Josh Primm

my high school reunion is coming up and i'm so not going. i didn't run away from home just to willingly walk back to the people i loathe on account of tradition. fuck that...unless Josh Primm is there. there never was a more beautiful man on this earth. the best part is that we were friends, so while other girls stood in awe, we hung out. he came from Seattle, i think, in 9th grade--right when Pearl Jam was getting huge--and he totally had that Eddie Vedder grunge hair-tucked-behind-his-ear-thing going on. there wasn't anything really striking about him. he wasn't this uber muscular, class president jock or anything. he was creative and an amazing artist, but mostly he was just really chill; not to mention adorable. everyone has that person that neither time nor tribulation can diminish from their memory. mine is Josh.

bit of back story: in high school, our mascot was the Kewpie doll. yes, i'm serious. we were little, flying, naked babies. how scary were we at football games? actually, we were good, i think it made the guys feel a little emasculated, so they overcompensated with skillz.

i wrote to Sarah that there was no way i was going to this reunion unless Josh's name was no longer on the "Lost Kewpie" list. if Josh is going, count me in. Sarah wrote me back as said, "I am in agreement about boycotting the reunion unless 30% of our hot Kewpie men are returned safe and sound to us, and since Josh Primm counts as 25% of that 30%, I don't see it happening."

though time and circumstances have drastically changed me since high school -- not to mention, my heart resides solely with another man-- nothing can shake Josh from that little padlocked corner of my heart that belongs to and adores only him. Sarah and i are going to be little 84 yr old ladies rocking in our chairs, between our afternoon naps and canasta, still lusting over Josh.

Knotts ascending

good night, Mr. Furley, godspeed.

digital

i was talking with some friends tonight about digital photography. in preparation for my trip to Nepal, i want to get a digital camera. the thing is that i feel like a fraud using it. i love photography; that, sleeping, sex, swimming, and traveling are all that i live for. love it. eat it for breakfast. miss the darkroom. love it.

anyway, my roots of photography are firmly planted in 35mm black and white film and countless hours in the darkroom. that, to me, is true photography. i guess i'm just a purest like that. i certainly see the benefit of digital. it's definitely beneficial, financially, to know what the pictures look like instantly so you can make the necessary adjustments and give people their moneys' worth. i mean, i want a digital camera so that, as i'm flying along the Himalayan Mounts, i know what i've taken and come home with only amazing shots. i grant digital that. however, that doesn't stop me from feeling like it's a short cut to claiming photography. in any photographic situation, you have to have an artistic eye, and so maybe that's where the talent comes in. but, you're not actually taking the picture. you're setting up the shot for the camera to take the picture. the camera adjusts the focus. hell, i've seen cameras where the viewfinder looks like the inside of the Terminator's eye and all you have to do is tell the camera which section of the grid to focus on and it does everything for you. that's...pussy photography.

i guess i feel like you can't fully appreciate film/classic photography without knowing the process; for example Ansel Adams. now, when i first started learning photography, i didn't really like Ansel. i didn't get it. everyone raved about his photos and all i saw was Yosemite National Park. i didn't see what the big deal was. then i started developing my own black and white photos. now, i get it. i totally fucking get it. to look at his pictures and the grayscale...my God, it's incredible. the sheer range of his grayscale is astounding. there are no places in his shots that are too dark or too white. it's technically perfect. i couldn't appreciate him before the darkroom, because i never knew the work that went into it. it wasn't until i tried--and failed many, many times--to do it that i understood what everyone was raving at.

in any given picture you take, obviously, you have many shades and tones. some parts of the picture are pitch black and other parts are pure white. in order to equalize the photo, you have to dodge and burn the hell out of the picture. you have to apply and limit varying degrees of light to bring out every detail, but not over or underexpose the photo. Ansel shots of pine trees are incredible because you can see every little detail. depending on the sun position, the F-stop and numerous other factors, whole sides of trees could've been in complete darkness because of the shade. he manipulated the developing process to achieve a perfect picture. same with his mountains. you can see snow drifts and ridges where, you know, the sun was probably reflecting intensely off of the snow.

it's impossible to appreciate the photo without ever being in a darkroom. it's loving Hip-Hop, but not liking Black people. to really know and understand the music, you have to know its origins.

