btw,

i started a tumblr because that seems to be the cool thing to do these days. i think i like it better because it doesn't make me feel like i should say more words.

i want a job that doesn't suck and i want it to not rain when i want to go for a bike ride and i want to move into my apartment and i want to learn an instrument and i want to be more confident and i want to have better skin and i want to lose weight and i want to be less messy and i want more friends and i want real friends and i want a boy and i want a city and i want to be alone in the darkroom at 3am and the chemical smells and i want to remember more dreams and i want to be more motivated and i want a record player and i want to know more music and i want to read more books and i want people i can talk to and i want to be less shy or i want to be shy in a more alluring way and i want to believe in myself and i want to have more ideas or i want to have better ideas and i want to be less typical and i want to be more typical and i want to not sound like i'm trying to be poetic and i want new glasses and i want to go antiques shopping and i want more clothes and i want less clothes and i want this summer to be over and i want to be less whiny all the time.

i write a lot of blog posts like this but don't publish them and then every once in a while i go through them and laugh at myself. i really whine about the same things over and over again and act like they're a huge deal every time.

i don't really have anyone to talk to anymore so i feel the need to update my blog with whatever i'm thinking of to get some thoughts out of my head.

sometimes i go on youtube and watch sunset rubdown videos and end up watching several different versions of "the taming of the hands that came back to life" that were all from different shows but the same song and spencer is usually wearing the same plaid shirt. he does this part at the end that isn't in the song normally and it's really great. sometimes there is way too much camilla. i have seriously watched so many videos of this song.

i decided i need to try to be more confidant and i realized i have this one friend who is so seemingly effortlessly confident and i have no idea when that happened and i got kind of jealous but then i thought being not confident is just kind of how i am and i don't know how to fix it.

um.

teeth and bathtubs.

i don't want to work tomorrow.

beeeees.

there's an art show/community event thing here next week that's all about bees. i'm trying to come up with something to put in it. i've been making little felted bees that will probably be made into some sort of neckpiece that looks like a swarm of bees and i dyed the yarn to make into some sort of beehive (hive for bees) and beehive (hairdo) hat wig thing. i don't know if it will work or not but it will be something.

i know a few people who are quite fond of bees.

things as they come to me.

i like buying things. polar bear parkas and fur coats and poofy dresses. i need to start checking out yard sales and antiques stores again.

i had a job interview today at a war museum. they said they'd call this evening but i don't think they will now.

i have been watching doctor who. i don't know if i like it or not but i can't stop watching. i'm almost caught up. the new series only, of course. david tennant is so adorable. the new guy is also but i think it's mostly the bow tie and tight pants.

i haven't been listening to sunset rubdown every moment of my life. this is a good sign.

i also haven't cross-stitched. but i have almost finished my second grey sock.

i am disappointed in lost.

i want to move into my apartment.

my friend had a party and her friends from school who i don't know came and i only felt normal-me-awkward rather than me-at-a-party awkward. that was nice.

i went through a bunch of my grandmother's photo albums, some from when i was a kid and some from when my mom and her siblings were around my age. i want to scan and preserve the old ones because there are a bunch of polaroids that are seriously fading and they're really great. i love seeing my grandmother's house, which is now my aunt's, covered in wood paneling and rust-coloured shag carpet.

i hope i age well like my parents. and grandmother.

i always think i want to live somewhere not so close to here, just me and, if i have one, my significant other. but then i go through those photos and realize how much fun we had as a family when we were kids. maybe i'll want that eventually. i don't know.

whenever i think the words "when i have kids" it's like "when i have kids i'll show them all these cool things i owned and pass them down to them" or "i'll dress them in vintage and miniature-adult-clothes so they'll be cool". these are really bad reasons to have kids. i don't think i should have kids if i'm going to hand down my useless junk that they won't care about or force them to wear bow ties or pantyhose and tuck in their shirts since that would probably get them teased mercilessly in school. no, i think i'm too selfish to ever have kids.

ew, babies. blaaaaah everyone is turning 20. i don't want to turn 20. i don't know how to be a responsible adult.

i've stopped remembering my dreams. i haven't remembered any for the past three nights, and only a snippet or two from the several nights before. i miss them. they were so good at first.

damn summer.

being hot and getting in the way of my ability to wear my awesome new coats.

i've had my lovely red parka for a few years but i've always wanted one that was not red because i don't really wear red. also since meeting my lovely friend claire i've envied her hood-tail. this one came to my rescue. POLAR BEARS.

FABULOUS

do you ever go shopping (by shopping i mean thrifting) and see something that is wonderful and ridiculous and fabulous and too totally out-there to actually wear but you just need to buy it anyway because you can't stand the thought of it sitting there unwanted or going to some high school kid who just wants something ridiculous to wear to a dance? something that is a stretch for someone who is of your body type and living in a small town to pull off but if you were a 5'10'' and 100 pound model walking around new york for fashion week you would rock the shit out of it?

i have found that thing. well, i have found those things before, but this is the mother of "that thing"s:


and here i try to be fabulous like the kids on the fashion blogs.


