remnants

- My grandma heard I've been wanting a good beanie, so she knit some cable-knit caps for me, my mom and my sister and mailed them over along with a bunch of other goodies in an endearing Christmas package. So cute.

- An olive green cardigan I found in the H&M guys' section (on sale!), that my mom hates because she says I look like I filched it off a grandpa. I don't care! I got a $1 grab bag at Revival that amongst other things had this cheesy old poinsettia badge in it and I pinned it on the cardigan and wore it around on Christmas for extra geriatric/festive points.

- My stepdad was feeling 'extra Mondrian-y' as he put it when he was writing my name and Y's on our Christmas envelopes. I save every single one of these. A few simple marker strokes on an envelope from him mean so much to me for some reason.

I'm glad it's Wednesday!

I sleep but my heart waketh

Y and I explored a nearby cemetery the other day, out of boredom as well as out of sheer necessity for sister-time. Because despite the fact she has been home for the holidays, my work schedule remains the same (save for a day off on Christmas and the day after!) and I haven't been able to laze around and spend as much time with her as I've wanted to. We marveled over the old names and even older dates, as well as the aged, mossy stones of the grave markers, but soon I started to focus more on the light that occurs during the golden hour, and we hollered (as quietly as we could) at each other to look at this, and that, until the sun went down.

yuletidings

I woke up to tree-shaped toasts that Y made, which were really just the cut-outs of trees in bits of toast with eggs filling the negative tree-space... so awesome! I ate two. Three Maxes in a row - Maxie regarding me with hopes of a lovely Christmas morning walk (which did happen), a wild thing Max on our tree, and Maxie staring at Christmas presents he has no chance of getting to, with BB watchfully posing in the background. Some patches I managed to scrounge up for Y, and a surly black cat that reminded me of her too. Christmas was really subdued but I liked it. I spent the whole day cooking with my sister, and after dinner I basically just collapsed and went to bed.

merry christmas eve

Tonight after dinner I walked my dogs to the local 'Christmas tree lane'. They were happy to go out and when my mom told them to look at the lights they really stopped to stare. Things are starting to come into focus, slowly but surely.

all. now. nothing.

This is so apt.

(source: everydaypants.com/)

down, but not out

A lot of people close to me are not having the easiest time right now. Many of them including myself have been stuck in long, awkward, uncertain phases of our lives and maybe everything that has built up in the last year is finally coming to a head. Attempting to console some of them seems futile; optimistic platitudes and phrases like 'just give it time' seem to ring hollow and fall flat, even if such words are true. I'm trying to be present, and taking everything day by day, but seeing a friend in pain and not being able to help really hurts, even if it's not my place to help shoulder that burden. We all have our own battles/struggles, but the weight of this rampant...unhappiness, or discontent, seems like a collective enemy that we all need to rise up to and slaughter. I feel like I've gone over a particularly bumpy bump from the past few months, and am a little more cautious and hopefully wiser (but still aggressive), as the cogs in my brain are starting up again and realizing what they need to work towards. With all this being said, the resolve of all the people I know who are suffering, but not giving in, is so inspiring to me right now.

USC CNC

This was exactly a month ago.

november leftovers

1. Oak apples I've collected on walks and hikes scattered all over my room...
2. Old, old, electrical insulators my boss saved from his house to give to me.
3. Pretty bare trees.
4. Bike oven! I've only worked on my bike at Bike Kitchen, which reminds me, I still need to fix that up.
5. Smokey the cat. I still don't know the story about her left eye.
6. The Boss.
7. A blue-crown passionflower in Berkeley.

It's the middle of December but it still doesn't feel like it, especially when I look over photos from last month and they feel like yesterday. I've been coughing a lot and as a result my voice registers an octave lower and I sound like a hoarser version of my sister. There are a lot of things planned and a lot of things to do before the week is over. Today I ate a bunch of gluten-free cookies and baked goods that a client sent to the office from Babycakes and they were tasty. It doesn't help that my sister has been baking a lot since coming back home for winter break. Coughing up my lungs is probably helping me burn off the sweets though, ugh haha. Time to catch up on some reading.

cognizance

Slides from 2008, Fuji Velvia.
Some terribly scanned slides that I felt like sharing anyway. These images don't even come close to conveying their true tones and shadows - they look fuzzy and blurry and make it look like I'm all shaky hands and clueless about f-stops and light let alone how to operate a camera, but the actual slides are pure and crisp and some of the most beautiful things I think I've shot on film thus far; also Fuji Velvia is one of the most gorgeous films ever created so it's difficult to not shoot something awesome with it. My description of these slides reminds me of other things, how my perception of a situation seems one way and upon self-reflection becomes clearer and different from the initial assessment of it. I'm unraveling little delusions I've had about the past few weeks and upon revealing some reluctant truths I feel so foolish and stupid, though I strangely don't feel regret (yet?).

good (little) things

Finally got a Christmas tree with my sister today. We drove to Home Depot, marched over to the trees, hoisted one up after about 15 seconds, got its trunk trimmed, and threw it into our car. Like a BOSS. While searching for rocks in the backyard to stabilize it (we don't use a tree stand, we use rocks and water in a bucket in a giant terra cotta pot) I noticed some violets shyly growing up through the cypress mulch, which made me so happy, because I thought we'd lost all the violets in the backyard when we cleared it up for the poopies. One lone Meyer lemon finally growing from our plant, and mom's excited to use it in a meal. It's good to have hope.

going through the motions

1. I got new laces for my old skools, after the laces on the left shoe were reduced to fluff after being shredded on a hike.
2. A filter in the photo lab obscuring a box of drafting dots with my name on it. I lost that box a year ago and it was nice to see it in a new home.
3. A pair of old matching keys.
4. Plastic dust on my sleeve after trimming dozens of vacuu-formed plastic forms.

I'm entering a new transitional phase, after a whirlwind three months of the end of this year. It doesn't feel like December, yet I can't wait for the month to be over. Work, and new relationships, and learning from my mistakes and trying to remember the lessons before making the mistakes again, listening more instead of assuming, and trying to think before reacting. The last two films I watched in theaters both heavily featured sex and Michael Fassbender...this must not be a coincidence. The climactic exchange between the main characters in Shame threw me into a simultaneous self-reflective state and I found myself shaking for the last twenty minutes of the film. I don't mean to talk for the sake of talking, but a lot needs to be said.

I chopped off my hair. I have a tail-like coil of it tucked in a bag which I am eventually going to donate. I don't even miss it. It feels like all I really do these days is work but it feels like I'm still not getting anything done. This needs to change.