last night i dreamt

that all of the freeways in LA had been replaced with giant plastic tube slides, and to get anywhere you just climbed to the top of your house, set the chute configuration for your destination, and hopped in, on your back, feet first, arms clamped to your sides. you'd go flying through plastic tunnels, where the seams of the slide caught at your clothes and the sunlight was filtered through the red and white plastic tubes. at the end you were shot out onto a mountain of red pillows, which you'd climb out of to find yourself at the destination of your choice.

sometimes

i get so worried about graduating, and finding the right job and doing the right thing and how my life will change, that i just want to stay in school forever.

but sometimes, like tonight, i meet people and talk to people and start to realize all the possibilities that are out there, that i just can't wait to get started.

i need to hold onto this feeling, for as long as possible. i think this means stepping out of my usual routine and pattern, and putting myself out there more. its not an option, really, at this point. it's the only way.

haunting

the light at the end of the tunnel is a train - whitey

monday

marcel and i decided to each document a day last week. i did monday.
the photos of me were taken by people i interacted with who i wasn't comfortable asking to photograph...i consider their portrait of me to be, in some ways, a portrait of them.

never quite at home here

i think this opinions piece captures something about the city that i've never quite been able to verbalize. its almost visual in its precision.

What I find myself looking for here in L.A. is a sense of dislocation. And what I’ve come to realize is how closely dislocation and a sense of the ordinary are linked. I’ve discovered that I’m looking for a different topography than mountain and ocean, cactus and palm, landmark and icon. I find myself watching instead for the pattern of ordinary life, which is all the more moving to me here because I do not understand its rhythms.

from the nytimes.

everything's gonna be alright

three little birds - 13ghosts

three little birds - bob marley

oh my god below the stars

silent movies - peter and the wolf

bonsai tree - peter and the wolf

monday

my worst nightmare

this girl has been hiccuping 50 times a minute for over three weeks.

for those of you in the design/build fields (or anyone who's interested and can take 3 hours off in the middle of the day) architecture 2030 is hosting a global teach-in on tuesday, february 20th.

considering the role the built environment plays in climate change (buildings consume 68% of all electricity in the U.S., and emit 36% of all carbon dioxide), the program aims for complete ecological literacy in the design/build fields by 2010.

i'm not sure what the teach-in itself will consist of (i'm hoping for more informational than inspirational), but people are gathering all over the world to attend. at UCLA we'll be in ackerman ballroom.

if you're interested, check out the website.

the best laid plans

i'm in hour 5 of a special 6 hour econ class.

i love economics, and i love this professor, but i'm about to lose it.

i'm so tired.

once you see it

it's everywhere...

happy valentines day

the woman who lives two doors down from me

the woman who lives two doors down from me is either crazy, or an actress.

at least once a day i hear screeching monologues or fights coming from the open door of her apartment. at first i assumed a tumultuous love affair, but on the occasions that i've stopped to listen to what she's actually saying, i hear tirades about "the curse of abstinence" or the "the dust of the thousands dead beneath our feet."

as best i can figure, she's either an actress rehearsing for a part, or totally off her rocker.

i hope for the former, but suspect the latter.

bureau two ways pt 2

after reexamination, i realized that the scanned two photos in yesterday's post do not capture the delicate details of the original photographs.

at all.

they come across kind of pale and washed out and boring. absent a much better scanner, we fiddled with photoshop and did our best to restore their original colors. it's better, but now i think they look "photoshopped" i.e. have colors/shading that do not occur without digital aid.

what do you all think? would you have suspected photoshop if i hadn't mentioned it? or am i just being crazy?

bureau two ways

running circles around my head

+81 - deerhoof

collarbone - fujiya and miyagi

chilling

the homicide report: an latimes blog accounting for every homicide in LA, every day.

that patterns are painfully clear.

i am not a football person

but some of them (including my roommate) took over the house on sunday.

they don't fuck around, these football fans.

my piddling low-def TV just wasn't cutting it, so they projected the superbowl 8 feet high on the living room wall.


the main interest of the day (at least for me) was the culinary battle that erupted between chicago and indiana.

representing chicago:
7 deep dish pizzas, flown in from ginos and giardanos in chicago
3 flavors of cheesecake, also flown in from chi-town
14 cumulative layers of dip
1 ridiculously large gift basket of frango's chocolate
untold sausages

and from indiana:
rotelle (salsa and velveeta mixed together, for the uninitiated)
corn chips
popcorn
bud light
8 boxes of dove bars, which no one touched and are still occupying my freezer

although the colts took the super bowl, i'd have to say that chicago won the culinary wars.

anyone want a dove bar?

tulip mania!

i bought some tulips today.

seeing as punxsutawney phil didn't see his shadow, i figured i'd better prepare for spring.

on an unrelated (but totally nerdy) note - the title of today's post is actually an economic term.