someone has to bring the awesome.

It's officially official, I'm moving to Zurich by end of the year!



I've mentioned the possibility that I might move to my closest friends, but I didn't get final word until a few days ago, so I thought I'd say something publicly about it now...

Some background:

-- Living in Europe has been a dream of mine for years. I've visited the UK and Italy, but that's about it (airports in other countries don't count). There's so much else there I want to experience and from what I hear, Zurich is an excellent hub for traveling around the region.
-- My new project that's getting me over there is the reason I wanted to work at Google in the first place... tackling the issue of information overload head-on. I'm just as excited about this new project as I am about the move.
-- This is something that's been in the works for months... Google is supportive of facilitating these kinds of transfers, but a lot of things have to come together to make them happen. I have many colleagues and friends to thank for helping me out with this opportunity and to them, I am eternally grateful.
-- I'll be there for at least a year and I'm not sure what I'll do after that. I'm pretty thrilled about this aspect of the adventure.
-- I should be relocated sometime towards the end of December. I'll probably do some kind of combo going away/bday party with my bay area peeps before I leave so stay tuned on Facebook for info on that.

Other notables:

-- I'll continue to work on my previous project, Sidewiki, at least for the foreseeable future as it's something I'm still very close to and want to see succeed.
-- I'm going to miss my friends a lot, but I'm hoping you'll all come visit me! Zurich is easily accessed by train or cheap flights from within the EU, so if you find yourself visiting Europe in 2010, put ZRH on your list!
-- I'm incredibly excited to be near Berlin and Paris... two places I've never visited, but have heard so many good things about. My good buddy Jeff is in Berlin and Nathan is in Paris, so it will be fantastic to see them more often.
-- I'll be making the switch after many years of working on client software to working mainly on web and mobile based projects. I'm going to use this opportunity to get back into coding and doing more interactive prototypes.
-- Google's Zurich office is supposed to be super sweet and I'm looking forward to having a smaller company feel for awhile.
-- Skiing and snowboarding are two things I have very little experience with... I'm crossing my fingers that they'll have some bunny hills out there to practice on.
-- I plan to take German lessons and want to make sure I branch out from just socializing with my coworkers. I've heard it can be tough as an outsider to make friends in Zurich, but I'm hoping I can find some fellow music lovers as a way to bridge the gap.
-- I purged a fair amount of my stuff when I moved to SF, but not near as much as I would've liked. I'm going to use this next move as a way to finally slim it all down to just the bare essentials. I've got the international Kindle now so I won't need to take as many books with me and I'm digitizing all of my cds onto a mirrored drive. The only bulky thing that remains is my vinyl collection... I won't have enough time to digitize my records before I leave, so I'll probably just keep them in storage unless someone in the bay area wants to babysit them while I'm gone. I'm hoping to go the projector route finally too as a way to have a more mobile entertainment center.

I take my first trip to Zurich this Friday with a few days in the UK at the end, during which I'm hoping to catch Ryuichi Sakamoto perform his piano pieces in Burmingham (!!!!!!!!).

This new move is probably a good chance to retire my public LJ as well which I haven't been updating that often thanks to Twitter and Facebook. I'll continue to use it for friends-only posts (still baffled that no one else has come up with a better replacement for this), but I think it's time I wrote more often on something I can fully control like WordPress. I'll put a note here once that's live.

Chocolate, fondue, timely public transportation, army knives, fancy time pieces, and neutrality await. Uf Widerluege!

OK, first of all, bravo to this lady for being strong enough to talk openly on national TV about a potentially embarrassing medical problem. Second of all, boo on me for giggling every time the word word "cath" is used, because it reminds me of the short lived sitcom Kath & Kim, or better, the comic strip "Cathy".

Third of all, what is it that happily makes an entrance at 43 seconds into the commercial? Who doesn't love a visual metaphor?

There is no fourth of all. I just see this commercial so often, I felt the need to share it. Now pardon me while I go re-use a catheter.

CAAAAAAAAATH!!!!!

