Let's spit out the throbbing frustrations now, just so they're out there.
1. I've made too many stupid mistakes in the past few days and the grace period of being lazy has to end, pronto. It's only been a little more than a week, but I want to get on track for being situated.
2. I cannot get comfortable without a routine. The lack of routine perpetuates the stupid mistakes and sloth, which then drive me crazy. I feel good with a routine. I feel productive, or at least in control of my productivity.
3. I need some kind of security. I want a home -- physically, socially. I want to belong to a place and also a place that belongs to me.
4. That one old, less-than-throbbing frustration. The frustration -- sexual -- that predates post-graduation frustrations, that predates college even, born from a lack, and currently compounded with attention I don't want and don't know what to do with. The lingering question of craigslist hangs in the air. Sometimes I think I cheated myself and squandered (am squandering?) my youth by thinking too much.

I feel like a shit, though, every time the emotions behind this post get so pent up I have to (have to!) release in a post. Obviously, I don't really have anything to complain about. A lot of people have gone through this, many (most?) in worse circumstances. Just sayin' though: it's not easy. Every single day I count my youth as one of my top assets. sigh.

Tomorrow I’m going to the library to get my library card for the renowned NY Public Library system and send out cover letters and whatnot, see if I can find a humanities grad school book and Alicia Erian’s Towelhead, or maybe Daniel Alarcón’s Lost City Radio or something else (perhaps Junot Díaz?)

Tonight I am finding a public locale to get trashed in while watching the debates. McCain needs to go down. If I can’t get some sexual stimulation*, I should at least be able to get some intellectual stimulation. Or vice versa.

* = via potential person(s) met at debate-playing public locale, not via either presidential candidate, although one is certainly more stimulating than the other

From Hollywood Blvd to Queens Blvd -- my life is like Entourage inverted.

Please please please give me a reason to stay in this city and a place to keep all of my stuff (without having to move every 3 months). I could be really good in this city, I swear, if I could just afford to stay. Gaby says just make it happen. I know -- there's nothing to it but to do it.

BUT -- I wouldn't mind going back to LA if Venice Arts still has a job for me, 'cause I really love them a lot. It would just be a pain in the ass to move cross-country again.

Made it here safe and sound. Internship environment is good. Harlem is awesome. Friends are better than awesome. Social scene is solid thus far -- both with known friends and meeting new people. Just wishing on, working on the financial and housing stability part.

la la la. Just an update.

( a love letter )
To the city whose birthday I share. Send my regards to Los Angeles.

- LAUNDRY!
- book flight to New York (9/12: hells yeah, Air Tran deal! Although, had I booked it a day earlier, I could have flown the luxurious Virgin Atlantic for the same price. bummer. oh well.)
- call the museum and give them the date, ask about eye brow piercing
- call temp agency and have them transfer my info to one of their NYC offices
- cancel driver's license appt with DMV and with JQ, my naggy but nice instructor
- pack stuff
- ship stuff home to VA
- sell/donate/get rid of whatever stuff i'm not keeping (lamp, fan, iron maybe)
- deposit check, give post office my forwarding address
- create networking rolodex, send emails/thank yous
- LACE 10K (free MOCA tour, refreshments)
- return library book
- lunch w/ the lovely Venice Arts people
- visit Stu and Dan's apt. Again for Entourage on Sunday? (no.)
- other LA farewells as available/ my personal polaroid LA walking tour that I've been secretly planning all summer? (eh, kinda.)
- go to the Griffith Observatory finally
- order. send VA absentee ballot (I know, I know, but I was waiting to find out about where I was going to be and register for CA if I wasn't leaving)
- figure out health insurance (??!)
- change/delete email lists for LA event stuff I'm on.
- get there. make next plan of attack.

new layout. s2, to circumvent the ads from uglifying the page a few degrees. flexible squares is the new generator, apparently. and another thing! i noticed that old livejournal, run by either brad or six apart or whoever, used to send me a nice little email on my birthday saying "happy birthday!" current lj has dispensed with that little pointless pleasantry. i'm a little disappointed.




staying in wouldn't be so bad if i had somebody to stay in with. or at least a tv.

group renditions of the birthday song are one of my all-time favorite birthday gifts, even if (or especially if) over the phone. <3

t-minus 2 hours and 6 minutes until my splendiferous crazy random birthday dinner at the waffle. me, vicki, and 12 boys, at least a quarter of which of which are friends of a friend. let's hope it's hilarity to ensure and not awkwardness.

