i'm in a music video.

my brother's girlfriend Emily is a singer/songwriter and asked my sister and me to be in her music video for a song she wrote called "You're Caught Up"

i'm pretty impressed with how it turned out, considering we did it all in one day, a week ago. here it is:

You're Caught Up Video

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"my [brief] moment of glory in this video reminds me of that scene in amelie when she's taking pictures of the clouds"
=what i told josh and grant this evening

some photos from last night! and new ones that annie took!

the first-comers


taffy, with child


fire fire fire fire it was fun taking pictures of the fire


lonely, but i like it.



allison and cathi (crop as desired)



my favorite part of this picture is loisa.


photos i wish i had taken:
-the birthday boy
-four corners
-myself, in a diaper
-myself, next to my wii self

luckily annie took all of the above (minus the blythe & wiiblythe)

now it is sunday morning and i'm adding a couple that annie took:

punching the birthday boy


me, in a diaper (megan and i were two of the four people who actually dressed up for the theme)

me, with wiiblythe. !!

dan-ah kim

instead of doing the reading i should be doing, i've been looking at some different designers' sites online. i stumbled upon Dan-ah Kim, a brooklyn-based designer... i really like her illustrations and designs.





it's not often i come across an artist whose entire collection i am thoroughly impressed with/moved by. something about Dan-ah's style and the emotions she communicates really appeals to me. for me, many of her pieces evoke a sense of loneliness, and yet also speak of a hope derived from the beauty and potential of life.

let me know what you think.

¡buscamos amor!

there was a book sale at my school today. i had some time to kill between classes, so i jumped at the chance to take a gander. i ended up finding a book called Love: A Warm And Wonderful Book About The Largest Experience In Life by a man named Leo Buscaglia.
even though i'm in the process of ridding myself of a superfluity of material possessions, i simply could not resist buying this book.
the words on the back cover enchanted me:
"Live now. When you are eating, eat. When you are loving, love. When you are talking with someone, talk. When you are looking at a flower, look. Catch the beauty of the moment!"
i spent about fifteen minutes perusing its pages and ended up buying it. for a QUARTER.
shannon, you would love this book. maybe others of you would too. i hope you would.

some nuggets i've found so far within its wondrous pages:

"Think of what you are and all the fantastic potential of you."

"Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness, to teach him how to share it because that's the only reason for having anything. Imagine what this world would be like if all along the way you had people say to you, 'It's good that you're unique; it's good that you're different. Show me your differences so that maybe I can learn from them.'"

Thornton Wilder: "...and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not neccessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

Gandhi: "There is no love where there is no will."

Ik hou van dit

some anecdotes from a pretty ok day.

today was better than most days. as with most better days, there isn't much of an explanation for what made it better. probably because of my mood. (although having cathi and loisa as housemates this week is certainly a plus!)
here are some interesting things i encountered today, both good and bad or somewhere in between the two.

as i was crossing the street to get the bus stop after my last class, i beheld with mine eyes a blind girl, walking with a stick, holding onto the backpack of the girl in front of her, also blind, also walking with a stick. the blind leading the blind. !!

on my way home from the train station, i was driving and everything seemed beautiful. two children riding their bikes on Normandale smiled and waved to me. i rolled my window down all the way and the air was just the perfect temperature. i looked up and saw a flock of some non-crow birds doing dives and spirals in unison. i felt blessed.

i stopped at von's on the way home and got the following three items: mint chocolate ice cream (my favorite), a baguette (to finish off the brie with- thanks grant!), and a six pack of red stripe. and i didn't even get carded.

getting into my car after shopping, i hit my head with my door. sadly enough, this is not the first time that's happened to me. painfully funny.

TO TOP IT OFF, my best friend shannon posted a tribute blog for me last night, which i just discovered. sweet sweet shannie. incredible.

"life's like that"

i've noticed i'm pretty somber lately. not even just lately, but for a long time...maybe my whole life.
i'm tired of feeling like life sucks. Tired of trying to accept that life is a series of disappointments and unmet expectations. i'm tired of grasping helplessly at moments of happiness, and overextending myself in the hopes that it will better my odds at achieving such moments.
i worry too much. i take on too much. i avoid having secrets because having secrets means letting someone discover those secrets and subsequently giving them a place in my heart and allowing myself to be vulnerable, should they reject that place i've given them. so, i try to be an open book.
but people are not meant to be like books. there are layers, insecurities, dreams, that cannot be read or presented in a detached, factual way that even a fictitious story inevitably does.
i try to trust, i want to trust. i like to think i'm capable of it, if people are patient enough with me.
i know my default is to close myself off to people, and it is my devastating habit to feign trust where it does not actually exist. i like to believe this stems not from a desire to manipulate or deceive, but to convince myself to trust by acting like i already do.