(p.s. I saw Paranormal Activity tonight, and also watched G.I. Joe on DVD! The former is OK, kinda scary, but see it as a matinee, and be prepared to believe that a man can be a douchebag. The latter was BORING. Srsly, how do you fuck up an awesome character like the villainous Baroness? Oh, you cast milquetoast Sienna Miller.

Speaking of Milquetoast! Did you hear that an actual health insurance reform bill passed the house last night? Yay for Democrats! Too bad that as far as I can gather, it's kind of a crap bill that might do more harm than good, thanks to concessions made to Rs and Blue Dog Democrats (AKA colostomy bags). As with everything, I am sure it will prove to be GOOD NEWS FOR CONSERVATIVES (whom I plan to vote for from here on out, anyway). Yay!!!

What have I been doing?
A while ago I was in Hawaii for a big science conference. We stayed at a fairly cheesy old hotel called the Outrigger, which had the main benefit of being on the beach and in the middle of the Waikiki strip of luxury shopping opportunities. It also featured a bar where performers sang bad cover versions of classic songs with extra island flare. On the beach, a boat left every couple hours for sightseers. In between voyages, a tooth-deprived man stood on the shore yelling "one dollar beer, one dollar Mai Tai" to drum up customers while his miserable-looking dachshund ran up and down the beach digging and urinating on sand castles. The weather was hot and humid. My room had a tiny deck with a hint of a view of the ocean through skyscrapers. The conference had a weird early morning, sometimes late afternoon schedule, which allowed for guilt-free visits to the beach for sunning and ocean swimming. On the first night of the conference, a company that has gotten very rich off the stimulus grant threw a party at another beachside establishment, complete with fire spinners, food, scientists dancing, and dangerously tasty tropical beverages. Our classier hotel neighbors had more tranquil bars with quieter music and blank eyed dancers at sunset. We discovered a japanese restaurant that served a dessert called "honey toast", which is exactly as good as it sounds. All in all, with the heat, weird sleep schedule, the mix between listening to talks and sitting on the beach, the advantage of being three time zones west of usual, the whole trip was as relaxing as having a temporary voluntary partial lobotomy.

After only a couple of days back in Seattle, there was another meeting in Washington DC, which was an antidote to the blissful carefree numbing of the mid-Pacific. Not bad, just highly over scheduled. Meetings, giving talks, listening to talks, meetings, new tasklists. And coordinating a pub crawl, guiding people around the always-pretty national monuments at night, and long flights.

Because of this, I mainly hibernated on the Halloweekend, venturing out for the usual brunch and ice cream ritual and going to see the new Andrew Bujalski movie at the film forum on Sunday night. I think that I "liked" Beeswax even though it was twelve minutes too long, had almost no plot, and I didn't really sympathize with any of the characters. It's no Mutual Appreciation, for sure.

Yesterday I went to see the Dirty Projectors with everyone else in Seattle and even some friends from New York. Remember how when Neumo's opened they were going to fix their awful ventilation situation? Haha. Anyway, the show was super.

And tomorrow, we're heading off to Orcas Island to cozy into two little cabins during a frightening weather event. But boats, islands, beaches, pals, board games, and all of that!

Hi. You may, or may not be a homosexual reading my lj (revival or not).

I am not especially happy with our president for his silence on serious gay rights issues on the ballot this past election, but this blog post I think cuts to the chase. We queers don't have an advocate in the whitehouse, and we were never really told that we did. Obama was never for the actual fight we're in, so we should give up on him, and fight for ourselves. Who knows, maybe the Republicans, when they get cut off by their tea bagger base, will need a new minority to patronize. If the Democrats can't do anything for the progressive agenda with the majorities they have now, then I'm not really interested in continuing to support them. I'm not just talked about GBLT rights, OK? All of it. They have a disgusting, intransigent foe in the GOP, but they really should be able to get shit done with their majorities. What do we need? 90 senators and 390 reps to get something done? Sorry, that's not going to happen. I'd rather let the teabaggers have their way and wind up living in Water World. I have faith that I would become a mer-person like Kevin Costner. Perhaps that would be the beautiful gay revenge on straight bigots, that we are the ones who grow gills and can live in a watery world. Sorry, friendly straights, but you would just have to suffer

Anyway, Al Gore was on The Daily Show tonight, and it reminded me that I actually do like him better than Obama, and am still sad he a) lost in 2000, and b) did not run in 2008. He also looked great. He;s lost a lot of weight, seemed easy and confortable, etc. etc. I just wish Stewart had grilled him about what a fuck his former runningmate, Lieberman, is.