LATER: it ended up being me, 7 boys, and 1 female friend of a friend, a much more manageable crowd and not painfully awkward. después, andrés y yo went to the short stop, and it was soul sides night, which is %100 percent awesome (60s & 70s soul, latin boogaloo, and a lil samba), even if the crowd is a little off. it was a good b'day, all in all.

http://incite-national.org/index.php?s=137 gustav is coming! don't let your brothers and sisters in the gulf coast down again!

LJ has decided to make the fact that i've been a member since 2003 useless and put ads on basic accounts. when logged in, i can't see them, but my friends without lj accounts will have to deal with the visual offensive-ness, unless they have adblock. this is making me consider getting a paid account again. as some sort of appeasement/incentive, year-long paid accounts are on sale, and anything less than that, which can go for pretty cheap at the cheapest, is not worth it because a month or two later, my friends will have to look at ads again. oh brad, the creator of lj who vowed lj would never have ads, i hope you're enjoying that big pile of money you sold lj for.

so apologies for the icky ads that fuck up my pretty s1 layout. anyone want to chip in for a paid account for my birthday?

maybe i will just move to tumblr.

in the span of mere hours,
things get better.


(but if you feel the need to slather me with self-esteem boosting compliments, i'm all for it.)

god. i have such a degraded internal sense of agency, it's depressing. my biggest fears are anything that i really want. i am such a secret chick lit heroine, it's disgusting.

i gave up on flakey flakey pat and had my first (well, technically fourth, but first this year) driving lesson. i am way too sensitive for this shit. what's worse is that i get embarrassed by how sensitive i am and try to cover it up, which means that instead of learning from my mistakes, i take criticism poorly and get tense. today i recall how emotional driving used to make me. i don't know if my brief month of driving with pat was a good thing or a bad thing because he was so completely hands-off that even though i knew i was making mistakes, i was still a lot more confident about my driving, and maybe weathered them better. whether or not weathering them better meant just not getting so emotional about it or actually learning shit remains to be seen. anyways, two months of not being behind the wheel at all and then suddenly being at the mercy of one of those naggy nitpicky instructors who don't realize that you only get more tense the more they tell you to relax has taken its emotional toll.

i used to imagine the sound of car accidents, the blinding sight of crunched-up metal with light glinting off of shards of splintered glass. i couldn't imagine how or what would happen, but it would be loud and brutal. i think i secretly wanted (want?) this to happen, just to prove myself right ("you can't drive janal!") and be relieved of having to learn at all. however, i know that i can drive and even if i do get into some horrendous accident, no one is going to let me off the hook of perfecting this very handy and necessary skill.

i want to call the driving school and ask for a different instructor, one who will be more warm and gentle and let me feel like i'm making good decisions, but it's probably too late, and i probably deserve the one i got. you know, some kind of emotional challenge i have to hurdle, on top of just making sure i turn with confidence and stop over-checking at 4-way stops. but can your favorite plucky heroine get over herself in a mere week? stay tuned.

i keep telling myself it was smart to chose to move to LA and not new york in order to force me to face these big fears of mine, and it was. i just feel like a big baby. it's almost comforting i look 15.



in other news, that was a really nice way to get my mind off of the fact that i also have no idea where i will be living this time next week.
but let's keep positive. in GOOD news, this morning i discovered the joys of slightly toasted corn tortilla + peanut butter. i think i will go have one now.

New York Magazine has this feature I enjoy called 21 Questions, where they profile prominent New Yorkers -- guess how. One of the twenty-one is "Which do you prefer: the old Times Square or the new Times Square?"

Hollywood Blvd between Vine and Highland, as referenced in my recent (drunken) post, is like having both.