SO GOOD, right? i'm beginning to feel a teeny bit guilty about the amount of fur that i own (yes, it's real) but it's not like i'm buying it new, i guess.

hello there.

i am such a useless lump. i don't know what it is i do with myself that manages to take up entire days.

well, i've been doing some things.

i re-did a chair that was previously covered in a horribly falling-apart black and tan stripe. the tan looked like it was supposed to be white but was really dirty. not a good look. also it was a jersey fabric. which was waaaay too saggy to use for a chair covering. while picking the fabric i told myself not to use another knit but i did. wool sweaters have a bit more elasticity, though.

also i've been cross-stitching. does it look like i did much to it since last time. did i? no. but what i did took a long time anyway. cross stitch = most time consuming thing ever.

i've also taken apart two sweaters, one t-shirt, four scarves, and a pair of gloves.

for those of you who have ever wondered "i wonder what kelly's room at home looks like?" (i wonder this about people, i don't know if that is something other people do) here is the answer.

it's REALLY ORANGE. and the floors are this hideous pink colour that was there when we ripped up the carpet. my mom always promised to paint it but i could never bother to get all my stuff out so that could happen. speaking of floor, can you see floor? yes? that means my room is tidy. my room in my apartment will not look like this. this room is six or seven years of hoarding useless brightly-coloured junk and clothes and toys and pictures of things that i used to like and am now embarrassed of.

(dig my MS Paint photo collage assembly skills)

i ordered one of these the other day even though i don't have a record player. it was an OMG THESE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SOLD OUT impulse. when i bought it i was just thinking how it would be a good thing to own because it's limited edition and all and david horvitz is a cool guy and sunset rubdown is my favourite. but now i really want a record player. i'm not really the music nerd type so i never really considered it, but it was bound to happen sooner or later with my love for most things old-fashioned. and since i pretty much just listen to the same albums over and over again, building up a collection would not be so costly. i just need sunset rubdown. and maybe the soundtrack to cabaret. that would be cool. some flapper jazz. and maybe lady gaga. i wonder how many people buy lady gaga on vinyl.

dreams are fun.

i don't want to go to sleep.

i just want to cross stitch forever and ever!


we had a few days apart but i'm serious about this shit again.

(i don't think i've ever shown off how fabulously high-quality the webcam i bought far $3 is. now you know.)

i venture into a dreamland

i've started writing down my dreams when i wake up in the morning. i've only been doing it for four days, but i've already realized some things.

- i have teeth-falling-out dreams A LOT. i already knew that it was something that appeared a lot, but now that i'm making more of an effort to remember them i realize it happens even more than i had thought. sometimes it's the main, uh, plot point? but sometimes i'll just take a second to stop whatever else i'm doing and spit out a chunk of molar that just fell off. ew.

- things are usually "we did this" or "we were there" but i don't often know who the other people in the "we" are.

- i never have sex dreams. my dream-brain's equivalent seems to be kissing people in bathtubs. i just realized it has happened a couple of times.

spare time.

i've been trying to make things but they've been frustrating me so i decided to take things apart instead.

i have a huge bag of clothes and scarves and shit that i tell myself i'm going to make into better and more useful things but really i'm never going to. so i'm taking it all apart thread by thread.

it's being collected in bags and i might do something with it eventually but for now i'm just doing it because it feels good.

i'm closer to my 20th birthday than to my 19th. i have an apartment with a lease in my name and a chequebook and i can drive on the highway and i'm halfway through my degree, after which i'll likely be moving to a city. i don't know how to live in a city. i don't know how to even visit a city.

i'm not ready to be an adult. i'm still 15 years old in my head and years round down to 2000 rahter than there having been a full decade passed since then. i still stay in my room wasting time all day and plaster my walls with pictures of my favourite celebrity figures (though now they're nice hand-processed prints of my own photos rather than ratty magazine cutouts of captain jack sparrow) and whine to myself about not getting invited to hang out with the cool kids.

i was reading spencer krug's dreams and there was one where he sees his sister naked and is disturbed because for one he saw his sister naked but also because before he realized it was his sister he just saw it as some middle-aged woman. because that's what she was now. being 33 is not quite middle age of course and it's very different from being 19 but it's still kind of the same sort of realization i've been having. i'm not a child anymore and that's very strange. i realized that when i was the age my sister is now i had a boyfriend and went awkwardly to parties where people knew who i was and therefore weren't confused my my presence but they didn't actually know me. my sister is a lot like i am in terms of social awkwardness and such but i don't think she does these things. i think that's better, really, because having the boyfriend and going to the parties were not really things i actually wanted, just things i thought i did.

social circles seem to be pretty much defined by the music people listen to. i never feel like i listen to enough music to fit in.

i also always want to whine in blog posts about these sorts of things. i don't know if i do too much of it. i definitely think of myself as an introvert and i suppose everyone would, but when i spend too much time alone i get to thinking about too many things and getting in strange moods that are not necessarily good. but then when i attempt to be with people to fix it i usually end up awkward and flustered so maybe that's not good either and i guess i am totally an introvert. maybe i'm neither. i can't be alone or with people. that's kind of unfortunate.

i don't really know what i think i'm getting at here.

but i'm getting pretty serious about cross stitch.

i'm not going to tell you what it is unless you're claire, in that case you already know. it will hopefully eventually begin to look like something. it will hopefully be finished some day.

old cameras i love youuuuuu!

RANGEFINDER.

it doesn't work, though. the shutter is sticking. i'll have to see when i'm back in school if it'd be worth getting cleaned/fixed. for now i like to just look through and focus on things because it's a rangefinder and it's cooooo. i love it because it's a huge brick of a camera and the brown leather case and short little strap are SO GOOD. and it came with film in it, but sadly it had been opened so i won't be able to salvage the photos. i've always wanted to get mystery photos from an old camera.

AND


an olympus om-1 slr, which appears to be in perfect working condition! i'm not sure about the light meter; it came without a battery and i tried sticking the one from my other camera into it and it moved but it was like "who you're overexposing everything!" even though it was set at 1000 and f16. i should figure this out. because my yashica has an irritating light leak sometimes and though i think i figured it out i'd like to have a camera that's leak-free. and i like the way this one looks better, haha.

