I heart delicious Chelan apples!

Our First Anniversary! at Lake Chelan

Go to this! Do it. Do it now.

Cultivate & BBoy Peanut with
Massive Monkees presents
TINY TOONES
Benefit Jam & Shoe Drive
BBoy Session & Non-stop breaks
ONE BE LO. OHMEGA WATTS
CAN.U. ACTIVE.I.B. AWAKE
PRIME VII. JUMAKAE. MASSIVE MONKEES
World Famous Photographers
CHARLES PETERSON & STUART ISETT
MAY 31ST 7-11PM
316 3RD STREET SOUTH, RENTON WA

Movie-o-holic

Some people read books, some obsessively read music reviews or blogs or news sites, others drink a lot of wine--but me, I watch movies. They're my comfort food, my relaxation, my escapism. I like well-made movies, but I have a number of guilty pleasures as well (but I won't tell you about those, otherwise known as chick-flicks). I just checked my netflix account and realized I've watched quite a few movies over the past few months for someone as rediculously busy as I am. Sometimes on a busy week I'll watch a half hour of one before bed. As such, I've downed a lot of flicks. Here they are, with their relative star ratings if your looking for something to watch.

(I'm waiting for my portfolio to download in the midst of a busy week, so no explanations of summaries will follow. Too bad)

From most recent to last:

Castle in the Sky: 5 stars!

Network: 5

Shine: 4 (because of the guy from pirates of the Caribbean)

The Deer Hunter: 5 (because I have a crush on a 70 year old man--Christopher Walken)

Grave of the Fireflies: 5

The Pianist: 2

Soylent Green: 1

Shindler's List: 4 (yes, this is the first time I've seen it!)

Ran: 1 (but Matt says "5")

Full Metal Jacket: 4

The Source: 3

Run Lola Run: 2 (way more lame than I recall from high school)

The Devil and Daniel Johnston: 5

Fahrenheit 451: 2

Trekkies: 2

Paradise Lost: 3

Ghandi: 4

American History X: 3

Empire of the Sun: 5

Rivers and Tides: 4

Rabbit-Proof Fence: 5

Amores Perros: 4

THX 1138: 4

Munich: 5


Ok, there you go. Now--go rent.

Birthday plans

Yesterday was the official birthday. I got up early, did homework, and then decided to treat myself to a high fat morning pastry! Hooray!

I went to school, and spent the entire day struggling with classes and homework, and basically rethinking my entire decision to switch to an art major. 2D design and architectural drawing are both proving to be more mathematical than I am capable of--not to mention the math courses I am currently failing. Plus, 2D emphasizes absolute prefectionism (as does all other art courses), which I've spent some time trying to get over in my life--and now it's back! It's ok, it's gonna be ok. That's what my male teacher said when I had a female tear breakdown when calculating angles, and thus in classic male 'freakout over unknown female tears' style, he did the rest of my homework for me. Maybe this will work out.

Anyhow, I'm chalking it up to something hormonal and a day full of work on my birthday. To compensate for my lousy work filled day, my wonderful husband took me to dinner. And he didn't even complain when I made the hostess switch us to better seats. And it was quite a lovely warm day, and I did spend lunch out on the beautiful terrace of a new coffee shop discovered on the canal in Fremont.

But in my birthday obsession (I'm from one of those "birthday families"--you know the ones) I've declared today my Faux-Birthday instead, because I don't like crying on my birthday. I think the husband is a little nervous, because I'm such a big birthday person (he's not)--he's afraid I'm going to insist on Birthday Week or something, and he'll have to keep topping it every year, eventually turning things into Birthday Year. But I wouldn't go that far because I'm not sure my body would thank me for frosting bedecked morning pastries every day for a year. Or would it...mmmm...

So far I've done nothing but get a free pedicure today, and watched a little Martha. M is coming home from work soon, bearing gifts for Faux-Birthday. My request was an expensive night at 'Chez M'. My genius chef of a husband will be slaving away in the kitchen all day preparing me my favorite meals of his. woohoo! We even talked about going out later to see my favorite live performance of all time--Ghostland Observatory, playing at the showbox. Now all I need is for the rain to stop, and I'll be in Faux-Birthday heaven!

I turned off the Martha Stewart Show

Because she just answered a reader from "Or-eh-gon"

(Never mind what I'm doing sitting at home on a friday afternoon watching Martha in the first place. It's not your place to question faux-birthday activities)

Again?

It's happening again! I'm getting older. And this time I'm not entering the metaphysical idea of my late 20's--I'm really there. So there it is. On Thursday I'll be 27. I'm in my late 20's. It's been said.



We've all heard this song a bit now, and it's not much a perfect metaphor for a birthday, but it reminded me to look back over this year anyhow. I went from a horrible break-up and a lonely singleness, a reconciliation, planning a wedding in three months, a marriage forged, a honeymoon, moving into a new house, and now almost an entire year of school for both of us. And that isn't counting actually figuring out how to be married. Damn.

Anyhow, I haven't seen the video to this song until swiping it up from Rachel's blog tonight. I think this video is supersweet! So therefore postable as my birthday treat to you! (We missed him in Seattle this year.)

Ok 27, here I come.

Art School Confidential

Can you believe it? I switched my major to art. Visual communications to be exact. That's design. I still have to actually apply to the highly competitive program, but I finally made the mental decision, and started my basic art courses.

These are my first art classes ever--which seems a funny thing to say for someone who has just viciously thrown all her Fabergé eggs in an art major basket.

In all my 432 slow drawn out years of attempting to receive an undergraduate diploma, I have been on the english major track. And now I am thrust into a very strange world of underage art kids. I'm not so sure what to make of my new 2 year future existence.

English kids are weird; they're usually prone to depression, binge drinking, anxiety, and sexual struggles. And the rest are obsessed with writing the next LOTR while wearing an elvish outfit in their mother's basement.

But art kids are way stranger. I'm not quite sure how to categorize them yet, but I feel worlds away (But I fit right in with the above categories?). Perhaps it's something to do with me being a good 10 years older than most of them, yet being grouped in with them; these skinny-pants-wearing-interpretive-dance-doing-over-privileged-white-misunderstood-finding themselves-through-naked-lady-drawing-no-wait-Christian-school-alternative-Jesus- interpretations-18-year-olds are apparently my peers. Hmmm...I'll keep investigating my new world and report back soon. I totally wrote this in my sketchbook while smoking behind the cafeteria.

Why then the dramatic major switch, you ask? In a brief sentence, I grew up as an artist, but just never knew it till now. I'm embracing my misunderstood inner me.

Thus, spring break is over.

Jeff Tweedy cries a lot

A friend of mine recently moved (sniff) to the far-far-away land of big and bigger (that's Texas). I miss her, but I keep up with her blog "momentary trace" which I have newly linked in the "real live friends" section.

I was reading through her posts this morning and found this one below. It's an article by Jeff Tweedy discussing the links between migraines, depression, anxiety, creativity, pain medication, and the cycle of pain identities. I myself have dealt with many of the above issues, and found that I resonated much with the internal expressions of pain through external suffering portions. Anyhow, as most of my tiny-tiny readership has related to me that you struggle with those issues as well, I thought it would be an interesting link to read. Plus you're all Jeff Tweedy lovers, and it has song links (ooooh).

Don't forget to check out Rachel's Texas blog. It's all about grits and big hats. Maybe.

And check out the article link here