do we sabotage our own chances at happiness? what if these scary opportunities to trust, to risk getting beaten, are the only paths to something truly meaningful? what if i am my own obstacle to joy?
i over commit myself to avoid committing too deeply to any one person, group, path, or representation of myself.
i'm crippled by the fear of making the wrong choice.


every so often i'm struck by some painfully relevant metaphor- i'm compelled to do something with these threads, but not much ever comes of them. today on my drive to the witt's (where i'm staying), i was listening to Coldplay, which always initiates (or perpetuates) a dolefulness in me. as the cd neared its end, I anticipated the song "Kingdom Come," which conjures up certain memories and associations i would usually rather suppress, but not today (for whatever reason). the song began, and as it approached the chorus, it began to skip. not the annoying-yet-ignorable skipping, but the complete perversion of the song into choppy hums and painfully repetitive techno-beat syllables. it's then that i began to think that maybe life is like this-
a scratched copy of a beautiful song...
a devastating distortion of something that once held such promise and meaning.
maybe life is like that.

if you read this,

you are now obligated to take this test.


Create your own Friend Quiz here

i took it myself to prove that
1. it can be done
2. it works
3. i know myself (to a certain degree)

split personality.

creative?
constructive narcissism?
a brady bunch made up of blythes?
all of the above, perhaps.

if anyone feels like labeling each of the nine or coming up with captions of some sort, that could be potentially amazing.
(or DON'T do it, and it will be "nonmazing")

also, in attempting to dye my hair tonight, i ended up with a slightly more reddish hue than i had intended.


emily says i look like donna from that 70s show.

B+E= love!

right now, i'm writing an essay about commuting. i think the fact that i'm tired and lacking in motivation is what led me to write the following:

"In addition, taking the train makes me feel like I am helping the environment. If the environment were a person, and I could meet this person, I am pretty sure that the environment would like me more for taking the train than the jerks who drive alone to work or school every day."

i might keep it in my paper. since this is only a draft we're turning in.
but i might change "jerks" to "people." it sounds smarter.

april mix

"say hello" rosie thomas feat. sufjan
"anything at all" over the rhine
"don't think twice, it's alright" bob dylan
"it ain't me babe" johnny cash and june carter
"books written for girls" camera obscura
"mass romantic" new pornographers
"nausea" beck
"God knows" el perro del mar
"born" over the rhine
"beauty" the shivers


feel free to make suggestions for next month's line up.

this makes me happy.

another discovery

i stumbled upon another piece of my past tonight. on the back of the top shelf of my closet, i found an undersized faded purple duffle back (with "I <3 SALT LAKE CITY" printed on it). inside this little bag, i found a collection of little memo notepads, filled with drawings and stories I produced between the ages of about ten and twelve.
here are some selected pages from one of my favorite stories, "Todd and the Easter Bunny." Unfortunately I never finished it, so it'll leave you hanging.

there is danger even in the simple word hello

i just spent the last few hours reading a book i don't care about, and then writing a response to the section of this book i feel no attachment to, and then editing a paper i wrote about two other books (one i liked a decent amount and one i hated), and the whole time i've been thinking about my own crap and wishing i didn't have to read about someone else's crap for so many hours.
one thing i've learned this semester in my mountain of reading is that a lot of authors write as a means of figuring out. i think i already knew this, but it strikes me now especially, and in a way, gives me a sort of confidence boost. if so many writers can produce books that work through their own issues disguised within a cleverly alluring plot line, surely i can do the same, right? someday.

something i've been experiencing constantly within the last twenty four hours is an annoyingly persistent self-awareness. i'd like to think i'm pretty self-aware as it is, always monitoring what i say and how i say it, the ways in which what i say can and will be interpreted and the consequences of the various interpretations...but today and yesterday i've been wondering if/how this self-awareness has actually handicapped me.
i wonder, if in attempting to be perfectly articulate, even when communicating the most deeply personal issues i'm facing, i'm presenting myself as someone who has everything figured out, or that somehow, in the midst of all the chaos i readily admit exists within my heart and mind, i still seem to have things together. it's hard to admit that i want to be seen as someone who has things together. that i'd like to be among those whose lives seem to live out, "despite everything, i'm ok and things will be ok." i've always tried to appreciate the process; to pursue progress, not perfection, and yet the way i try to present myself seems to contradict that. it's hard to admit that my default is to detach myself from my own issues and present them as cold facts, when in reality these are the things i'm flooded with in every moment of my existence. that when i recount the things i'm up against, even though i seemingly list them off in bullet points, i'm dying inside for these things to be felt, shared, noticed, healed. despite the fact that the manner in which i tell my story makes me appear composed, together, capable, and as if i possess the courage to conquer these things, i'm actually an absolute mess.
i'm tired of feeling these things alone. i tried to broadcast them in an effort to change that, and i've only ended up feeling more alone.

and the irony is....i'm just re-broadcasting them in blog format.

los angeles, i'm yours.

last night i went "wheat-pasting" in LA with annie and matt. this is not a legal activity...but it's ok when it's in the name of exploited children in africa. (i guess that doesn't include your cute cartoon-y face guy, matt.)
more info here.




anthony, i like your apartment building.