"I did NAAHHT. OhhiMark."

My Fave:

I've hit a wall. I haven't painted in over a week. I know why. I lost my confidence. I had a few things go down this week that made me feel like a fool. I'm getting over it and I'm going back to work tomorrow. It's been rough but I'm not going to let this continue. I am going to graduate in the spring and it's gonna be awesome!

I had a lot of fun being Rachel Zoe for the weekend. The people who got my costume LOVED it and people were stopping me on the street to take photos and talk to me. The whole experience reminded me of how much I love making people laugh and love acting. I wish I could figure out some way of doing it on a regular basis, you know, besides cracking up my sister on the phone every day. I would never do stand-up or anything like that but I'd love to act in a play or comedy or movie or something. Once I'm finally done with school I would have time to devote to a play. I dunno... ideas anyone?

I have a lot of work to do in the coming months. I need the strength and the spirit to continue and grow and learn and do what needs to be done to get myself out of student mode and into real life awesome artist gallery owner art dealer extraordinaire mode! And I need to do it all alone, because it's all up to me. In this job market it's scary and crazy and truthfully I'm terrified. But I know I can do it.

I'm really excited that my Moo is coming back for a few weeks. I'm so happy to have her back, even if it's just temporary.

Cross-posted on Zero to baby:

------

My father passed away from complications from lung cancer 16 years and 2 days ago. Here he is...



One year, five months, and one day from now will be the point in my life where I have been without him as long as I was with him. In my literary mind, it makes sense to me that I’ll be at the very beginning of my own fatherhood at that point.

He was a great father. I miss him.

------

And, over here...

Every year, on the anniversary of my father's death, I usually go back and read all the things I've written about him in the past, and soak up the feeling of missing, of sadness, of the temporary nature of life, etc. At one point I wrote a long essay on my father, but I don't know where that essay is anymore. Probably on one of those floppy disks in storage... hmm... seems strangely appropriate to the topic. There are also several posts from the last few years (and an Amazon occasion reminder).

It's always weird going back and reading old writing. Now that I've got posts going 10 years back (here's the oldest one I have, from October 3rd, 1999) (the ones from 1998 got deleted when I got kicked off diaryland). Of course, all the links are broken, and the site that the posts were originally on is also broken. I've just been archiving each site since 1999, and am curious how long it'll be before it all gets neglected or lost or deleted accidentally.

All is vain, my pinwheel's name. Nothing is new under the sun. From dust to dust, etc.

And on the flipside, enjoy the sun, sweep the dust, appreciate the moments.

writing from an internet cafe right now in barcelona.... warning to the men and squirmish women out there that there is some personal women business included.

so, i had a bit of weirdness because as of yesterday my period was officially more than 8 weeks late. which of course = missing two periods in a row. i´ve been keeping track since i went off hormonal birth control just out of interest and because i thought it might be helpful to have a sense of my natural cycle when we return and are ready to start trying for baby time. so, i have always been within a week of a 28 day cycle - it took about 6 weeks for my period to come when i first went off bc and i had one 3 week cycle and one 5 week cycle and otherwise have been within a day or two of 4 weeks. so this 8 weeks and 1 day thing suddenly seemed like something i should think about. so we decided that i should take a pregnancy test and talked about what would happen if i was pregnant. by the end of the talk we decided we would literally be equally happy either way. if yes - baby! but no more trip. if no -trip!!! duh. and baby later. and it turned into hilarity when i made our friends who live (some were visiting but used to live) in barcelona help me buy the test at the pharmacy last night when we were already hours into drinking (nothing like a posse of people i had met only hours earlier buying a pregnancy test with me) and all night as i drank they discussed my poor unborn baby and if a drunken seal breaking pee at 12:01 counts as a first morning urine.

