thedisappeared

this is how my final book turned out. everyone said I'm a funny girl. It was the best compliment from a class ever.

( Perfectly Average Household )

Tomorrow is metals critique. If anyone says my project is funny in there, it won't be a compliment!

I've had my first sessions of each of my 2 classes (I'm only half time this semester) and they are fuuuun.

Book Arts is awesome, we already sewed some books and got to use the giagantic board cutter (the blade is longer than my arm). Ours first assignment is to make a book without text or imagery- a book that uses only the sequence and manipulation of paper & other materials to create a kind of reading experience. Hard! Conceptual! I hear this is one of the harder assignments to complete well - I'm excited though. We're experimenting with paper manipulation tomorrow. Due to being stupid about bus schedules still, I was 20 minutes late to the first day of this class, and the teacher acts like she hates me now. I've just decided to stick with my plan of being quiet and letting my work speak for itself to get on her good side. She's a really cool, knowledgable-seeming teacher so far.

Metals fundamentals looks like it's going to be really fun too! Our teacher is really personable, and she's a lot more approachable than the book arts teacher. I can tell I'm going to get frustrated with metals sometimes, because it's already a long, slow, tedious process to make anything halfway decent with just the practice wire we were given today. I'm going to throw myself at it though, and who knows. There is a certain charm to really getting into a project that takes a while - getting into the rhythm, and meditating on it. For our first exercise, we're trying to replicate and make variations of Calder wire jewelry. I now own 4 different types of pliers, and countless other tools. It makes me feel tough.

I'm getting used to taking the buses all the time, too. I have resolved that bus waiting/riding time will be filled by my listening to the music on my iPod that I neglect at home.

Cheers!

As I'm on my 'monday' of a 6 day work stretch, I'm going to need to get into a better mood than I'm in.
I did realize that despite my PMS, as soon as I pumped some coffee into me, things didn't seem so bleak! It's been a few days without coffee or alcohol, which I'm a little proud of. I'm ok reneging on no coffee, especially around this time of month, but I like the idea of detoxing from alcohol for a bit. Let's how long I can last!

Ok! More Positive things, positive things.

Loren Mazzacane Connors is tugging at my heartstrings with his guitar strings. !

Really soon I will get my review & get to find out what my raise is! Raises are exciting!

Andy wants to come back to see me in August! Oh time, please fly!

I accidentally made a new dish component that I like and I'm really excited about experimenting with! I was cooking lentils the other night and I completely overcooked them. Like, destroyed them. I was also carmelizing some onions, just for whatever. So in a fit of obstinacy against tossing the lentils, I threw in the onions and butter and blended them together into a thick paste. Added garam masala, saffron, paprika, and a little apple cider vinegar. And you know what? It tastes freakin' great! I'm using it as a spread - I've had a few sandwiches consisting of feta cheese, the lentil spread, a little plain yogurt on the other slice of bread, sliced tomato, raw onion, and sometimes black beans, and toasting the sandwich to get the spread and cheese all warm and gooey - oh man! Tonight at work I'm going to buy persian cucumbers and maybe some bell pepper to put on there too. And maybe some pita bread to see if it works just as well pocket style. My guess is it will work better!

Here's to successful cooking accidents! And to positivity! Hugs to you all.

Guys! I want to know more about you. Even if you think I know you.

*I love using bags of frozen peas on painful spots instead of ice. They conform to hard-to-conform-to body parts like nothin' else!

*I realized kind of recently that I have a fear of open bodies of water.

Now you tell me some stuff!

Miss you!

I'm in high spirits today!

I negotiated my rent down with my landlord by $50 a month! Yes to saving $600 next year!

I have been cleaning for like 6 hours. BECAUSE my parents will be here tomorrow! Hooray!

I went through all my clothes and got together a few bags to give away. Goodbye, fat pants!

I found $5 in one of the fat pants pockets! Ha!

Things with school are finally being straightened out. My emails basically read, "Photography is not my 2nd concentration, dickheads"!

The Boy will be here in 2 weeks exactly! Swoon!

In other words, Life's A-OK.

well, laurie found a place on her own. and the people in the house chose a roommate that is not me.
i guess i'm going to put together a letter asking if we can renegotiate my rent at my current place. I'm a little let down, and a little relieved.

Issues impeding finding of housing after next month:
Have a med-large dog AND a cat
Can't spend much money
Want to stay fairly close to the stuff I need to be close to (work & school)
Really like living alone
Really like my current place
Feeling really queasy about the thought of my parents helping me with my rent every month. Ugh.


Option 1: Attempt to stay in the studio I love by trying to negotiate rent down. Still would be out of price range, but less so.

Option 2: Attempt to find a room or cheaper studio. Emailed folks from CL RE this. Waiting for response.

Option 3: Attempt to find a 2bd apartment or house with coworker Laurie. Worked on this all of yesterday, got incredibly frustrated by the lack of results. Especially difficult bc have to find a place that will take a medium dog, a small dog, AND a cat.

Option 4: Attempt to combine potential roommates Laurie, Derek, & Stacy together and rent a house together. Have never rented a house, have no idea how to do this. Sounds messy & like a lot of work.

Option 5: Other?