that's not to say that digital photography doesn't have its own set of learned skills. i don't know how to use photoshop. i'm certain it's fairly complicated. that, however, is not photography. that's computer graphics. once you alter the picture, in anyway, on the computer it now belongs to the world of computer technology. you didn't physically create that picture. you created the base. it's like residential foundation layers claiming they built the house. they certainly created the structure on which the house was built, but that's all they did. the aesthetic beauty of the house is not their doing.

there is a time when digital photography is art. when you've created a photo that was intended to dramatically distort reality, then you've created art. if you take a picture of a tree frog, turn it periwinkle, and give it wings, you created a different kind of art. it's not organic photography, though. it's one step away from CGI.

even if you take film photography and opt to go into digital, that's fine, but you have to have to initial knowledge and awareness. i don't think you can truly call yourself a photographer until you, at the very least, know what film developing entails. it'd be me calling myself a painter, but only using my Microsoft Paint program. until i've mixed my colors, prepped my canvas and put brush to paint, i'm not a true painter.

lost

you know you've lost respect and political clout when The NY Times refers to you as "Mr. Bush," instead of "President Bush." let's be serious, Bush couldn't have possibly thought that this would go smoothly.

dumbass.

ah, sense

it's no big secret to those who know me that reason and common sense rarely enter into my decisions. certainly there are times when it should (driving in one of the worst snowstorms of the year with record accumulations), but fuck it. i'm not going to limit myself to responsible thinking. where's the fun in that? besides, how will you know where your limits are until you push them? in the case of the snowstorm, see, that was my limit. i don't care how much a dig the person i'm seeing, i'm not driving for an hour on a road so snowcovered that there are no distinct lanes. i love him, but be serious.

tonight i was talking to Andrea and on the Pitchfork website they were talking about the upcoming Sasquatch! Music Festival in Washington state. This concert couldn't be better tailored for me if i picked the bands out myself. it's the whole last weekend of May, but the best day is Sunday. on the mainstage they have: Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, Queens of the Stone Age, Matisyahu, The Decemberists, Nada Surf, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Blue Scholars. i have no idea who Matisyahu or Blue Scholars are, but the rest are part of my current playlist. then to see them all in one day would be amazing...except Death Cab. i love Death Cab, but they fucking suck live. i saw them on SNL and had to turn it off. that shit was just hard to watch. anyway, so it's $40/ person and car. we could camp out and shit--the area is gorgeous--and just chill while listening to music.

so, i'm telling Andrea about all of this and she's getting excited. we were trying to work out how to swing this escapade. the most logical...well, my version of logic...way of doing this would be to fly out to Oregon and stay with my aunt in Eugene. hang out with her, make some smoothies, take a dip in the pool, hug a tree, and then drive up to George, WA. before we got too excited, i wanted to see how far the festival would be from Sloan's. we could get officially excited if the drive wasn't prohibitively far. man, that mutherfucker is a 6 hour drive. that's just too much damn work. i'd have to fly to St. Louis, drive to Columbia to pick Andrea up, fly out to Oregon, and then drive to WA. we'd stay for a weekend just to turn around and fly home. then i'd have to take her back home and then fly back out to the East coast my damn self. that seems like a whole lot of work for one, albeit incredible, concert.

see! i'm maturing. i'm recognizing when something is just good, ol' fashioned stupid. not only recognizing it, but rationally acting accordingly. although, i can't lie, i'm still really tempted. what can i say? old habits die hard. besides, one should only have two truly insane trips a year to keep life interesting. i already did the snow and next is Nepal. my quota's filled.

rice krispie... treat?

i was at work today and for a sweet fix i bought a rice krispie treat. that bastard was like biting into a thick piece of sweet cardboard. i joked around with Sarah saying that i should sue if the roof of my mouth starts bleeding from the dry, jagged edges. that's when i realized it was false advertising.

it's not so much a rice krispie "treat," so much as a rice krispie "financial obligation," seeing as how i already paid for it.

and...

if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with.

ah, of course

i was in Wal-Mart tonight buying shampoo and conditioner. i was in line to check out when the guy on the intercom was doing the 5 minute warning and accidentally said the wrong time. now, he still had the intercom on and instead of pausing for a second, collecting his thoughts, and then speaking, i guess he thought it would be more funny if he just kept rolling.

upon being told that he'd said the wrong time, he actually said...into the intercom,

"Sorry for the incorrection of time."

i'm not kidding, because i'm not that funny.

then it occurred to me: there's a reason he works at Wal-Mart.