$5 each, bitches.

happy birthday!

happy birthday spencer krug luv u 4eva<3 <3 !!!!1!1!!1

i'm a few hours early. maximizing my hopeless fangirl status with abbreviations and exclamation marks.

photo II and some other things.

Unibrow

Thick Ankles

Pit Stains

Man Hands

Large Saggy Boobs

those are the rest of them minus one that stayed in sackville to hang on a wall somewhere. probably the second most embarrassing one apart from the boobs, actually. it showed my naked back and some side boob and fat rolls. hmmm.

other news:

i drew something today. just for the sake of drawing because i haven't really been doing that lately. it's pretty half-assed but i just needed to draw something to see if i still can. i can never tell if my self-portraits actually look like me or not.

the other day i went to st. andrew's to see the exhibit my mom has in a gallery there, and we went to this wool shop that had these amazing toys made of their handwoven wool fabric. they were made by ladies who have been making them for decades, which is why they're so wonderfully old-fashioned looking. i wanted them so badly but they were for display only. and they had these bags with little houses embroidered and felted on that were so wonderful.


and i finished a sock. i'm really loving scratchy old wools.

photo, second semester.

here are some photos from my final portfolio this semester.





half self-portrait, half others. it was a series of ten, the rest of them i got lazy and only made one print of so they're stranded in sackville for a while.

i started out wanting to do something and in the end i think it's a little different. it's sadder than i intended. i don't really know what to say about it but it's like when you're insecure about something so you try to cover it up but in the end your attempt to cover it up makes it even more obvious. so rather than wax your moustache and get those obvious little hairs growing back you might as well cover it up with a fancy stylish moustache.

i was impressed at how hard people had to think when i asked about their insecurities. i know i have a mental list of several things i could spew out on command. then i wondered if maybe they just don't want to say them out loud because they fear that maybe nobody noticed before but if they call attention to it, it'll be all people see. i feel a little weird about being like "hey, i have an above-average amount of facial hair!" because it's something i'm really self-conscious about but i also wonder if people really notice. i have no idea if it's a nobody-notices thing or an oh-dear-that's-unfortunate thing.

hi.

i'm home now. home meaning sussex although it is my home for less of the year and probably won't be again after this summer. that is a weird thing to think about. i never know anymore what to say when asked for my address.

i am still struggling to fix my sleep schedule. when i got back on friday i went to bed at 8 and slept through most of saturday, then i didn't really sleep saturday night i just pretended to and then last night i went to bed at 9 and woke up at 4 and pretended to sleep until 10. sleeping is hard. so is getting out of bed.

i'm going to try to not be lazy this summer. i'm going to try to make something every day. cut up a t-shirt or do a drawing or take a photograph. i'm going to try and do some drawing, actually. this past year i have neglected drawing as a medium in itself rather than just getting ideas out. i don't think i like any of the drawings i did in class this year. other than perhaps my final project which was a book of all my clothes. but i like it more as an object than as a book of drawings. it's actually the only drawing i brought home rather than leave it in the studio, probably to be thrown out.

i feel like i should include some pictures but i don't really have anything. i need to scan in my photo portfolio, but i don't have all of it here because i had to pass it in to be marked and i got lazy and only made one print of some of them.

i had a dream last night

where there was a concert in sussex that was really big and at first it was miley cyrus so we went for laughs and we were at the front and we were really enjoying it because now it was a lady gaga concert and then she sang just dance and nobody likes that song so they all went to sit down at tables because now we weren't in a large concert space we were in a bar and it was the timberland bar and instead of lady gaga it was my aunt cathy and then she got sad about something. and then we left to go home on trains and there was a lady gaga song on the radio that was a cover of a song that sunset rubdown had covered in this dream so i was like i know this song and it turned out to be a cover of a song from some 80s country rock band but the song when sung by lady gaga or spencer krug was really good and i saw a train go by that was huge and made of big fancy yellow houses for cars with windows through which you could see fancy people dining and i was like look at that train! and then i fell off whatever we were driving in and we went to get on the train but it wasn't that fancy anymore but it was little yellow and pink cabins that were really cute and i was excited to go on this train but it turns out that the cabins were relly poorly constructed from plywood and that was a little bit unfortunate.

i like it when i remember so many things from a dream because i usually can't remember enough to piece back into a coherent story. i love how dreams are always like we-were-doing-this-but-then-suddenly-we-were-doing-this-other-thing-but-it-wasn't-suddenly-it-was-just-how-things-were. and i always think of my dreams in terms of "we" but i have no idea who the other people with me were.

i'm making a shirt right now

and i think it's going to be really cool. a clever refashioning of a simple t-shirt, really. i've been thinking about perhaps in the summer making some things to sell at the farmer's market, if this shirt works the way it does in my head i think that it is a cool thing.

i haven't slept for about 30 hours and i don't feel that tired but my typing is pretty bad so i think i should sleep.

whenever i'm in conversations with groups of people i seem to always try to be more conversational and get a remark in every once in a while but then i like zone out for a second and miss part of what's happening and then i'll say something and it will be in the wrong context or something and i spend too much time thinking about how people think i meant this thing when i meant something else and i feel really bad or stupid or like i said something untrue even though they probably don't even notice or forget after a few seconds.

i think i have at least one thing i say per conversation i have that i regret. i dunno why, it's annoying.

ugly afghans.

i started this blog with "knitting blog" in mind. knitting and art blog. i don't really knit a whole lot now. last night i had an urge to crochet a really ugly afghan.


i'm pretending that my grandmother crocheted it for me as a "first apartment" present. because my grandmother is not so much into crafts. i love my grandmother, she is a pretty awesome lady, but it seems like everyone should have a grandmother who crochets them a mismatched afghan to commemorate an important life event.

i remember when i was little seeing in one of those home-decorating-colour-schemes catalogues a room that was all a dusty rose colour with accents of bright orange. i thought it was hideous but i was strangely attracted to it. this afghan will look like that room.

interesting fact: i did not know until today that washington DC is on the east coast rather than over in the west with, you know, washington. i totally thought they were in the same part of the country. sorry, americans, i'm dumb.

art history exam:

it's almost 7am, it's due at 12, and i have a page written of 6-8.

she said to take 5-6 hours for it. LIES.

it really does get worse every time. i just want to go to sleep now.

