Don't You Want to Share the Guilt?

I dont know how more people havent got mental health problems
Thinking is one of those stressful things I've ever come across

And not being able to articulate what I want to say drives me crazy

I think I should read some more books

Learn some new words
My sister used to read the dictionary
I'm going to start with that
I'd like to travel
I want to see India and the pyramids
A whale and that race with all the bicycles in France
I'm not sure about rivers, they scare me
But I love swimming, I'm good at it
And when I swim I count the laps
And this helps me relax
When I was younger I saw a house burn down
I walked past it for the next six years
Derelict, black, chalky and dangerous
I wondered if squatters lived there
I'm still not sure but I know there will never be parties cuz its a shit-hole
After a while the council got round to tidying the town
They decided it was an eyesore so they tore it down
Behind the house was a wall with a few bits of crabby graffiti and the word 'Cunt' written in giant letters
And now I walk past that
I like going to the park
And I like walking through it
I like taking my dogs there
And friends, and I like being alone
I like being able to shout
But I wish I could be quiet
When I'm quiet people just think I'm sad
And usually I am
Sometimes when I'm at a really noisy train station
Somewhere with the fast trains like Kings Cross
I feel like putting down my bags and shouting things out because I've got something to say.

-Kate Nash

Independence Day in Harrisburg.

Riverfront Park, Harrisburg, PA.

July 4th, 2010

Egyptain Bellydancers

popcorn hat players

mexican food, I believe

I'm sorry Jean-Luc, but I do need a life....

Besides my massive need to do nothing but watch Star Trek: The Next Generation this summer (which I've had to force myself to take a slight break from due to way too much watching), I've managed to do a few things. Although, I feel really guilty from my lack of photo-ing (which I blame on the the lack of adventures in my life, but that is a huge lie). Anyways, this is a brief

overview of the past week.

My last saturday of June was spent at a yard sale for my youth group. We sold about a hundred dollars worth of stuff, (not our goal but pretty good for little advertisement and such), and besides it being massively hot and getting sick because of it and little sleep. I found a liger, which brought back so many childhood memories, and anger (seriously wtf happen to Cartoon Network after the early 00's?).

Later that night I went to drive-in for not only the first time this summer, but the first time in several years. I have memories of the last time I went being when the Hey Arnold movie came out, but that can't be true because that would have been a really long time ago. Seriously. The drive in is doing much better then people have led it to sound. It was packed, (I'm not sure if

that was because Toy Story 3 was playing). Becky had borrowed her mom's car and it has this charming quality of changing the radio station without anyone touching it, so we probably annoyed a few people in the process. Her daughter, who is about a year and a half, probably thinks the movies means you get food. ha. It was nice to hang out with her since it had been awhile.

The next morning, after a little sleep (staying up to watch the last episode of this season Doctor Who was more important), I dragged myself to church because the current pastor was retiring and they were holding a party for him.

After the retirement party my aunt was having a garden party so we went up to her house in the mountains. The presentation was okay but the food and things afterwards were more fun. My cousin's kids were quite amusing, the girls kept sticking their heads in the fountain to cool off, and little Will had all kinds of things all over coloring his white beater, which was pretty cute.

Not much happened for the next couple of days. Some work, more work but on thursday my dad took us to D.C. because he wanted to see one of the museums done there that had been closed when we had went down there two years ago. We parked like over twenty blocks away from the mall, so it took a good bit of time to walk there (and then back later). We took a tour of the U.S. Capital (not all of it, just a couple of the rooms), which wasn't very long, and they talked a bunch about statues (which I guess are very important).

I was a little less excited about the walking around in the heat (the breeze was nice thou) and I was pretty much tired and thirsty the whole time. We walked back around the capital to the mall after that to the Museum of American History which wasn't that interesting to most of us. I did find a display of older cameras which was probably my favorite thing there, because the costumes from the Lion King Broadway musical they had on display. It kind of amazes me the things they consider items to put in there. I mean, Willie Nelson's old beat up sneakers are considered history? I can understand displaying dresses from the most famous jazz singers, but sneakers? Maybe that's just me. Although, I thought being able to see most of Julia Child's kitchen was pretty interesting.