love jones

i just finished watching Love Jones and it totally reminds me of my second year of college. we used to wear that soundtrack out. to this day, i can't think of a single soundtrack to a movie i love more than that. it's just so fly. it's got a little bit of jazz, some Kenny Lattimore, and the sickest song by the Refugee Camp Allstars.

those were the days when i would live in the cultural center. back when Marc and i ran shit and our idea of "programming" was Game Night with Da Bomb and Kaboom. yes, i've been silly since the day i was born. what's better in an intensely rigorous college than a night of playing Connect Four and Candyland? you're goddamn right, nothing. well, maybe building a Lego castle.

for a time, our lives revolved around that movie. not to say that the poetry in it was particularly good, but the idea of ultimate expression and, at least in the movie, love was appealing. those were the days when i was heavy into poetry. i used to organize events with the Anti-Imperialist poets from NYC. Mike Ladd was an alum and just the coolest guy you'd ever want to meet. Mike, Saul Williams, and Tony Medina--to name a few-- all crowded in The Tavern reading their shit and having a good time. we'd hook them up with food and hotels, but they'd end up crashing on our couches and floors after late night sessions and talks. that was the year i drove up to upstate NY to hear Ferlinghetti read. 3 hours i drove to a packed little town hall or something, literally, in the middle of nowhere. it was great.

every once in awhile, i pick up my book of poetry. oh, make no mistake, i don't write it. well, we all go through that phase at some point in their lives, but mine--rightfully and thankfully--didn't last long. however, i have this book of various poems that i've collected along the way and like to read from time to time. actually, just a few weeks ago, i stayed up and reread some T.S. Eliot. i forgot how much i love The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

it always reminds me of the first time i read it in high school. during the summer, my father--the English professor--would assign me...and pay me...to read a collection of literature. one summer it was Russian novels. another summer it was Shakespeare. my favorite summer was American classics. we would sit on the deck in the sun and read The Sound and The Fury together. we covered everything.

[i should mention that i love those summers now. then, i was 16, hot, and sick of reading shit i barely understood. school was over, dammit. the summer of the Russian literature was when my mother scored her first major cool points with me. i needed the money, but didn't want to spend the next 15 years of my life reading War and Peace. so, my mother--partially because she had us for the summer and refused to yield precious little time on account of my crazy father--paid me NOT to read War and Peace. oh, the rare joys of divorce.]

anyway, the first time i read T.S. Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock he was sitting on the floor and i was laying on the bed reading out loud with my trusty pen. oh, you didn't think he would have me just read, did you? oh, no, i took notes, connected themes, notated other literary references, and translated; the works. every now and then, i think back on who i used to be. back before the world came crashing down around me. i wonder if i could ever get it back. i suppose it's not really gone, just lost to me, right now. one day i'll be able to read a poem or experience a reading and feel myself thaw a bit. i've misplaced my rose colored glasses for now. i've been looking for them, lately. not, necessarily, to permanently wear again, but...you know, just to have them.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

naps

what constitutes as a nap? is there a particular time frame? all week i've been grumpy and physically and emotionally drained. so i went to breakfast this morning with my friend and we had some mimosas and went over wedding details. as we're talking, i felt myself actually feeling drunk.

oh, by the way, breakfast was at 9am and i had to be at work by 11am. it, obviously, wasn't my intention to go to work drunk, but i've been so tired and not eating well, if at all, that my body just soaked up the liquor and started to knock me out. so, i called out from the restaurant. as Sarah so wisely pointed out, i couldn't even fake it today. there are days where you can force yourself through; just suck it up and push on. today was not that day. anyway, i got home around 11:30am or 12pm. by 1:30pm, i was in bed passed the fuck out. i didn't wake up until 5:30 this evening. i'm still pretty tired, but i definitely feel better.

all of that being said, is a nap a matter of sleep placement in the day? or is it the length of sleep time? does 1:30-5:30pm constitute a nap or did i just fall asleep in the middle of the day? if you're up all night, can you nap from 2-3:30 in the morning? i don't know, but i sure feel better. i was actually able to eat tonight and carry on coherent conversations.

ah, a sick day well spent.

flowers

never underestimate the power of a dozen roses. as long as they're not "baby, baby, please" roses, it's a good look.

i was having the crappiest day. i was tired, achy, and grumpy. i was at work and had just finished a rant when they told me something was waiting for me at the information desk. nothing soothes the nerves and calms the commotion like tangible love. don't misunderstand, i'm not, by any means, a romantically materialistic girl. i'm not a "diamonds are a girl's best friend" kind of person at all. i certainly like my things, but never as a measure of love.

all of that being said, having flowers sent to you is just so...nice. there in all of its red petaled, baby breath glory is evidence that someone was thinking about me and wanted me to know that they love me. i dig it.

now my apartment smells all per-ty.