7:34 and i've got not even two pages. this is the part where i get a nice little chorus of "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" going through my head.

i use that word a lot more in my head than i do out loud. interesting fact, i guess.

8:19 it's time for more distraction and badly typo'd and puncgtuated rambling because imy brain doesn't work anymore for tihngs it should and i just want to go to sleep all the time and listen to the menfding of the fucking gown for my whole life because that song makes me real happy and it's about mending gowns ehichj is a really good thing i would like to be a gown mender for my job but i don't think tghere is mcyuh demand....i seem drunk but i'm really just frustrated obviously i would not be drunk at 8:21 am whilst sttempting to write this exam...i am glad that i do art for school because i forget how to do everything else but also i think i should do ther things make because art is impracticval and i don't know how to do other tnhigns anymore...iwent to breakfast to getr coffee looking all ugly and half wet haired thinkging nobody i know woulfd see me but thenm someone came and sat with me and i was all bye see you later but i probably eont'r and ewent awawy and he was like have a good summer and i was like awkwadrd thumbs up and went awawy and then i wrealkised that i am really tired hand that is not a prober goodbye for the summer, the cyle of procrastinateinf and complainting about it and it getting worse and compainting about that really never does end.... my hands are all jittery and my freakingoutaboutfinishingthingsintime part of my brain has turnied into a freakinginoutbecausreheresnowayicanfinishitdoimightaswellprocrastinarre nmore patr and i really want to keep tyoing horrible and saying thisngs that are unimportant adn don't makes sense forever because it vfeels much nicer than attempting to fins information anbout whilsletdsrs white girl that doesnt'; fucking exist because i don't care if you're telling me that the scritis talked about it a lot if you're not telling me what threyte said about it guh

this is funny.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

850 am i can't fucking do this. why is this so hard for me? everyone else can write a fucking essay without wasting half an hour between sentences. take home exams remind me of this time last year when i was frantically emailing my prof asking for extensions while my grandfather died. i'm totally just screwing myself over here but every time i have to write something like this i get this overwhelming sense of hopelessness that i'm going to lost my scholarship over this one stupid fucking essay that i just couldn't be bothered to start on time and i don't even know why that matters to me that much i mean the 3000/year is great but will i even notice that in a few years when i'm tens of thousanmds of dollars in debt with a useless degree and i lack the ability to even write a fucking 6 page paper?

i like the rips in my pantyhose.

they just look really nice tonight.
one leg is ripped all over and if you look at it up close there are really nice lines where one set of runs meets another or one thread catches another. and the other leg is ripped to a lesser degree but all over the knee there is this scattering of round holes without the vertical runs.

it's just one of those things that makes you feel cool even though nobody else would notice the finer details of it. to most people they're just ripped tights.

in high school i remember being afraid of wearing ripped tights because they had a certain i'm-so-hardcore attitude that came with them and i was more the shy smart kid type even though i dressed strangely. ripped tights were the line i wouldn't cross.

i just read a bunch of this blog about things that are really awesome. like the little things that make your day. i think i should take more notice of these things because i was reading the list and being like "yeah, that totally is awesome but i never realized!"

for sculpture class our final project was to make a piece of furniture to put in the fine arts building lounge-area. i made the corner part of a couch-like arrangement of chairs and it has a curtain on it so if you want to get away from people for a minute you can close it and be alone for a while. a couple of people have told me that they like my chair and want to sit in it but there is always someone else sitting there. that was another nice thing.

knowing how to weld is probably not a good thing for when i go to furnish our apartment. the i-could-make-that attitude is okay when it comes to clothes and things, but some things? not so much!

but i do really want this tree bed, and i could make it for much less than $6000. anthropologie has such pretty pretty expensive things!

no, stop thinking these things! you cannot make everything!

it feels like it's been a long time

i've been sleeping during the day and being awake at night in buildings without other people sewing cushions or embroidering messages on curtains or covering up my insecurities with even more of them and dancing in the darkroom and listening to the same old songs.

sneaking in and out of locked buildings by slipping discrete pieces of cardboard in the cracks is kind of exciting in that my-life-is-pretty-dull-so-this-is-interesting way. yesterday i was in the basement of hart hall working on my furniture project overnight, and at about 6:30 a bunch of people walked through the building talking and singing and having a great time. i don't know who they were, custodians maybe, but they were really happy for 6:30 am and that was kind of nice.

i think i'm going to try to get back to being awake in the day, though. because i have to find some jobs to apply for. i realized that i only have like four days left before i'm done and i don't necessarily like that.

colour photos are in!

...and they're really bad.

completely pink and grainy-looking. i'm going to try and fix them up a little with (gasp!) photoshop. i know, right? i should be preserving the integrity of the film format. i should get the negatives scanned, they seem to have more information than the prints do. but i don't really know how to do that this week since the photo tech is away and my prof is never around. which is the same problem preventing me from getting a key to the studio to start (and complete) that portfolio project. oh thaddeus where are you?

(but, technical problems aside, isn't that an adorable picture? judging from the glimpse of dan in the corner it was probably one of my of-course-i'm-taking-pictures-of-the-other-band-members-i'm-not-creepy-at-all photos.)

i decided to watch some pushing daisies while working on my drawing...