After that I wanted to go the folk festival that they were holding in the mall but, no one really wanted to go to it besides me (and thankfully we left when we did or we would have been stuck in rush hour traffic forever). We treked back to the car and after getting stuck in traffic out of D.C. to Baltimore we stopped in a diner in Maryland for dinner and didn't get back home till super late.

And besides work on friday and today, that was my week in general. 4th of July plans? Nah, but I hope I can enjoy my day off, because I work six days out of seven next week. super.

2010 movie count: no movies. see below.

STNG count: Almost finished with season five. It's all I watch.

5 Reasons Why Twilight Annoys Me

New York Reflections (or probably the longest blog I've even written)

Every year for Easter I head to the Bronx for Easter. My grandparents and great-grandparents on my mom side were members of a German based Club off the ocean front (if you can count the Long Island Sound as ocean front). I put a lot of hype into the weekend even though as I get older the trill of it lessens. I'm at that point in my family that I don't fit in with the children, but I can't really identify with adults. (I know I'm 21 but I think I'm rather immature.)

Anyways.... The first day (Friday) we got to New York I spent like a half an hour in my Nana's, my great-grandmother, basement. She actually has a system of strings so that you can turn a light on from one side of a room to the other. And she has a root cellar. You probably don't even know what a root cellar is (wiki). Her whole house is suck in the 40's.

Usually the first night we are up there we get Chinese food for dinner but my mom had to do my Nana's taxes so we didn't have time to get there so we ran down the street to get pizza. Later that night we went to the Club bar and I tired a mudslide. There was way too much rum in it, but then again I not really a drinker.

Saturday we went to MoMA (I wanted to see the Tim Burton exhibit), because I had successfully managed to convince my mom to take us there because it takes less than an hour on the subway, and than five blocks from there. Over the years I had this jagged view that the subway was scary… it really wasn’t. There were some interesting people on the train, most of them asleep, and a lot listening to music. I didn’t make eye contact and prayed my grandmother would stop chatting with strangers, just in case. I’m usually over paranoid.

I wasn’t ready for how huge everything is. The moment we got out of the subway the first thing I did was look up and all I could see was the massive buildings. At one point when I was looking out the museum windows you would think the weather had changed from sunny to completely rainy. No. It was the shadows that some buildings made on others.

My mom had brought a membership to the museum because the exhibit had been sold out for the weekend. It was nice because the lines were pretty much insane. I usually enjoy museums, but this one was way too busy, you couldn’t walk anywhere without running into someone, and someone running into you without saying sorry. There where tons of hipster European tourists especially the French.

It may just be my opinion but when you go to a museum you are supposed to look at the art, but everyone was standing in front of it taking photos, especially in front of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. You can find a picture of it on the Internet; why would you take a picture of it when you can look at it? I want to see the brush strokes (which is something I’ve always wanted to see). Seeing Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was an experience. I’ve been told in my Art History class that some of these pieces are large, but it isn’t until you see a person standing in front of it that you realize how large it is.

Other artists I’ve learned about in class that I saw (long list, go): Cindy Sherman, Mondrian, Beckman, Malevich, Kandinsky, Rousseau, Matisse, Richard Avedon, etc. Some other works I enjoyed was a piece from Yin Xiuzhen series the Collective Subconscious (in which she altered a mini-van and stretched it out) Ernesto Neto’s Navedenga (I’m not sure how to describe that). I got to see Richard Avedon’s Golden Marilyn Monroe piece, not only do I love the fact it was much larger than the size I’m used to but he’s managed to capture some of her vulnerability. I got to see the famous Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cups (which were as long as a gallery wall), some Jackson Pollock’s, an artist I became really interested in High School.

