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?