dream the dream 

I've really tried to reduce the NY madness of my life by editing out what I can. Currently, I am making attempts to keep a more disciplined day to day. Doing only the things that feel nourishing to me. This means seeing less people, talking less, eating out less, partying less and drinking less. It's difficult and a (really) lonely endeavor, but I hope that this will bring me to a place I want to be and more importantly, the person I imagine myself being.

I've just finished reading Patti Smith's "Just Kids" and it left me in a stupor. I haven't read a book that really captured the devotion to art since high school and it made me sad that I forgot about the unadulterated feelings and inner devotion to creation. Where did that go? And when did it become replaced with the stress of making lots of money, pleasing other designers/people, and being so concerned about getting married?

Those old hopes and larger-than-life dreams are real. They're more "real-er" now that we can see it through a different, more adult lens. What's hard, is to hold on to the dreams of your younger self and use your adult capabilities to make it come to life. The recognition is key.

I want to go back to that place. This time, tackling it with more rigor. Let's see where it gets me...

My noon has come, to dine

November 2011
It's been a really, really rough Birthday/Thanksgiving week. I spent my Birthday evening in the Emergency Room in Los Angeles (not as the patient), and the rest of the holiday weekend angry, stressed out, and depressed. I did my best to make Thanksgiving Day a good one. With my upcoming departure to New York, I am incredibly worried from what had ensued a couple days ago. I'm scared, and I'm ridden with bouts of fear. I'm not sure what to do, and I feel too emotional to act rationally and thoughtfully. I think I've spent too much time alone that I'm not sure if what I'm thinking are logical thought processes or if I'm over-reacting or not reacting enough. Really, what I want to do is forget about the entire thing and pretend it didn't happen...but that choice has always been regretful, from what I've learned. I wish I can be more positive, and I'm sure that'll eventually come. But right now, I'm really sad. And angry. It switches back and forth. Regardless, the next day keeps coming, and time keeps going, and things-to-do lists keep piling. I'm not going to be able to sulk away in this forever. Some things are beyond my control, right?

I’m the rainbow in your jail cell

hello 2011.
It's been a long time since I've written in this blog. I had started a new, more "public" blog, but I felt reluctant to write honestly about my day-to-day. So I'm back, here, where it feels like home. Since the last time I posted, I spent 8 months in New York and graduated Art Center a couple months ago. It's a shame that I did not document this time, as I've changed so much. I'll be heading back to Manhattan at the end of the year, and till then, I'm freelancing with a couple amazing designers. I feel real lucky.

With my other hours, I've been reading, drawing, and watching a lot of movies. Also, working on some personal projects. I'm doing all the things I promised myself I'd do if I had the time to do it. I feel a bit isolated and disconnected from people, but I'm starting to create a bubble with my selective inspirations and soundtrack and feel strangely content at how much I love owning this creative headspace I've built in the confines of my room.

I've been feeling quite nostalgic. As much as I am fascinated and grateful about the offerings of social design, I'm bombarded with incredible amounts of information everyday, and it tires me out. I want to feel "preciousness" again. I want to hear that one song that means the world to me, or come across a poet that I swear I discovered in the depths of the local library. I want to carve out that space again. Maybe I'm pushing against that inevitable age and time. But I still want it to be okay for me to bleach my hair and dye it hot pink, I want it to be okay for me to write notes to friends about the cute guy at the coffee shop, and I want it to be okay for me to drive two hours at midnight to sit on my favorite cliff overlooking the ocean (as I eat a donut).

I always want these things to be okay,
even at 80 years old- on a wheelchair- breathing through a ventilator.

But it's becoming harder to do so. Again and again, I want to drive far away and graze the fields of long grass plains, a re-occurring theme for this nomadic gyspy

The world was new beneath a blue umbrella sky

palmy-desert
had an amazing time with the loveliest ladies ever(ly).

affinity for landscapes
especially for those old ones you see inside thrift shops with paint chipping off. am i getting boring and old?

saturday
so much to do still. ends to tie up. paying for luggage. emails. phone calls. credit cards. housing inquiries. snail mail. and doing my best to get my last moments of friends in.