Of course I can’t by without mentioning Marina Abromovic’s exhibit The Artist is Present. My sister walked and said, “What the hell is this?” I was basically thinking the same thing but I wasn’t going to mention it out loud. The idea of trying to blend performance art in a museum setting seems, some one said somewhere, was impossible. I’m not sure why she does some of the pieces she does, but for me its something that goes along with the shock value. In Modern Art class my professor mentioned that many artists do things just because they know they will shock people, and I know that I can respect her work for that reason. It made me uncomfortable, and that isn’t a negative thing. I read up on her and she’s done some pretty intense stuff, like spending a twelve days in a three-room structure allowing the audience to watch her in the process. Currently she is spending every day that MoMA is open during her duration sitting in the same chair for the whole day not moving, almost a living statue. If that it isn’t dedication to art, I don’t know what is.

The first thing we saw was the Tim Burton exhibit. I’m not going to lie I felt rather let down by the experience, but it wasn’t with Burton’s art but it was because of the massive amount of people in there. You had squeeze your way into see anything. I had no idea about the amount of work he puts into his films, the amount of sketches, and notes written down on paper. Also all sketches he done his entire life, the walls are covered in them. I’m becoming a huge fan of stop-motion animation so seeing the puppets from Nightmare Before Christmas and the Corpse Bride where a treat. My mom enjoyed his witty pieces like, “Undressing her with his eyes” where a mans eyes were literally undressing a girl. My grandmother loved anything to do with Edward Sissorhands. In general I think the trip to MoMA is something my family won’t forget for a while, and will probably annoy me about for awhile because none of them are much of Modern Art fans, and especially the Artist is Present exhibit.

After going to the museum we passed by some famous stops, like St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Rockefeller Center, and Radio City Music Hall. After getting off the subway we got a late lunch of White Castle. My mom took us to the area where she grew up.

Easter Sunday went by very quickly. Before dinner I went to church with my grandmother, and her small church is so much more diverse than my large church. There was a lady with a Jamaican accent, a guy from near Russia, and a Korean couple named Lee. It was kind of refreshing that her church seemed so much closer than mine. I barely remember dinner. Afterwards everyone went to the beach (I mean that sarcastically because its pretty much just a thin strip of sand now), and when the family left I stayed with my mom and grandmother at the bar as they talked to people we don’t see very often. I ended up talking to a distant cousin more last night then I have in my whole life. We went to my uncle’s shop after that, and I got to witness the comedy act of him and his friend, as they had switch glasses to see text messages. I don’t think they are too much older than my mom?! It was pretty funny.

Later that night I ran after the Mr. Softies Ice Cream truck (there has been an ice cream truck where I live in years), and the weekend was pretty much over. We left this morning, and I’m really tired. I can never sleep in my Nana’s house. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.

I'm going to post some more photos on my flickr pretty soon. I was fighting with blogger way too much just to get that amount on.

In non New York related news, I may get to go on a couple extra vacations this summer, and the new series of Doctor Who started. Matt Smith’s doctor right now reminds me a bit too much of David Tennet’s right now, and some of the same plot lines from other series are surfacing already, but I enjoy it so far, and I’m sure it’ll get better.

2010 movie count: 50 (Last seen Bringing Up Baby, I’m developing a Cary Grant/Katherine Hepburn obsession)

STNG count: hell, I haven’t watched this show in a million years. Eventually I’ll get back on it.

P.S. Two Door Cinema is frikin’ amazing. Hannah can always call good music. Always. She never fails.

My mothers creative writing journals from the early 80's. The tape impression is funny, especially since it kind of disappeared in the 20 + years. I also quite like them because it makes me feel like there is a bit of her in me. Granted I think she mostly wrote poetry, and I'm more of a creative writing person, but its nice to know that you have something in common. Because it sometimes seem like my brother and my sister have all the attention because my sister is smart, and my brother is probably going to get a cross country scholarship one day because he is that good. I mean those are both things my mom was good at. But knowing that she used to write and take photos makes me feel included too. I wish I had more in common with my dad. I try- but he doesn't take well to me making comments on his photography- and he hasn't done it in forever.

Snows days are for....

Inspired by Hannah Good, who's creativity I am insanely jealous of & large 'bouts of avoiding homework (this is what I do with old converses):