INCORRECT!


i think that people are interesting when i don't know exactly what it is they're talking about but it sounds nice. i think that people always want to be friends with people who are one level of interestingness above them. except the people who want to seem more interesting by being friends to the people one level of interestingness below them. this makes things difficult because you don't want to end up with friends who are using you to make themselves seem more interesting. it's kind of similar to how some people like to have ugly friends to make them look good. that shit's not cool.

oh hey this is different.

i've been drifting in and out of nocturnal mode. i do this because i tell myself that i work better at night but i'm not really sure if that's true since i spent most of my night stumbling and looking up old sunset rubdown videos. i really want to get started on my photo project but i don't have a key to the studio and can't really get one until monday. er, tomorrow.

i'm thinking about the summer. about whether or not i should try and get a job in sackville. it might be good for me to stay here and try and meet some new people. i don't know if i would do that or just stay inside all summer and be a recluse like usual. but i know that in sussex there's not much for me.

every once in a while i have thoughts about moving somewhere else and starting over socially. pretending i've always been outgoing and confident and make it seem like i know so much about indie music and literature. or seeming more mysterious so people are intrigued by the mysterious new girl. i wonder which would make me more friends. probably the fake one. if it were a movie, someone would notice the mysterious new girl frequenting some bar by herself. maybe doing some needlework or just sitting and pondering. or the new mysterious me would be into very intellectual-seeming literature. and this person would be intrigued and life would turn out like that mysterious couple i talked about last time.

i really want to travel. someone asked me recently if i've ever traveled. i said i've only been to the canadian provinces as far as ontario, maine, new york. she said that doesn't count as traveling. i tend to agree.

i want to get a photo studio key so i can give myself a moustache and hunchback and spotty face and act like they're fashionable.

i like talking to the internet instead of real people. no real people are awake at 6:30 am.

people aren't mysterious enough anymore. or everyone's too mysterious.

i'm attracted to mysterious people. there don't seem to be many around, though. everyone nowadays seems so focused on their social life, you don't see too many mysterious people. the people that at first seem mysterious are usually trying to be.

i want to fall in love with someone who is mysterious in a bashful sort of way and run away together to a (different) small town where nobody knows us and be the mysterious new couple in town who wear tailored black clothes and glasses and keep to themselves but are occasionally seen riding their bicycles together or having a nighttime picnic in the park or at the supermarket trying to select the perfect vegetable. in my mind these are not things that indie hipsters do but things that the lonely new mysterious couple in town would do because it's the past and indie hipsters don't exist yet. and nobody in town knows them but they see them around and wonder what they're doing in this place but how lovely it is that they seem so happy.

a mysterious man with a soft voice and gentle mannerisms and canvas shoes. that's a description i read one that stood out to me, or something like it.

it would be nice if i were seen as mysterious rather than just shy or antisocial. i can never decide if the people and qualities i'm attracted to are things i want in a romantic relationship or if they're just things i want to be myself. i think it's a bit of both. that's a little narcissistic.

i really need to start having real-life crushes instead of hoping i'll magically meet someone like celebritycrushoftheyear. especially after being this-far-away from biggestmusiccrushever. otherwise years from now i'll end up like a twilight mom in love with a sparkly vampire, only instead of sparkly vampires it'll be some weird-singing-voiced sweaty guy from a band that nobody remembers if they even knew back in the day.

one thing i envy is when people just talk and it sounds not like they're trying to be poetic but everything just sounds nice. i should stop writing my late-night longings in a place where people can read them because i get all self-conscious that people think i'm trying to be all poetic and introspective. that is something i do not attempt to be because i am no good at it. no, not at all. i still think to myself that nobody reads this so i can whine and sound as dumb as i want, even though i know that there are a few people, at least, who do. you who are reading this, you probably know more about me than most other people because of it. i should get a journal instead.

wolf parade part II

i guess i don't have a whole lot to say about when they were actually playing. they started with "you are a runner and i am my father's son" and then did two new songs, first a dan and then a spencer, and then it all sort of blurs into an extended period of songs i love and songs i just like and new songs that sounded decent to great, and staring at spencer.

really, it was hard to look at the rest of the band. it may have been just because i was standing right in front of him and because i love him so much, but it was just so interesting to watch him. alternating between pounding the keyboard violently and putting his head down and then looking up and flashing a moment of smile and sitting on his legs and then knocking over his stool and picking it back up again and doing all his crazy vocal riffs and occasionally letting it show that he was feeling feverish and staring out into the distance. i really did stare at him the whole time. i had my camera with me and was taking photos and realized that they were all of him. so i took a few of dan but mostly just pretended to look elsewhere because i could have sworn i got a "why is this girl taking so many pictures of me?" look. because i totally made eye contact several times. if only very briefly. but still. squuuueeeeeeeee! most of this paragraph is read in my head in a "betty-talking-about-a-cute-boy" voice. he really does have a heart-melting smile. katelyn agreed.

they played a lot of songs. spencer's setlist was right in front of me so i tried to read it but there were a lot of scribbles and abbreviations and things that didn't make sense. i wanted to have it so badly and i was totally the closest person to it so at the end of the night i was going to grab it while politely asking spencer. but about three or four songs from the end some annoying chatty bitches pushed me and snatched it and ran away. that was not cool.