anyhow, it was weird because even though i really knew i wasn´t pregnant- like i hadn´t even been thinking about it as a possibility or worrying about it (alcohol consumption ahem) - suddenly when i had the thought i might be and said it out loud to ian, it was all i could really think about. and i had to wait for my first morning urine to test.

so, we were down to the details - like how we would call todd (our friend and ian´s last supervisor who has been trying to get me to get pregnant for a year so ian wouldn´t leave/would come back) about how fast ian could get his job back and swear him to serious secrecy and about telling my family when we were in the states next week and getting our money back via our insurance for the rest of the trip and how ian might have to go to our friends´ wedding in australia in april without me and how sad it would be to not get our two months in tel aviv with emily and how we were glad that it would be now and not before we got to at least do the camel trek and europe.... etc etc.

anyhow, clearly i am not pregnant or that would have been a different blog post (actually it wouldn´t have been a blog post, it would be a crazy secret). but it was weird because even though we agreed we were happy to be and happy to not be (for different reasons, each) when i couldn´t sleep last night the last thing i remember thinking was something along the lines "please be yes please be yes".

so, ok. what does that mean? nothing really. i am super excited to finish the rest of our trip. but it also shows that in a moment of truth we were both willing to be happy to give up the rest of the trip to go home and have a baby. and that deep down in a moment of real truth, i was choosing that if given the choice. just sort of an intense moment for me.

anyhow, it´s nothing to worry about. i´m not depressed or feeling sad or worried about the rest of the travel. i am still a little worried about NOT being able to get pregnant when i want to. i am a little concerned about what the 2 missed periods does mean and am hoping it´s just a quirk of travel and not something that´ll mean a hard time when we´re actually trying to get pregnant. and i´m a little sad like a little bit i lost a potential baby.

and i am also acknowledging that we´re in weird point of the travel. we´re nearing the end of europe and about to be ¨"home" for a couple of weeks. i´m REALLY excited for the wedding and to see my family. and maybe that´s because when life is vacation (or at least travel) the
not travel part is exciting like vacation usually is when life is work and normalness. and also it´s easy to be excited when it´s just a stop on the way to more travel. but i think i´m a little road weary at the moment. which is and was bound to happen. i look forward to the rest of the trip which´ll be a little less frequently moving around. i also think morocco was a really intense part of the trip, so ajusting back to europe is weird.... especially this particular europe. granada was easy and great and a perfect transition. quiet and quirky and beautiful and peaceful and fun and unique. but barcelona is so sort of american. i mean it´s not. but it´s full of like fancy shops and tourist trap restaurants and young backpackers everywhere getting drunk and lookin´ for love. it´s charming and i really like it, but i would have liked it more before the week in the desert with just ian and two berbers and sleeping under the stars.

so maybe i´m going through now what i was sort of prepared to maybe go through when i was back in florida for three weeks. a sort of ajustment period to "real life" after intense travel. but the truth is florida is going to be a really happy time for my family and like i said above a nice break from travel, but also just a stop on the way. it´s not going to be like when i return to san francisco in july - a real true lifestyle ajustment. so maybe this time in this genre of europe is more of that ajustment after the intenseness of our morocco experience.

and i do have a long post i will post eventually about the moroccan experience but i am waiting until i am reunited with my computer so i can post the pictures along with the post.

so, that´s that. an update on the life and times of moi...

we´re about to siesta and then hit the picasso museum if it´s not too crowded. the city is really busy this weekend so we may just lay low and do the touristy things we want to do during the week and hide out in a out of the way cafe and read today. we shall see.

hope you are all smiling.

i'm a zombie fly girl. this year is all about the 90's costumes for me!

 yes, lj, i have been neglecting you. it's just, you don't fit into the matrix of my google reader/facebook routine! i wish you did, but you've become a bit cumbersome and archaic. i do love you, i do intend to keep you around, i just think we need to overhaul our relationship a bit.

anyway, h'ween is upon us! andy and i have plans. tomorrow (friday) we will be hitting up the mcleod reunion/zombie party at about 9 as zombies. i'm basically using this to test out my zombie skills before my zombie birthday party. i've never done the zombie thing before, i'll most likely suck at it. we've got some fun fake wounds and a ton of blood and liquid latex so i should be able to come up with something. i hope.

saturday for the main event andy is planning this:


while i will be toiling away in the adolescent hell of this:


no one said you had to be poised or attractive on halloween. thank goodness i'l have kellianne as my rayanne graff for at least part of the night. i just wish i had a jordan and a rickie and maybe a slutty sharon.