Hollywood Blvd is a big part of my life these days -- I travel several miles of it daily. Parts of it are quite pretty, and parts of it reek of piss. It's incredibly convenient that I live where I live and also very tiring. I can't tell you how I'd feel about LA if I lived and worked some place else within its ambiguous limits.

I can barely tell you how I feel about LA if lived and worked where I do live and work. I need a car and some promise of stability.

hollywood, particularly hollywood blvd between vine and highland, particularly at night, is a veritable wasteland. make no mistake.

top stories:

- Bernie Mac died this morning. He was so young! I really liked him. There's this league of black male comedians who end up in my dog house for being more offensive (either in regards to politics or taste or both) than insightful, and he managed to remain in my good graces. He will be missed. Hopefully, his death will cement Clooney & Co's decision to not make any more Ocean's 11 sequels.

- John Edwards admitted to an affair, and liked to stress that it was in 2006, when Elizabeth's cancer was in remission, so it was almost kind of okay, right? Except he really knows it's not. Thanks so much for trying to cover it up and save the Dems the much unneeded embarrassment.

Although, I am very intrigued in the analyses of why/how the media was so "please let's not talk about this" before he came out with it. I saw way more articles about that than those actually about the affair itself. Lee Stranahan wrote this article regarding why the media should look into the affair, which people flipped their shit about on the DailyKos ("Why would you attempt to sling mud Edwards based on the not credible and guileless Inquirer? Edwards is the only politician who's willing to discuss poverty and therefore not worthy of this sort of filthy reporting.") It's a little glaring how certain mainstream media outlets were so completely unwilling to even entertain the idea of looking into an Edwards affair (LAT hello?)... which I guess is easy for me to say in retrospect now that news is out. However, If he had been any less beloved and not a recent presidential candidate, the media might have gotten the dirt on this sooner, or at least in less of a "let's hope nobody notices" kind of way.
The reason many journalists/commentators cite for not reporting it is that our priorities need to be elsewhere, especially in the current political climate, what with, you know, EVERYTHING. And I definitely agree, but it's foolhardy and too convenient to suggest we as a nation are suddenly above sex scandals. Instead of making a smart move to prioritize other issues by recognizing Edwards' folly and quickly moving on, we inverted our stated values.

If we say sex scandals are unimportant while really just hoping they will blow over so they won't mar the campaign trail, then we're valuing them just as much. If we were to admit they are of interest and looked into, chided/punished Edwards, and moved on, then we haven't committed any hypocritical acts of media bias and let the golden facts ring true (Obama's family is a shining paradigm of warmth and love [so far]). Oh well.

- And for a juxtaposition that really solidifies my credibility as serious:
I really hate how facebook shows a broken heart in the feed when someone suddenly goes from not listing relationship status to appearing as single, and vice versa, a whole heart when someone goes from listing single to removing it altogether. As if being in being single you're missing something, not whole, or just sad. Although there's something to be said for listing nothing as a sign of self-confidence ("I don't need to be validated by relationship status"). On a related note, I remember when the "it's complicated" status first came out and Andrés and I both put it on our profiles (not with each other) for kicks and giggles. I remember wishing you could simultaneously put single and "it's complicated" because aren't the reasons behind all of that complicated? And why isn't there a fill in the blank for "interested in" yet? blah blah too much time spent on facebook, as always.

- Jezebel's Pot Psychology feature is stupid. So stupid, in fact, I'm not going to put a link to it or say anything else. But their Fine Lines feature (where they review young adult fiction from days of yore) makes the blog worth skimming on Fridays.