the first new song they played was called "beyonce". i found that amusing. there was a good mix of songs from old-new-and-future. perhaps a few more from apologies than from mount zoomer, which i thoroughly approve of. they seem to have played 7 or 8 new songs, which according to various setlists from internet sources were called "beyonce", "tv night", "low rider", "fast ballad", "yulia", "golden/palm road","new new fast" and an untitled one in the encore that doesn't seem to have been played anywhere else yet unless i am not remembering correctly. i think it was the one in the encore that spencer started off with this spoken part that had very sunset rubdown-ish lyrics. i liked it a lot but i don't remember it. there was one song, however, that i had heard about and was looking forward to, but they didn't play, called "caveosapian". it was supposed to make people want to dance like this:
but then i found a recording of it from the halifax show and it is so good! i also liked the one called "tv night", which seems to be the closest to how i recall that spoken-beginning one but it was written early on the setlist and doesn't have that beginning part so it must be different. i hope that some people make recordings of later shows and put them online because i really want to sort this out in my brain. either way, the album is supposed to come out in june or july so i'll figure it out by then. the new songs in general seem to be a bit more divided into more sunset rudown and handsome furs-esque, their newer albums rather than older, which are a bit more accessible and therefore blend more easily? i don't know if that makes sense.

the photos i took turned out decently. i wanted to make a few 11x14 prints but they were blurry enough already so they're all 8x10. i regret not thinking ahead about friday and sunday being holidays and buying some faster film. ISO125 is not so great for shooting concerts. the opening band had their lights on pretty bright so i thought i'd be okay, but wolf parade does not like much light, apparently. i shot a roll of colour too, so when i get it back in a week or so (damn you sackville and your lack of photo processing other than the photography department) they will be posted. for about half the roll i stuck on my telephoto lens converter so i have some pretty sweet close-ups. let's hope they turn out.

the only things that could have made the night better (excepting the unrealistic like spencer inviting me home with him or it being a sunset rubdown show instead) were if i had some faster film and if spencer's facial mole was on the other side of his face. why did i not think ahead and position myself to the right? i suppose because then i wouldn't have been able to pretend to take pictures of dan while really taking pictures of spencer.

exploiting my photoshop skills for illustrative purposes, here is how these should have looked:

ramblings about my love for spencer krug, part I

i'm going to split this into two parts because i have a lot to ramble on about. part one: anticipation.

wolf parade. why do i love wolf parade so? i'm not sure. well, for one thing, they were pretty much the band that turned me onto "indie music". i remember back when my primary method of finding new music was to go on myspace and find a band i liked (back then, usually fall out boy or the like) and click on whatever bands they had in each other's "top friends" and i might someday stumble upon something interesting, but i've always been one to listen to the same songs over and over again, so i stuck to my fall out boy and showtunes. one day i decided that the music i had been listening to was really not that good so i went out of my comfort zone. i remember the first three bands of the music i listen to now: arcade fire, then broken social scene, then i found wolf parade. before i was even finished listening to "i'll believe in anything" i had a new favourite band. and so "apologies to the queen mary" remains one of if not my favourite album ever. it's just so close to perfect. i love me some unique voices, and this band had two of them (though it actually took me some time to realize that; now i can't imagine thinking that spencer and dan sound remotely alike), and it was just so catchy and cheered me right up.

and so shortly after i realized that these songs were in fact sung by two different voices and that all of my favourite songs were by one of these voices so i went to check that out and found out about sunset rubdown. and that is when i fell in love with spencer krug. it was just around the time that "random spirit lover" came out, and i listened to that and "shut up i am dreaming" on repeat for weeks on end. spencer's voice + lyrics that are beautiful even though i have no idea what he's talking about = my favourite ever.

so, that is why i was so excited to see wolf parade live. my expectations for them had gone down a little since "at mount zoomer", which just seemed like a place that they dumped songs that weren't quirky enough for their other projects. but to see spencer krug. all i needed was for them to play "i'll believe in anything" and "sons and daughters of hungry ghosts" and i would have been happy. plus i'd heard from a couple of people that their live shows were sometimes sloppy and drunken. so as excited as i was, my expectations were not as high as they would be had it been a sunset rubdown show.

but it turns out i was not disappointed in the least.

to start out the night, my dear friend katelyn, with whom i was staying in fredericton, and i had some lovely afternoon drinks on a beautiful day and got dressed up all nice. we then headed out to get something to eat at the popular fredericton dining spot "the snooty fox". they had delicious fruity cocktails on special and i ordered a roasted red pepper, garlic, and feta pita dip thing that was fabulous. a few of katelyn's friends met us there and as we talked in anticipation, katelyn's friend craig looked out the window and said "is that them outside? are they coming in? they're coming inside the restaurant!" and as they walked by i repressed my squeals. i took notice of two girls that were with them, but neither was walking next to spencer. that made me glad because in my head, since i know i will never have him, he is pretty much asexual. it seems to make sense. he is too focused on his music to have time for romance.

after leaving the restaurant (where we unfortunately only saw them as they walked past our table into a back room), we made our way to the venue a half hour or so early. there were exactly two people there already. we began a lineup by the door and when we were let in, we claimed the spot in the very center front. well, a little to the left, because there was a speaker in the middle. we waited for a while, and then the opening band played and they were barely decent but maybe i'm just judging harshly because i wanted them to be done so wolf parade would play. the set change in the middle was practically unbearably long.

the first member of the band to appear onstage was the drummer arlen who i think wears that same hat for his entire life. his drums were white and sparkly and if i played drums i would want ones like that. then dan came out and got some nice applause. in person he is just as skinny and drug-addict-chic. and spencer came out last, wearing suede boater shoes. he has such adorable mannerisms, wandering around the stage looking slightly lost. that may have been because later he said he was not feeling so well that night. then they all disappeared for way too long while a girl did sound checks and practically stuck spencer's mic down her throat. and then they came out and started playing a song and you will hear about my thoughts from this point on later.

i have come to the conclusion

that it might be somewhat useful to get twitter. i don't think i could, just because the words "twitter" and "tweet" sort of drive me nuts, but i keep wanting to make one-sentence blog posts that are not quite facebook-worthy.