Nepal

cool idea + love for adventure+ bad timing + Maoist rebels = Nepal.

my father and i are going to Nepal in less than a month and i'm simultaneously excited and scared of this trip. the funny thing is that i'm not as scared of the Maoists as i am with me having somehow fucked up the reservations. i'm the family travel agent and i've never planned a trip of this distance or magnitude before. booking Curacao and the Bahamas was a breeze. plus, it was comforting knowing that we were going to places that were relatively close to home. Nepal? if i fuck up here, we're assed out in the heart of central Asia. so, it's a little bit of pressure. i know that i did everything that i needed to and we have our tickets and passports ready to go, but there are so many things that could go wrong. maybe that's why i haven't been eating well, lately. my stomach is all in knots.

it's cool traveling with my dad because he's as easy going a traveler as i am. i know i'm fairly high strung in many aspects of my life, but traveling is my greatest calm...after swimming and the darkroom. i'm most confident traveling and taking photos. our perspective is that even if things get totally fucked, wherever we are, it's something new. it's all an adventure. no one said adventures were all good, but they are all memorable. the best part about Nepal with my father is that he's more excited about it than i am. yes, there's lots of violence. yes, the Maoists don't seem to have a sense of humor. even knowing all of that, this is going to be an amazing experience. i can't even claim that i didn't know about all of the unrest when i got the tickets. dad and i talked a lot about it. we explored other options and countries, but everything pales in comparison to a place as remote and exotic as Nepal. i mean, we're going on a jungle safari on elephant-back. how fucking hot is that?

i recognize it's not the brightest idea, but i'm really looking forward to it. mostly i'm excited about my photography. this trip is going to be a huge part of building my portfolio and starting my company. i have lots of other shots, but this sort of trip is really a once in a lifetime adventure. as for the violence, that's not going anywhere anytime soon. the Maoists have been at this for a solid decade. we either would have to abandon Nepal all together or risk it.

we're only going to be there for a week and staying informed and traveling smart will minimize the chances of something happening. i've been thinking a lot of if, for whatever reason, i don't make it back. one of the beauties of loving as openly and fiercely as i do is that i rarely have regrets. the regrets i have are with making an ass out of myself or misreading a situation. even if things don't turn out the way i want, i never regret loving the way i do. at least i tried. regret's a useless emotion, primarily because whatever it is i would be regretting was within my grasp and i was just too chicken shit to do anything about. so, i don't really believe in regret. admittedly, i'm only emotionally available to a very select few, but the best part is that there's never a need for last words or anything. everyone i love knows it... even if i've never directly said it.

it's a little crazy, but i'm excited. i never claimed to be a rational or sane person. besides, dad's going with me. crazy is always more fun with company.

Oh VA

there are those few choice people that can totally make someone's day. Va is mine. i was in the worst funk today. it started out fine, but the more the day went on-- and the things sunk in-- the more i just wanted to be left alone.

yesterday, i made a dip shit call and did something fairly stupid. few things are worse than overestimating your place and importance with people. so, i'm an idiot and all of that was dawning on me a few hours ago.

i'm sitting there on my couch being all mopey and starting to seriously get annoyed with my silly little mind-- i mean, i wasn't even laughing at That 70's Show-- when i checked my email and there she was. it's so nice having someone be a fan of yours for no particular reason. granted, i'm funny and have my moments, but i'm not some amazing creature or fantastically smart or anything. i'm just a girl with a raging abandonment complex turning a suspicious eye to the world and laughing because the pain is just so staggering.

Va is totally one of my kind. a perfect mixture of wit, intellect, humor, and sarcasm peppered with an appropriate amount of boredom. i can dig it.

Va, you totally made my night. by the way, you should check out my profile. i updated in light of the string of crazy men today.

quote

"If they [House Republicans] are not worried about next November, they are whistling past the graveyard," said Joe Gaylord, a Republican consultant...."

That made me laugh. Maybe, if we can't, or won't, impeach Bush, Dems can get control of the house and cockblock him like a jealous ex-girlfriend. I suppose, in an ironic way, we have DeLay to thank for this.

Ah, perhaps a light at the end of this dangerously tyrannical tunnel.