Something New

This is what happens when you let some people use your camera and you don't really want your picture to be taken... and the boringness and lack of blogging present on this blog is what happens when said people make you very happy and distract you from doing your normal time-wasting activities. 


I'm graduating in June. I'm going to China in June. I'm working at the pool. I'm planning the adventure that I want to be my life. I'm coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas. I'm spending more time with friends and making new ones too. I'm starting to exercise again on Tuesday. I'm spending the free time I have previously spent in the student union trying not to fall asleep scanning and editing film. I want to be more productive. I want to feel like this last term was worthwhile. I want to have time to do all the photography projects floating around my head. I want to be able to articulate what I am feeling and thinking. I want an outlet for all my frustrations with life. 


I think I'll start writing here again, writing about the mundane life I lead in this damp, damp city. And hopefully that will encourage me to take more photos, not just photos for photos sake but actual photos that I can be proud of. 


In other news, my toothbrush recently found a mate. It has me blushing to myself.

Night

When I get tired I tend to like repetition. I repeat words over and over when I'm speaking or writing something and the same thoughts or bit of song will repeat in my head over and over. I try to avoid going to bed sometimes because of this, I don't want to give my mind time to settle down and find whatever is going to start repeating itself in my head. Especially when they turn out to be thoughts, because the thoughts that come around at this time of night, are the ones I spend the whole day trying not to think.

I started my photography class on Monday, I get to use the darkroom and actually develop and print my own work. I like it, I like seeing things all the way through a process, I like turning science into art. It's like magic. 

That is a pretty old photo up there.

Delicate

Quite a while ago a friend of mine described my blog as containing "delicate little descriptions." I honestly haven't been able to get these words out of my head since I first read them. Mostly it's that one word: delicate. I feel like the entire world is delicate, like my entire life is delicate; one wrong turn and everything can fall apart, everything can disappear. I like to think that light is delicate and when I take pictures I am trying to capture the delicate little bits and pieces that the light is creating. I'm trying to show people how delicate my life is, how the light streams through all the cracks and pinholes, how it's like a whole other universe waiting to be discovered. That's what light really is to me, it's what reveals the truth. Anything can happen when it's dark, but when the light comes back, when the sun rises, that's when everything really happens, and those in-between moments are just magical, anything can happen between the lightness and the darkness.

Random thoughts and things I found floating around my computer:

I want to hug mountains.

"Details of the frog's sex life is to be published in the journal The American Naturalist." Thank you world for making me think this frog is a celebrity and The American Naturalist is simply the amphibian version of a tabloid. Don't you just love seeing how pop-culture has altered your mind sometimes?

10. Berries (especially strawberries)

(that one is from a list of 10 things I loved this summer... I don't understand how they ended up last)

That is all.

Nothing

I have a class at eight tomorrow, yet I'm not asleep. I've been so uninspired lately. One day I'll get my film developed (it's turning into quite the pile) just so I have new pictures to share with you. So since I don't have anything new, I'll just give you another ridiculously old photo to ponder. In other news, I really dislike when people ask me if I speak German well. Of course I don't. I can barely speak English properly.

Although I've been busy with school, I have had the most amazing dreams lately. The kind that make me want to stay in bed and go back to sleep so they can continue and I don't have to deal with life anymore. I'm not feeling all that great right now, so I might just spend the weekend in bed, trying to keep from getting sick.

source

Some Thoughts

I’ll keep my eyes open so long as you don’t mind. I’ll keep them open and searching. Looking for something new, something I haven’t seen before. But I think, for the most part, I’ve seen this before… I’ve seen this all before. I’m waiting for the cat to jump out from behind a wall, for some surprise to enter into the fragile existence of life. It won’t though. It all just stays the same. Each day passing like the ticking of a clock. Until one day, it stops. We’ll wind it up again when that day comes. Wind our selves with the little silver keys. The ones we each received when we were young, when we learned the truth. That in childhood you make all your discoveries, after that it is simply repeated. Digging the same holes in the same earth, yearning for the same answers, the same destination. This is why everything is so familiar, why we’ve seen this all before. But still we do it, winding ourselves up, starting it all over again. So if I never found the bones, will I never find them in this life? No, I think not. I hope that I might, that things may change, that this unending repetition may end. I’m hoping for the surprise, but we all know that hope is not enough. Nothing is enough to end the rotation of events, the endless spiral that is our lives.

Unedited and raw. This is how I have felt and thought lately

I can't help myself

I am a nostalgic person, I dwell on the past far too much, and I often leave out the not-so-nice parts. It's part of why I'm studying archaeology, I get to look at other people's pasts. Maybe if I look at other people's pasts I won't look at mine quite so much. Maybe it will be like how I am with cleaning and organizing... always other people's things, never my own. I just want the next five terms of school to be over. Then I'll be done with school... hopefully. But I need to focus on right now, not the past and not the future, this is such a problem. I'm never present. Randomly I just remembered that when I was little, I dreamed of becoming the stereotypical absent-minded academic. I think I might be on my way there.