i have come to the conclusion, from listening to horrible quality recordings from the past few days, that the new wolf parade album will be (<) apologies to the queen mary. but (>>>>>>>) mount zoomer. the brackets are because the things keep making the middle disappear.

i have come to the conclusion that writing essays is something i dread more than a lot of other things.

i have come to the conclusion that i should try to stop getting fixated on certain celebrity-ish types and find some people in real life.

i have come to the conclusion that i don't care if i'm like a 12 year old loving the jonas brothers, i love spencer krug more than anyone else and i don't care how dorky i am about it, his music is beautiful and his lyrics are beautiful even if i don't know what he's talking about most of the time and his voice makes me want to melt and he doesn't smile much but when he does it's wonderful.

just a contact sheet

some of them turned out better than i expected. some not so much. i didn't think ahead about stores being closed on holidays to get some faster film.

i tried to make it look like i was taking photos of the whole band but obviously it didn't turn out that way. i think he was onto me.

i wanted to write about the wolf parade show last night

but i'm going to wait until i get my photos developed. so instead i'm bringing you one of these things we all used to do back in the myspace days, stolen from laura neily.

Are you a couple with the last person you kissed on the lips?
nope.

Looking back, did you ever think you would be where you’re at in life now?
i'm not sure. generally, yes. but i don't think that a few years ago i would have thought i'd be, for instance, making the art i'm making now or that i would have been 5 feet away from spencer krug last night.

Is there anyone getting on your nerves at the moment?
nope. i'm alone at the moment, for one thing.

What does your day usually consist of?
getting up and going to class or occasionally sleeping through it. eating. taking a nap. checking various websites. doing some work of some sort, either in my room or being semi-social and taking it to the fine arts building. eating again. going home and wasting some more time on the internet. showering. attempting to sleep. failing to sleep and thinking about ideas instead and sketching them out or writing them down. failing to sleep for a bit longer and then sleeping.

Most attractive clothing style on a male/female?
well-fitted jeans or other pants, slim but not too tight, perhaps cuffed at the bottom. nice belt. v-neck t-shirt in white or a solid colour, or a nice button-down, sleeves rolled up, maybe tucked in. good shoes. glasses are nice.

When did you last see the person you last kissed?
it's been a long time.

Have you ever walked on the beach at night?
probably at some point. when i was younger and went camping lots during the summer. but i generally kind of avoid beaches.

How's your hair look?
it's not great right now. frizzy and unclean since i haven't washed it since yesterday morning. it needs to be cut, too.

When was the last time you talked to your best friend?
this morning.

Last place you fell asleep other than your bed?
kp's floor last night.

Is there someone that makes you happy every time you see them?
none i can think of in particular at the moment. there are people that make me happy but not all the time.

What was your last thought before you went to sleep last night?
probably either "why is sleeping so hard" or "goddamn i love spencer krug this was a good night"

Is anyone else in the room with you?
no. except this one pesky fruit fly that i can't seem to get rid of.

Who was the last person in a car with you?
six people plus the driver on the bus from moncton to sackville.

What will you do after this?
finish my way-too-overdue art history essay, or maybe go develop my wolf parade film.

Are you going out of town soon?
i just got back. from sussex and fredericton.

Do you consider yourself to be a healthy eater?
not really. i don't eat horribly, but i don't exactly follow the fine-arts-girls-only-eat-salad stereotype. i eat much better when i don't have the unhealthy aspects of meal hall to tempt me.

Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to?
a bus driver.

Is anyone protective over you?
not really. my parents have never been too protective, they trust me to not do stupid things. except perhaps when my father does not have faith in my driving abilities.

Were you single on your last birthday?
i sure was.

Do you know how it feels to be cheated on?
no.

If something was wrong, who is the first girl you would go to?
truthfully, probably nobody. or the readers of my blog, because it is much easier to say something to a website that you don't know for sure anyone is reading.

Do you like being kissed spontaneously or asked?
being asked is a little awkward. if you are expecting it, anyway.

Are your nails painted?
only my left hand, with badly-chipped gold. i was going to do the right in silver butnever got around to it.

Ever kissed in the rain?
i don't believe i have.

How do you respond to being nervous?
i usually play with my necklaces or scratch my neck and keep my hands over my mouth. in more nerve-inducing situations i'll get the shaky voice and sweaty palms and all that.

What is the most consecutive miles you have ran?
um, 21 laps around the gym during the dreaded grade ten 12-minute run.

What is the worst physical pain you have ever felt?
i don't know. i've never had any serious injuries. i have had some pretty serious period cramps, though. ugh.

Do you think you would lose some friends if you gained 100 pounds?
i'd hope not. i might lose myself as a friend.

What color is your favorite pair of underwear?
hm, i don't think i have a favourite. perhaps...grey with white dots and a pink bow?

What person of the opposite sex makes you laugh most?
i dunno. i really don't have too many male friends, actually.

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40?
johnny depp? i tend to not be often attracted to the older ones, because then i'd have a moment of "omg, i think that old guy is hot! i'm old!"

When was the last time you talked to the first person you kissed?
um, a couple months ago via facebook?

Are you embarrassed to buy condoms?
i probably would be, haha.

Who is the last person you have ever shared a bed with and where?
i do not remember. probably katelyn at my house or hers.

Did anything bad happen to you last August?
hm. i don't think so. probably a few minor things that i can't even remember now so they obviously weren't too bad.

If you are getting up early on a saturday its most likely.....
around 11:00 am.

What was your last halloween costume?
um, clara bow. or a generic flapper. which wasn't too different from my usual dress at the time.