I have been meaning to write about this for a while, since one day this spring when the memories of this time of my life came crushing back to me. I've almost never talked about it in my adult life - not for any drama, not for any deep, dark secrets, but... perhaps out of habit. Out of muscle memory for the painful, pointless, adolescent embarrassment that the period coincided with. I can't say. I do think it's time to exorcise it, though, and to make it mine. So onward.

Despite growing up in Alaska, or perhaps because of it, my mother made every effort to raise her children with a musical education. Piano lessons began at around age eight, if I recall correctly. I think it was age eight, because trumpet began when they let you start playing in the band in elementary school, which was fourth grade, or age nine. And piano came first.

I loved piano, but there were a dearth of piano teachers in Fairbanks, and mine, though she was wonderful, was classically focused. Some of this was necessary, as a student learns the basics. I banged and pounded my way through Hanon's warm-up exercises and various etudes and simple piano pieces. I say "banged and pounded," since nuance and dynamics were not things that were of interest to me. This extended to school band, where I chose the trumpet, originally, simply by putting my lips to it and unleashing a godawful squaawk! and thinking "Yeah. This is the instrument for me."

The classical foundation was, of course, necessary, but I was much more interested in learning to play the synth parts of the various pop songs and the ricky, meaty ten finger chords from the piano ballads I heard on the radio. My piano teacher, Mrs. Wallace, resisted these urges. (Later, much later, my teacher would take a two-fold approach to a compromise - letting me play some cheesy piano ballad whose score I had picked up at the local music store, in exchange for consenting to play more classical fare. She's worked around my hopeless lack of dynamics by selecting musicians who fared well under my pounding fists - most notably the Russians such as Rachmaninoff, and some of the more contemporary classical composers such as Alberto Ginestera - a pounder's paradise if ever there were one on the keys.)

But, alas again, that was later. Much later. Nearly ten years later. In the intervening years, my urge to play other forms of music was almost completely unfulfilled, save for the occasional aforementioned pop music scores I'd find at Music Mart. These, however, only went so far when you had a full rehearsal docket of Brahms and Handel, as well as a practice card for band requiring five 30 minute practice sessions a week, to be signed off on by a parent, as well as classwork, and never mind playing doctor with the neighborhood girls. Not having someone to teach me and coach me through Lionel Ritchie's "Say You, Say Me" or Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is" made it even more impossible.

Years of frustration went by. Actually, I could do the math. From age 8 to age 13. Five years. No pop music issuing forth from my desperately modernist fingers. And then, somehow, my mother alighted on the solution.

The origins are murky, though of course, now, I realize that my mother probably always had this planned. She had, after all, set me on this musical path - she played the piano and sang in the choir and taught me all about everything from Ralph Von Williams to Bob Dylan before I made it to Kindergarten. By the time I was thirteen, though, I probably thought it was my idea to go to the University of Alaska Summer FIne Arts Camp, having gone through some fairly painful Alaskan-style summer camps, the stories of which are for another day. Wherever the idea came from, however, I can say with confidence that upon my first year of summer fine arts camp, my life was changed for good.

The memories of it are totally murky, and since they came rushing back to me this spring, I have been trying to piece them together. I went to the camp for four summers. I think. Maybe five. These were the summers of my adolescence, and there was so much change through the years that it's almost impossible to recall anything in a coherent series of events.