I almost forgot to mention that last night I dreamt of getting a kitten, and eating chocolate eggs. No joke! Ah, the true desires, revealed in unconsciousness.

I'm stressed about school and a ton of stuff. Let's focus on my living situation. My apartment costs too much, but I LOVE it and it's in the PERFECT location for being near work and school and I get to live alone. I bit the bullet and posted a craigslist ad today and have actually gotten a couple of decent bites in areas I might be able to live with. Plus I opened my fat mouth at a party tonight and now my old coworker Laurie wants to find a place with me, which I think would be okay but sounds like I'll have to do extra work for. But now she's totally excited so it'll totally disappoint her if I go with another option. Ugh. So do I stay in the too-expensive apartment and always feel stressed about money and go into debt and be at my parents' beck and call because they offered to help me with money, or do I go with the stranger from craiglist who's offering a cool house for $200 less a month than I pay, or do I find a place with Laurie who I know is nice but it's also weird to live with someone you work with?

stress. >:(

I got my hair cut off, as promised! I love it!

I don't want to jinx it, but yeah, I'm really gooey and swoony and floaty right now. Life is so good for a girl with a dreamboat at the other end of her phone. God, I can't wait to see him!

Y'all still need to give me your student loan stories. I know you're holding out on me! Aaannd, go!

I wanna make a kinetic sculpture... or, no, maybe more accurately said, interactive art. I want to make some clouds, and rig them all up to some cool looking gears and pulleys and stuff. And when you pull the ropes, the clouds come rolling in on the sky backdrop.
Well, it looked really cool when I watched it happen in real life.
The clouds in Portland sometimes charge through the sky, and I stand agape witnessing it.

SO I just had a dream that the news said a severed T-Rex head was discovered to have been orbiting earth for the last however many millions of years and finally came crashing down to the ground, preserved nicely for scientists.
It was SUCH a bummer to wake up and find out that wasn't real!!

(my back is all better, btw)

on worker's comp because of back now - stressful!

trying to apply for fafsa/ocac - stressful!

no longer can get internet at home - stressful!

My breakfast of chai tea and bread with peanut butter and nutella woke me up! up! up!



For some reason the shots of the 'little fishes' crack me up everytime. That and the banana eating scene! lollercopter and such!

New year's resolution: work out until my legs look like this girl's! Lordy!

Today was a good day! A very good day!

Today I woke up groggy as hell, so I had tea and chocolate covered pretzels for breakfast; but I got to leave work early!

Today I ate a 'Che Guevara' burrito from Laughing Planet and it was hella tasty (that's because it contains: brown rice, black beans, plantains, sweet potatoes and spicy barbecue sauce, pico de gallo and added sour cream[!!!]). I also bought my coworker a burrito and it made her happy!

Today I shopped in Goodwill but I DIDN'T buy anything because they didn't have the thing I came in for! And then I bought Einie some dog food and didn't buy tons of other crap like usual.

Today Einstein and I took a fun squishy walk in the park and a security guy gave Ein a treat and said he respected dogs with PhDs.

Today I can drink some beers because I have tomorrow off!

Today was beautiful, and I feel great. And I hope you had a great day too!

ends today. i was going to go to the zoo in my almost-week off, but i did not. i was super-lazy instead, also nice. i would like to just walk every day instead of go back to work ever, mmkay?

couple days ago coworker and i went downtown and played in the toystore and then watched a zombie procession. that is a fun day! doctor zombies! santa claus zombies! there were even unicycler zombies! kudos to a man who can ride a unicycle in that herky jerky undead way. kudos, sir.

i went to OCAC's (oregon college of art and craft) open house last weekend and I am in love with the place. it's like disneyland. it has everything! so i have to wait a year before i become an oregon resident, and then i can apply to lots more scholarships. also i must work hard this year on my work and make it some beautyfilled stuff so that I have a super-impressive portfolio to show. my ultimate goal is to nab one of the $10,000-a-year-for-4-years scholarships and then live happily ever after in that beautiful little school. <3!

also me n john cassavetes are buddies now. did you know there's a movie out there where cassavetes punches ronald reagan in the face? oh yes.

it is a perfect autumn day. clear sky, cool air, red, orange, yellow leaves everywhere. it is beautiful, and it is one of my first dealings with an actual fall season!

all my friends and myself from the last entry are alive! we are all alive and I love them all.

i am going to work at trader joe's! i am excited to abuse my discount for my many tj food loves. Look out, hummus section, you are getting pillaged.

I have been on a soup kick lately!

yesterday I ate this spicy noddle thai soup with pork and shrimp and squid- it was sooo tasty, though I could've done without the poor rubberbandy squidlettes!

I have started making my own vegetable stock which is fantastic to cook with. And easy to make!

Today I made italian wedding soup! Yummm I used ground turkey for the meatballs to make it more healthy!

A couple days ago I made greek lemon soup! Also yummm! Though next time I think I'm going to try and put chicken in it.

If anyone has any other easy-ish soup suggestions I should try, holla!

Guess Who Is Tired Of Their Dumb Job?

GUESS?!

It Is Me!

[frowny]

oh wow, haha.

crazy guy behind me just flipped out, yelling: "Up your apparatus!"