Diddy Riese! mmmmm yum.

my closet is a gold mine.

in the ongoing process of sorting through bags and boxes in an effort to throw out things i don't need or want, i've stumbled across more than a few interesting things.
this includes:
-a "participation" ribbon for cross country in junior high
-a rubber band ball
-a wind-up, hopping leiterhosen
-my graduation cap and gown

<--a set of Spanish Days- of- the- week handkerchiefs (it's been awhile since i had that much fun on a wednesday)















<--my mom's senior picture













<--a single photobooth-strip picture of me and my neighbor Jacob, rockin the baseball caps










more such blogs to come, depending on public response..

proof that i was a pretty neat kid.

i was rummaging through some old notebooks and came across a few drawings that amused me. since i keep everything, it's easy to forget what all i have.
stumbling across these made me second-guess my desire/need to throw out two thirds of all i own. think of how happy i'll be in ten years to find these again..




<---circa 9 years of age



















<--my delightfully stalker-ish crush on max the mormon lasted from 7th to 9th grade. i was a long-winded crusher.










<---a recurring trend
in my junior high drawings
= spiraled hair






so, would you have been friends with me?

between silence and words

here's a Jean Luc Goddard movie clip i found, if you're interested and/or have ten minutes to kill.
it's called "vivre sa vie" (my life to live)
it suits my mood tonight.

austerlitz

i'm rereading Austerlitz (by W.G. Sebald) tonight, hoping that I might write a halfway decent paper about it in the next few hours.
anyway, i've come across some interesting quotes, which i've decided to post on account of the fact that it will allow me to both procrastinate and share something thought-provoking:

“No one can explain exactly what happens within us when the doors behind which our childhood terrors lurk are flung open” (Sebald 25).

“There is something illusionistic and illusory about the relationship of time and space as we experience in traveling, which is why whenever we come home from elsewhere we never feel quite sure if we have really been abroad” (12).

“Our concern with history…is a concern with preformed images already implanted on our brains, images at which we keep staring while the truth lies elsewhere, away from it all, somewhere as yet undiscovered” (72).

“What do we know ourselves, how do we remember, and what is it we find in the end?” (204).


this is probably the most difficult yet most rewarding book I've been faced with all semester. i recommend it, if you have the patience and the time (read it twice if you do).

we love cathi.

last night i had planned on staying home to get some reading done for a paper i have to write, but changed my mind when i was invited to go to santa ana with some good friends to browse the galleries. apparently the first saturday each month all the galleries are free admission- good to know!
being a lover of art, and able to still find an appreciation for the art i do not particularly like, i enjoyed the night and the exposure.

my favorite point of the evening (even more than the free wine at Gypsy Den- Annie's friend Megan works there and hooked us up), was something cathi said to me...

on the drive to santa ana, she warned me that she had been a little underwhelmed by the previous month's gallery opening: "for instance, there was one piece that was just a stack of pennies. i'm sorry, but that is not art."

so we're inside the grand central art center, and cathi turns to me, pointing, and says:
"see, there it is AGAIN, the stack of pennies! what the heck!"
me: "umm, that's the donation box..."

A-MAZING.
i'm glad we're friends, because i have done and often do things like that too.

consistency.

this will be an interesting and possibly hypocritical blog to write, as someone who both values/sees the good in change, and keeps ambivalence as a live-in house guest.
i'm noticing that most of my trust issues and disappointment in people have to do with the prevalence of inconsistency in character and behavior of people.
i know it's permissible and often necessary to change your mind about certain things, and i could/should probably be the poster-child for doing so, but i wonder how friendships, bonds of any sort, are ever made or kept long-term when it seems to me that we are all in a constant state of alteration; if it isn't our minds changing, it's our circumstances, our schedules, our motivations for doing something or
going somewhere. how do we ever connect long enough to have any sort of substantial and significant exchange with one another? do we just find people who seem to be changing in the same direction, or who can contribute to our process of change in some positive way, and tacitly agree to mutually stick it out together?
right now i have a renewed respect for stability. i have to hope that it's possible, in the face of changing circumstances, goals, and identities to maintain some level of stability amidst the breathtakingly chaotic series of events that make up life. is it my curse to be incapable of trusting peopple fully and yet to want/hope/need to believe people are trustworthy? is this what leads so often to my extreme disappointment in mankind? and is it what fosters the existence of my mistrust?