First, there were the musicians. Musicians from all over the state. This was something of a shock. There was band, of course, at your school, so you knew the other trumpet players you sat with and competed with for first chair, and the cute flautists and clarinetists that you had crushes on, born in exotic locations outside the state or raised by mysterious, disciplinarian parents who insisted their Korean, Sikh or Hatian offspring be the best. And there were adjudications, for piano, throughout the years previous - once or twice-annually affairs where all the piano students in the city of Fairbanks gathered at the public library to play on one of the three good pianos in the town - a Bosendorfer - while some out-of-state adjuticator passed judgement on your playing (curiously, this is where I finally learned about my lack of dynamic sense, and became acutely embarrassed by it, despite years of my teachers pleadings to learn pianissimo. Somehow the outside critique stung more). But aside from these, musicians in alaska were in a bubble. You got the sense there weren't many of them around.

So to arrive at Fine Arts Camp and discover trombonists and timpani players and harpists and jazz bassoonists - it really was eye opening. Reassuring. Overwhelming. Welcoming. Scary. Amazing.

I remember walking into one of my group piano classes (group piano class?? who knew there was such a thing!), and some precocious, snooty 14 year old I had never seen before (she was home schooled) was playing, perfectly, the theme song to a recent film, composed by an 80's one hit wonder I had liked (okay, okay, it was Lihmal's theme to "Never Ending Story"). Who was this person? Where did she come from? How did she manage to learn this song? Where did she even get the score from? She was one of many. Cool veterans of fine arts camp studiously scoring their own arrangements of new wave hits in advance arranging classes. Glockenspiel players! Glockenspiel!

Then there were the classes and the teachers. I remember learning what the 12 bar blues were and feeling forever changed. I didn't even like jazz, but just understanding such a basic, primal structure to so much music was incredibly powerful. Learning improvisation techniques - something so important to my thinking about music now, but heretofore completely unheard of. Improvise? You're kidding, right? You follow the score, you follow it exactly, and the if the piece is supposed to last 3:15 in the Glenn Gould version, then by god, you better be close to 3:15. But here, suddenly, were dozens of different teachers, styles and techniques. I took a classical malleted instruments class. Jazz improvisation - every year. Rock Piano (on Fender Rhodeses - my first introduction to such a heavenly instrument). I learned to play the harmonica. I expanded my trumpeting into jazz trumpet. I took my first guitar lesson - and hated it (guitar wouldn't hold appeal to me until I discovered the bliss of delay and fuzz). It was an unending smorgasborg of eye-opening musical magic. Marimbas. Vibraphones. Farfisas.

And then! And then! Let us not forget the name - this was Summer Fine Arts Camp, not Summer Music Camp. The music curriculum was just part of the fun. There were photography classes - I first learned to use a darkroom in my time here. For as much as my mother was a music buff, my father was a photography buff, and bought me my first Pentax K1000 when I was 11. It was here, though, that I truly began to understand the device's mechanics and the full process (I had always sent my film away previously). And print making classes - something I could never quite get the hang of, much to my consternation later in life. And Macintoshes! I first discovered the joy of Photoshop at Summer Fine Arts Camp. Painting. Figure drawing. Pastels (I loved pastels - I was such a pussy). There was so much.

And the other attendees... well, what can I say? Essentially every artist from 13 to 18 in the State of Alaska, all in one place. Along with innumerable student performances throughout the months, they had three student dances as well - social gatherings. The few times I've thought of Summer Fine Arts Camp through the years, this is the part that I almost always thought of. I made my first friends here that were anything like me. They changed my life. They gave me my life.

It was here, in the summer of 1985, that I first heard Peter Hook's haunting falsetto refrain that permeates New Order's "Temptation." I can still remember the first time I heard it, and I can still feel the reaction I had to it. I had heard nothing like it in my life. It's still a remarkable work, but then, in Alaska, it was unbelievable. Thinking back on it, it boggles my mind that this even happened - "Temptation" came out in 1982 or so, and somehow, in three years, it had found its way halfway across the world to Fairbanks, Alaska, to become a dance hit, unaided by the internet, New Music Express, radio airplay, MTV or even a halfway decent record store. I usually think of my friends at Fine Arts Camp as being older than me, and therefore "in the know," but it is really amazing how they found out about all this music so quickly. It was here I also learned about Joy Division, Depeche Mode, Tones on Tail (though not Bauhaus or Love and Rockets, which I had learned about in church, weirdly), and so much more. Billy Idol. The B52s. Roxy Music. Through my four or five years attending camp, the dances became, literally, the highlights of my year.

