now.
December 21st, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Igby
My favorite model.
December 5th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Die Blumen (UCSC Arboretum)
View the rest of the set on Flickr.
October 18th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Meow
I bought some baby pumpkins at Trader Joe’s today and drew faces on them with a permanent marker since they’re too small to carve. I’m not really into holiday decorations, but it’s fun to see the pumpkins sitting on my windowsill. I plan to procure some Christmas lights in December so that I can further liven up my room.
My friend Margot and I also had an official, albeit spur-of-the-moment, Team Bacon meeting on Saturday at 2AM. I made sure to document the experience.
It’s important to note here that the toast has been fried in bacon fat.
Unfortunately, our refrigerator has appeared to stop working again. This is the third time this has happened, so my roommates and I are all pretty sick of having our groceries spoiled. It must have something to do with our power outlet and not the brand new unit they gave us. Sigh!
September 16th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Toy Cameras
My sister graciously picked up this Holga K200N camera (with fisheye lens and flash filters!) for me at Urban Outfitters because it was on sale for $20.
I’m somewhat familiar with Lomography cameras, as I also own the Holga 135BC (BC stands for “black corners”). However, the only roll of film I’ve ever shot on that camera came out blank when I got it developed at Long’s drugs :( This time, I was a bit luckier with the K200N and successfully ended up with a few interesting photographs.
It’s a fixed focus lens, so quite a few of them came out blurry, but I’m overall satisfied with my first go. Toy cameras are fun; nevertheless, I do not understand why people will drop more than $20 on them. That plus the cost of film and processing certainly adds up! I mean, if you’re going to spend that much, at least get a camera that has a real viewfinder…