in search of lost time

i've been home for the past week. it's been wonderful. for the first time i'm realizing how much i enjoy each one of my family's unique presences. being home also abates, temporarily, the homesickness i try to suppress when living on my own. i used to eschew the familiar in favor of the new, but there's a great comfort in things you can revisit and still feel happy.

some themes have been recurring in my thoughts:

-the meaning of passion relative to your age
-maintaining integrity in the face of change
-how to mark time within the scope of your lifespan
-glass and paper and wire

room temperature

i finished bernard schlinker's the reader this morning but it has yet to let me out of its blue-green world.
accordingly, the sky started to rain and i had one of my more pensive walks in a while.
overall i am happy and ready to pack up for the year; a lot happened in 2010.

last work of 2010

just like honey (2010) is equally a product of every lyric from the 1985 shoegaze classic, psychocandy, as it is a product of living in one of the world's most bewildering megacities. living in close quarters with 3.6 million other people, i can only think of the honeycomb as a way to represent the resonance yet separation that i feel towards my neighbors. each cell, each city corner holds a different image of existence. i can't help but think that these images are a macrocosm of the events and memories we hold inside our own bodies, and which allow us to have sympathy for others.

growth

as my plane coasted into texas over the barren november landscape i thought to myself, to live in texas is to know a land that lives and dies. i'm not quite sure what that thought meant. in new england the world always seemed to go to sleep under a gentle blanket of snow that unfailingly yawned awake; in california the world never sleeps, encased as it is in a perpetually lit greenhouse. nothing dies but here. here the grass is always in some state of growth and retreat, sinking its roots into the dusty ground from which everything was born. pressing your body into the brambles it scratches you, threatening you with death and forcing you to breathe life all at the same time.

shrink wrap

over the past unemployed months i've somehow become a how-to guide for losing weight. seriously. i ate a box of ice cream sandwiches within the last two days and even that couldn't weigh me down. the least i can do is share my wisdom, and then go get checked for tapeworms.

1. stop drinking. this cuts down on alcohol calories, and associated munchies. see: the mozzarella sticks and tofu wings at the late night diner right below my college apartment.
2. stop eating other people's food. see: all the office birthdays we celebrated with cupcakes.
3. but, eat your roommate's snacks instead of buying your own. the guilt and attempt at cover-up will make you snack less.
4. sit on your ass and let your muscle tone deteriorate (muscles weigh more than fat, yo!)
5. have impromptu dance parties with yourself. 1 hour of shaking it to janet jackson burns approximately 6000 calories.
6. develop a relationship with your local donut shop lady. you'll feel bad about asking your friend to make you a donut.

alternately: read michael pollan and vow to never eat from this industrial food chain again.

90s hits that are also new wave films

the corrs - breathless - jean luc godard
the cranberries - dreams - ingmar bergman

significance? i'm not sure. all i know is that i spent too much time reliving my natalie imbruglia love affair this morning (any movies named 'torn'??).

silent light

just another day wrecking my room in the name of installation art!