i might just be PMS-ing. a friend told me once that she knows she's PMS-ing when she begins to count her friends. today i caught myself counting the people i really trust.
i got to three, and started to cry.

simplification.

i want to simplify my life.
i have three huge bags full of old notes written to me by friends in high school. many from seattle friends i don't even talk to anymore.
i have a box of pitiful mementos from boys i had crushes on in junior high and early high school. a Hershey's kiss one boy gave me that i never ate, choosing instead to immortalize in a tin box and treasure forever. a pathetically dinky dried flower another boy gave me when i was fourteen. other equally embarrassing trinkets.
i have books i've never read and probably never will read, that i only own because i found them at garage sales or used bookstores and they looked interesting or were too cheap to pass up.
i have at least 50 Archie comic books (one way to survive 6th grade).
i have a pile of magazines that serve no other purpose than to weigh down the magazine holder that i use to hang my old high school formal dresses from, wedged in my closet.
i have text books i haven't been able to sell online (and am too dignified to sell for peanuts back to the school bookstore).
i have more paperclips and pushpins than one could need in a life time.
i have enough clothes and shoes for two lifetimes.

why do i amass all this stuff? why is it that i am so unbearably sentimental that i can't seem to get rid of anything? so discontented that i seem to crave the accumulation of more new and useless things?
in the middle of my trip to wisconsin, i had this sudden, overwhelming desire to simplify things. why shouldn't i simplify the one obvious area of my life in need of de-clutterization that i actually have control over?
i think this feeling came when i started wondering why i love traveling so much. it isn't even so much about seeing new things or new people, i decided it's just about getting away- that there are things in my life that weigh me down to the point where it often becomes suffocating.
one of the major things that weighs me down (that i admittedly bring on myself), is my schedule. i'm always busy, always doing something or seeing someone. even though i really like being alone, journaling, getting enough sleep, just sitting and thinking about life and things, for whatever reason i treat my days like a plate at a buffet table, filling every possible inch with things/people that will add variety and excitement to my life.
another thing, which i already mentioned, is that i am a pack rat. and i hate it.
you know that game "desert island?" the one where you say the few things you would take if you were stranded on a desert island? well, i thinki'd be relieved more than anything else, just to freed from all the superfluous matter in my life. i'd take my journal, my bible, a stack of books, and maybe some photo albums. and my computer.
do all pack rats hate the fact that they are pack rats?

i need to do something about this. it's time to act.
unfortunately, i'm also a terrible, hopeless procrastinator, so it'll probably have to wait until the semester's over, when i have more time to de-clutter my life...

by the way...

i DID end up changing my first diaper.


it was awesome.

some pictures from the trip.

sweet oliver



sam with felix



the university of wisconsin madison campus. if you squint, you might be able to see me...

some thoughts from the trip.

well, i'm back now, after quite a chaotic return journey.
word of advice: do not expect much customer service from the customer service reps for united airlines.
on both my arrival and return flights, my connecting flights were either canceled without explanation, or missed due to delays. both times they re-booked me on a flight the following morning, without offering full compensation for a hotel room. stuck inchicago last week, i opted to take a three hour bus into madison. last night, i fortunately was able to get ahold of my friend Valerie who goes to wheaton and crash at her place. when i finally made it home this morning, exhausted and unshowered, i had little time to rest before returning back to the airport to pick up my checked bag, which ended up on a later, indirect flight.
so i might be writing them a letter...

ANYWAY,
one noteworthy happening on my trip (among many), was that i got to explain an abstract concept to a four year old. It was when we were sitting in the car listening to Aimee Mann's "Humpty Dumpty" (good song, by the way)

Sam: what is she saying about superheroes?
Blythe: She's saying that not even a superhero can fix her broken heart
Sam: So she's dead?
Blythe: No, her heart isn't actually broken, people just say that when they're really sad about something or someone
Sam: Well I have a book about Humpty Dumpty, and he's a boy, and he falls off a wall and can't get put together again
Blythe: Yeah, the song is called "humpty dumpty," but it's not about him- it's just a similar story. she's saying that her heart is broken like humpty dumpty is broken.
Sam: How did he fall off?
Blythe: I guess he wasn't being careful. He probably shouldn't have been up there in the first place
Sam: [cackle] yeah.


ALSO,
Valerie's dad said something on the drive to her place last night that struck me. After relaying a story about how a friend of his set off a smoke bomb that caused a pretty major road to be shut down temporarily:
"it was just great. it's things like that that give me the strength to go on"


it really is the little things, the unexpected joys in life, that make it worth living, isn't it? that make the pain and inconsistency and mystery of life worth bearing.
i thought it a brilliant yet unassumingly profound thing to say.