Heart

Sometimes it feels like my heart skips a beat.

It's quite unnerving.

It makes me wonder what others are feeling.

There has to be more to life.

Cameraman

Do you ever wonder what people would see if your life was a film? Would it be happy or sad? Would people laugh or cry? I think I wonder this entirely too often. I do such strange things sometimes that my brother frequently says that he wishes they were on film so he could watch them over and over and laugh. I don't know if that is good or bad.

Sources: 1. 2. 3.

Last Days

Well, the time has come, there are only two more days left until I head back up north (that is an over-statement, Portland is north of Bend, but not by much on world distance standards). I've had random people ask me to do things before I leave and when I get up there, but my plans are pretty well set (at least for me they seem to be, I don't really plan). I move on Saturday, spend Sunday with my family, get settled in on Monday, possibly spend Tuesday at the zoo, then on Wednesday... GO TO SEE MODEST MOUSE!

I think I may get overly-excited about these things.

Anyway, I have lots to get done tomorrow (when I say that I mean Thursday) and Friday, but I can't seem to get to sleep tonight, even though I am actually pretty tired. It seems that sleep has been eluding me more and more this summer, I don't know how I am going to survive with that 8am class this fall... lots and lots of coffee and chai, that's for sure.

Here are a few things I have been meaning to share with everyone for the past week or so:

These are the deer that live near Shawn's house. I think it's a little bit funny how excited he and his parents get about them, but that's because when I was younger herds of 10-20 deer roamed my neighborhood and attacked my mother's flower gardens, so I think of them as flower-destroyers, not the cute little things they really are, especially the fawns.

This is the first of my breakfasts a couple of days ago. It was a failure though, we were out of milk, so no cereal for me (wait until you hear about the rest of it).

This was attempt number two at breakfast, looks like some yummy sourdough toast, right? Nope, that is GARLIC sourdough bread, no thanks, not with my orange juice.

This is what I finally ended up trying to actually eat for breakfast that day. However, I forgot: I don't really like peanut butter very much.

This is the peanut butter I eat, I love it, as much as I can love peanut butter (I can't). In fact, I think I am going to switch to almond butter, it's so much more delicious.

So those are some silly, random things that have been going on, this just makes me look like a really boring person.

I apologize to anyone that I just put to sleep, hopefully you don't drool too much and ruin your computers.

Macarons

This is my version of what I was talking about yesterday... they are amazingly delicious, and some don't look all that bad... perhaps, with some training, I could become a French pastry chef after all.... Not that I have any desire to do that right now, but it is good to know I have that option.

I don't think anything else I say is going to have anything to do with macarons, do I ever really stay on subject on here? This is sad, I'm asking myself questions and answering them. I think I need to sleep... there are lots of signs right now that I need to, like that my eyes can't completely focus on my computer screen or that anything I try to read does not remain in my mind.

There are a few things that I wanted to talk about, but I don't remember them right now... Can you tell I'm tired? I'm afraid this is going to be a very stupid sounding post... oh well. Earlier tonight, probably because it was 80 out still when I was riding my bike home from work at 10:30, I had a strange desire to go swimming (or really, skinny dipping, oh so scandalous, I know). Unfortunately this isn't really an option right now. I also really want to go camping, darn it! I am also really glad that I am currently spending my time in what is technically a desert (so there is no humidity to make the heat even worse) and also missing the horrible heat wave hitting Portland right now.

I think the final thing I have to say is: Who calls someone Moose? That is so random. I am so horribly random when I'm tired. I'm going to sleep.

Chitter Chatter...

Chitter Chatter, all these secrets started giving me the shivers, plain and simple broken down...

I have a line from a Death Cab for Cutie song stuck in my head. I think it is very true though, the more secrets I have the colder I get... really, life is just beginning to get to me a little bit. I think I need something pretty and new (or at least new to me) I will have to keep my eyes peeled the next few days.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Why I gave up wanting to be a poet

The inside of my mind is a mysterious place,

It is full of many things I would rather not see.

There are ghosts of past lives and the monsters that wait to be released

And there are dreams of golden meadows and bubbling creeks,

Beside the memories of happy times passed and of woes the remain

And seem, to my heart, stain.

There have been a lot of different thoughts floating around my head lately, I'm not sure where my life is going right now and that bothers me and excites me at the same time. I think that the problem is I don't know what it is I truly want and when I look around at those I am surrounded by here, well they all know, they all know what they want. And now you know why I gave up wanting to be a poet.

PS This photo is by Lorena Arance. I love her photos here and here and what she had to say here. I completely agree with her on everything in regards to photographic processes. And she just seems like a lovely person.