My family and friend filled weekend was too lovingly swell to dissect piece by piece, but suffice it to say that the time spent in the Bay Area was just the rejuvenation I had been needing. Not to say I'm suddenly stress free -- by any means, I am certainly not -- but suddenly, I have direction. That is such a bizarro statement for me that it took conscientious effort not to type "I have direction?"
The plan is (drum roll please):
[assuming I don't get the Studio Museum thing] stay out here for the time being, racking up resume builders and gradually gradually weening off my parents whilst taking transcript-building classes in art history and studio art. (This will require a job and car for definitely. I have gotten over the self-satisfaction of taking public transit everywhere. There is only so much money and environment you can save before you can't compromise your weeny feminine safety at night any longer. And you know, it'd be nice to do things on my own timetable instead of at the laughable mercy of the MTA's.) By late 2009, I will hopefully be prepared to apply to grad school for a history of art program (but I am also considering various museum/arts admin studies programs or a studio MFA). I would love to go to Pratt, have been thinking about going there for a while. Pratt would situate me in Brooklyn. I'd be there fall 2010 through fall 2011 or spring 2012 approximately, when we'll all be wearing metallic spandex unitards (seriously, having digits in the tens place in the second millennium makes even the near future seem really distant). There's an exciting summer mini-semester in Venice, Italy I could do (and could potentially do next summer, even). Upon having my masters and life experience, I would hopefully be on my way to a job of some sort arts admin pedigree, I suppose in New York (or anywhere?).

And that's the furthest into the future and most specific I can possibly imagine right now. You have no idea (or maybe you know all too well) how hard it is for me to commit to something like this, admit that there is something I could go for, work hard at, enjoy, be proud of myself for. I have a hard time making decisions about and for myself. blah blah low self esteem not talking about it.
My biggest accomplishments this summer were making the effort to regularly floss and go jogging. These things look really small but have been fairly important symbols in my mind, related to making the decision to move out to LA and now this grad school decision.

Let me tell you: I spent the majority of my childhood saying I never wanted to grow up. This was a very conscious desire on my part, a complete lack of willingness to have to deal (I would often cite taxes). In recent years it emerges as a stated lack of desire to have kids and a specific, planned out career (both of which I'm re-evaluating, obviously). mumble mumble something about sexuality/relationships too, if you really want to extrapolate it that far. It goes without saying (but I will) that vaguely "not growing up" is clearly an unrealistic and emotionally unsustainable non-goal. The past year or so has found me suddenly eager to be challenged, to mark growth, to be able to take care of myself and have fun on my terms. I am learning about making decisions, both for long term and for on-going good habits. This sounds like an adolescent challenge to me -- other people figured out (HAD to figure out) this stuff long ago; I knew about this kind of challenge long ago. I guess it's my privilege to have it bite me in the ass now. (I don't really guess, I know.)

I hope that I will stop procrastinating, be inspired and produce work that I'm proud of in the classes I take soon, that my experiences will help erode this lazy self-centered shell of mine, and that I'll find a job I enjoy my chosen industry (arts admin, janelle, just say it). And build self-confidence while I'm at it. something something about love and lovers too but that's another post.

i'm in the midst of my biannual family reunion (my mother's father's family), right outside of oakland. my family is freakin' adorable. i love where i come from so much. all things considered, i am so lucky.

A legion of impossibly good-looking French tourists have descended upon Hollywood, and not a single one has deigned to make eye-contact with me (yet!). I have been thinking about improving my language skills lately, and I've been moved to add learning French to the list.

I didn't get any of the jobs I've mentioned having applied for. Am now looking at some odd jobs in the area to pay the bills and a paid internship at Studio Museum in Harlem, which has let me ruminate on living in New York again. Assuming I don't get it, I'll stay out here. I have booked a flight to NY for Columbus Day weekend (I fly back out of DC though). There's that unsettled-life antsiness again. I feel so uncommitted. I waver between despair and feeling free to do whatever I want (travel? grad school? nothing career oriented?).

I'm headed to Oakland this weekend, and Selma's off to Sudan for 5 months. God bless the internet, else I'd be lost without being able to randomly email her for fashion advice, among other things. I luff that girl.

i am so sick of women telling other women that they are not legit in their shit just because they chose a different path than they. we may not agree on the best possible road to empowerment (whatever end empowerment is supposed to fufill), but we cannot and must not expect all women to go the same way for the same reasons. that's antithetical to the point of feminism and related civil liberties politics -- we must allow for choice and freedom of expression.

this deserves a fuller, more in depth post with structure and reasoning and allathat, but right now it's 3am and i'm drunk and i'm tired of other people comlaining about people not being what they want them to be.