And it was here that a girl first ever told me she liked me. I still shudder at how terrifying and confusing it all was. I had had a crush on her for ages, but was a typical adolescent male, unable to think straight or see past my own nose. It was only when she explicitly, undeniably told me that she liked me that it started to click. It was not my first kiss, but it was the first I can ever remember. I doubt the girl, who went on to become a famous cheerleader in our district, even remembers it. I doubt she remembers me, but she changed my life.

So many memories blow by. I grew up at this camp, but time has blended the years together. Playing video games at the student union. Sitting in the seats of the giant concert hall (oh, man, what was it called? I will have to look it up. Oh, got it. The Charles W Davis Concert Hall), watching my flute playing crush practice in the symphony. Glowing with pride and embarrassment when she'd wave from the stage. Seeing my friend Dylan arrange and score New Order's "Elegia" and watching him conduct a string quartet as they played it. The choral practice room (oh man! I forgot! I sang in choirs there too! Church choirs. Jazz choirs. Doo wop. Everything I could get my hands on). Learning that the choral room was named after my father's godmother. The dances in the Great Hall. Learning the drum parts to Soft Cell's "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go" that we just HAD to hear, in its entirety, at every dance. The dark rooms. The printmaking studio. Sitting out by the fountain, everyone trying to look cool, desperately wanting to meet everyone but too cool to admit it, or just too scared.

Years later, in college, I went home for the summer. I met a girl. I fell in love instantly. She went to another school, in another district. When I worked up the gumption to finally talk to her, she said, "I remember you. I was three years younger in Fine Arts Camp and I had the hugest crush on you." I met her at the campgrounds above the university. We walked down to the camp, which was in session. People remembered me, people remembered her. Their approval of me sealed my fate as an acceptable prospect for her to date for the summer. If the camp people thought you were okay, you were okay.

What amazes me now, thinking back, is how much of my life was influenced by this camp, and yet how little I think of it, and how I never pieced it together through the years. It just sits there, in the back of my mind, like your mother's care or the town you grew up in - something so intrinsic to your being that it's hard to even call it an influence. And it amazes me to think about all of this going on in Fairbanks, Alaska. When people ask me what it was like growing up there, I inevitably talk about the cold, the pain, the loneliness, the dark, the misery. But what were all these artists doing there? Hundreds of art students in a city of less than 30,000. How is it anyone in Alaska knew about the Smiths in 1986? Or the Cure, before Kiss Me? Who brought these things there? I don't think I'll ever know, but I do know that it was Summer FIne Arts Camp that brought them to me.

i have no plans for halloween. sounds like there are parties all over but i think im content to just carve pumpkins and hand out candy to the kids around the neighborhood. when did i turn into my mom and dad?

it could also be that i dont hang out with any cool kids so i dont know of any parties. i guess thats what happens when you move into a house in the central district and get all domesticated.

anyone dressing up? spencer left a gorilla costume in my basement so might wear that and scare the trick or treaters.

so i think i'm gonna go to paris when i graduate. anyone had experience flying/tromping around paris on the cheap? i'm taking pointers!

oh yah, trixifirecat has inspired me to go check out some yoga dvds for home use. i dont want to go out to a class and im getting bored with the gym. i figure with my new studio space i can actually do some yoga at home. ive started running again as of last night. so the plan is cutting out a great deal of alcohol and adding in a great deal of running and some home yoga. i want to see how my body responds to that.

i have a boyfriend who snores. i have a boston terrier who also snores. i also have a big black lab that likes to bark a ferocious and terrifying bark for no reason in the middle of the night. its these three things that kept me up until 4 am last night. so after finally falling asleep i decided to just stay asleep through most of the morning.

still cant find a good client for updating on my mac. i tried xjournal and it wont even open. the program quits every single time.

in more other news, im actually getting bored with my wednesday night class. rebranding a credit union isnt that much fun. i think im just getting lazy more than anything else. i just am not that into the whole rebranding a company aspect of design. i think ive written that exact sentence in here before.

sorry lj revival, this is a sad excuse for a post.