How many best friends do you have?
i don't know. i have the high-school-bff-group and i think i would still consider the three of them best friends even though we are not as hang-out-all-the-time as we once were.

Name one fear you have?
atrhritis, osteoporosis, and bones and joints in general.

When you're at the beach, do you swim or lay out more?
the beach is a combination of several things i dislike.

Who was last to grab your ass? Guy or girl?
i cannot recall. that's not something that seems to happen too often.

How's your day?
s'okay. i spent most of it so far on a bus. it's not much compared to yesterday.

Has anyone close to you ever died?
nobody super close. i was close to my grandfather in a we-are-a-close-family kind of way, but he kept to himself a lot.

Do you believe that there is always?
there is always what? there is always always. ?

Ever made out in a pool?
i read this as "ever made out with a pool?" no, i haven't. either with or in.

This time last year, what was your relationship status?
absolutely no different from my current single self.

Do you still talk to the person you fell the hardest for?
i don't really have one of those.

How old will you be in 3 birthdays?
22. that's old.

Would you rather write a paper or give a speech?
write a paper. but before that i'd write a test.

Last person you cried in front of?
...several members of the cast of the play i was in.

Do you drink enough water?
i'm pretty thirsty right now, and i was drinking last night and i have only drank half a bottle of orange juice today, so i was going to say no. but i just did the pinch test and apparently i'm good.

How do you feel when someone kisses you on your forehead?
i can't think of a time that's happened, but i'm sure it would be lovely.

Who was the last person to mentally hurt you?
probably myself.

The shirt you're wearing, does anyone else have it?
it's a dress, but probably not. i'm sure someone in the world has it stashed away from their '90s era wardrobe but i cut the bottom off it so nobody else's is the same.

Would you rather sleep with someone else or alone?
alone. i'm sure that once i'm in one of those romnatic relationship things sleeping with that person would be nice, but for now i sleep much better my myself.

Do you like movie nights?
yeah, they're nice.

Who did you sleep with last night?
i slept on the floor of katelyn and katelin's room.

Can you honestly say that things are running smoothly for you?
i should, but i've been getting too caught up lately in my oh-no-poor-me feelings.

You're trapped in a room with your ex for 3 days, what do you do?
feel incredibly awkward.

How many people have told you they were in love with you?
just the one.

How many did you love?
nobody romantically.

Is any part of you sad at all?
i have a hangover-of-happy from the wolf parade concert last night. the only twinges of sad i have is from that bitch who stole spencer's set list before he was even done with it, and that i was on the left side of his face so i didn't get any pictures of his "beauty mark".

When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper?
a few months ago, but i never mailed it.

Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?
that would be every pink thing in my room. which includes some sequins, my sewing box, some yarn, some clothes, among other things.

What are you sick of?
chocolate.

When' s the last time you laughed really hard?
i feel like there was somethign i laughed at really hard last night but i can't recall what it would have been.

i don't know how to do things anymore.

i've been trying to do this art history essay that was due on wednesday all week, and i just can't do it. i don't know how and i don't have the will to do it. i'm behind in every class and i'm just feeling completely and totally overwhelmed. i really can't do it.

i used to be a good student. i've never passed in anything late before. i have a scholarship to keep up and handing in this essay late might be the thing that makes me lose it. but i don't even care. well i do care. but the only reason i care about my marks is because that extra $3000 per year is pretty handy. once that's gone i really have no reason to care. and in my mind it's gone so there's no reason to try hard anymore.

i don't feel like i deserve the marks i've been getting. i don't think i even deserve to be here anymore. i've been blowing off my responsibilities all semester. because every week or two i've been having these breakdowns where i feel like there's no way i can just do everything i need to do. i've always gotten it done but this time is just so much worse.

i've given up not whining. it's essential to my sanity. i just don't understand why lately i feel so fucking overwhelmed all the time.

late at night i am so deep.

people are like oranges. i am like an orange.

an orange is encased in a thick peel that keeps you from seeing the inside. you have to put in a little bit of effort to get to it. some oranges have really thick peels and lots of that gross white stuff that takes a long time to get off. i am one of those oranges with a peel that is thick and hard and it spits juice at you when you're trying to get around it even though it doesn't mean to spit juice that's just the way it is and once you get the peel off you're kind of there but there's still all the white stuff to get around if you want to really get to the orange.

but sometimes you put in all that effort to get to the orange and it turns out to be dry and boring. this happens most often with those thick-peeled oranges. i don't want to be the shitty orange.

i am a nocturnal thick-skinned orange.

i also thought of another one about how i strive to be more like my hands and less like my boobs. but i'll spare you that one.

when i am not tired i will look back on this and laugh at how smart i think i am.

procrastination.

i get worse at writing essays every time. this is the first time i've resigned myself to the fact that i can't finish on time and i'm going to have to pass it in late. 8 pages to go and it's due in less than 10 hours.

i got distracted by online shopping and wanted to use up the remaining $22.96 on my card. i was all set to purchase a pair of sequined tap pants (aka shorts) for $15, until shipping costs changed from $6 to $25. damn, canada, why do things cost so much to get here?

anyone have any recommendations on what to buy with $22.96 including shipping? i was browsing the antique fabrics section on ebay and a little tempted by some of those. i want to buy some really nice silk crepe for no reason in particular.

no complaining for real this time.

here are some photographs. they're 3D.

here are some cool people and a stuffed tiger on valentines' day.

here is a blind contour of me in my costume for that unfortunate play that i am now free of.

here are some sketches of what i wanted my fashion show clothes to look like. fun fact: my scanner doesn't pick up neon pink or yellow.

here is what i've been knitting: "tribute" socks from the newest knitty. i do knit, you know.

here are my keys because scanning knitted things is fun.