I Like The Wing by Robert Wrigley

We are at or near the approximate line
where a stiff breeze becomes
or lapses from a considerable wind,
and I like it here, the chimney smokes
right-angled from west to east but still
for brief intact stretches
the plush animal tails of their fires.
I like how the stiffness rouses the birds
right up until what's considerable sends them
to shelter. I like how the morning's rain,
having wakened the soil's raw materials, sends
a root smell into the air around us,
which the pine trees sway stately within.
I like how the sun strains not
to go down, how the horizon tugs gently at it,
and how the distant grain elevator's shadow
ripples over the stubble of the field.
i like the bird feeder's slant
and the dribble of its seeds. i like the cat's
sleepiness at the breeze then the wind
then the breeze keeps combing her fur.
i like the body of the mouse at her feet.
i like the way the apple core i tossed away
has browned so quickly. it is much to be admired,
as the way the doe extends her elegant neck
in its direction, and the workings of her black nostrils, too.
i like the sound of the southbound truck
blowing by headed east. i like the fact
that the dog is not barking. i like the ark
of the house afloat on the sea of march,
and the swells of the crop hills bedizened
with cedillas of old snow. i like old snow.
i like my lungs and their conversions
to the gospel of spring. i like the wing
of the magpie outheld as he probes beneath it
for fleas or lice. that's especially nice,
the last sun pinkening his underfeathers
as it also pinks the dark when i close my eyes,
which i like to do, in the face of it,
this stiff breeze that wa,
when i closed them, a considerable wind.

pssssssss.
thinking of you, j, in omaha!

but the morning light is only the first line in the play of this day

hello/goodbye
catching up with friends. today, i saw Y. an old friend who traveled with me through Guatemala. I don't get to see her often, but when i do, i always feel so lucky to have her in my life. her heart is always in the right place.

excited yet?
the short move to ny is slowly starting to seep in. my excitement is always, always delayed. i have also always been very cautious about my excitement that may revolve around the idea of expectations and disappointments. all new travels are accompanied by amazing growth, new experiences, tremendous adventures, yet i know myself enough to know that my solitary travels are always chaperoned by shards of stress, loneliness and at times extreme doubt. I invite it. i invite this- i am just cautious, as to prepare myself for my manic tendencies. no matter how short the trip, no matter how prepared you are- traveling alone never gets easier, but you also can never quite quit the addiction. Six years earlier, I associated moving as a means to starting over, brand new. I've since learned that its impossible to leave old scars behind. No matter where you are or where you go, things just don't disappear when you leave them behind. it follows you and follows you and follows you. but that was six years ago. today, i'm ready to tackle on the new.

ruminating
lots of personal projects. i can't wait to get them started.

tomorrow
i bask in the sweltering sun of palm springs before flying east.

another pretty poem by billy collins "the only day in existence"
the early sun is so pale and shadowy,
i could be looking up at a ghost
in the shape of a window,
a tall, rectangular spirit
looking down at me in bed,
about to demand that i avenge
the murder of my father.
but the morning light is only the first line
in the play of this day--
the only day in existence--
the opening chord of its long song,
or think of what is permeating
the thin bedroom curtains

as the beginning of a lecture
i will listen to until it is dark,
a curious student in a v-neck sweater,
angled into the wooden chair of his life,
ready with notebook and a chewed-up pencil,
quiet as a goldfish in winter,
serious as a compass at sea,
eager to absorb whatever lesson
this damp, overcast Tuesday
has to teach me
here in the spacious classroom of the world
with its long walls of glass,
its heavy, low-hung ceiling

it will waste away. to nothing, nothing but stars in the sky

time's a wastin'
I want to hoard all the greatness and all the experiences, and gather them into a big pile and call it all mine.

gardening
today in the hot hot hot heat

hey! what are you doing here? just listening

sunday.
a late insead lunch at saladang to say goodbye to O & T. So happy for them- as they start the new phase of their life, but sad they're leaving. its strange that so much of our lives and friendship is based on location and distance.

its late
and im baking peanut butter cookies. i like baking because theres a beginning and an end. either the food is good or bad. i like the decisiveness of baking. wish life was more like that.