new york city/3.

mom and baxter walking the labyrinth in union square.



me and ben not walking it.



tess and ben.

new york city/2.

me in/at moma.



mom in/at moma.



us in/at moma.



textures in/at moma.


i enjoyed MoMA. i would write more but i mean, it was enjoyable. ok? interesting exhibits.

i really enjoy going to museums like that with really impressive collections, collections large enough and well-organized enough (PLEASE don't get me started on el prado) so that you can really see how art is developing, how the influence of one artist or a group of artists can reverberate for generations. i find it fascinating. oh, especially since we just covered becker and "art worlds" in my class. how cool would that be? "well, class-today we're going on a field trip to MoMA" (you lucky bastards!!)

anyway, i'll let that be it for this entry. still one more little group of pictures to post. what a difficult life i lead ("NOT" a la Borat).

by the way, have you seen that movie?

charity :)

new york city/1.

light and crowds on fifth avenue.



ben and me in central park. we were watching the ice skaters with mom and baxter after austin went to work.



in front of radio city music hall. baxter, get off the phone! oh, you.



mom at the tree at roc-a-fella center.



baxter was there too.

the miraculous healing of sam.

so i went to the vet yesterday who, although not my normal vet, dr. adams, was very nice and kind. she said sam was very good and kept saying it to all the techs who came in to help ("just hold him still, but it shouldn't be bad, sam is VERY good. he's a very sweet kitty").

it turns out sam's kneecap is not as securely housed by the groovy part of the knee bone in which it rests as it should be. so, sometimes if he jumps on it wrong, it can become inflamed, and keep coming out of place. this is also, incidentally, why he prefers sitting like this:





poor dear. she game him an anti-inflammatory, anti-pain shot, and although he's still walking with a limp, it is much less pronounced, and he is definitely on the road to recovery. he's a trooper. it won't be long before he's back to his frisky self:





the vet said if it continues to be a problem, he can have surgery. i think that will have to wait until i have a real job, though. let's hope he learns how to take care of it himself... anyway, thanks for any thoughts you might have sent his way. we all appreciate it.



oh, and another image from the textures and shapes collection.


take care, you!
charity :)

early december in photos.

this is a car i saw the other day. read closely. and enjoy.



ben's hands.



ben doesn't like having his picture made.



this morning when sam woke up, he couldn't walk without limping. he cries very loudly when he stands up. i'm taking him to the vet this afternoon. please be thinking about him, if you will.

very early november in photos.

above:part of a study of shapes and textures.
below: sam the pawlicker.




above: max the maximum.
below: close inspection.

anger and boogers.

hi.

i have been meaning to post some pictures on this here blog. i have several from recent non-adventures. instead, what finally got me back on here was this guy i ran into today. i don't know his name, so in order to avoid sounding impersonal, i'll just call him snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron.

today i was walking down the sidewalk with my soy latte, my guilty pleasure from starbucks. i had just been reading over my dissertation proposal, basking in the beauty of its continuing improvement, toying with the idea that maybe someday i'll be a real academic whose work is published in real sociological journals. i remembered with joy what it sounded like to hear "your masters degree will technically be awarded january": the frustration of having to wait so long was immediately replaced by overwhelming pride in a job done. i was enjoying the beautiful day and the snuggly scarf my mom knitted so long ago she can't even remember, when i saw a guy walking towards me.

when i said the man (soon to earn the title of snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron) was walking towards me, i mean exactly that: he was veering diagonally across the sidewalk towards me. confused at his seemingly erratic behavior, i realized he was covering his entire face with his gloved hand, apparently blowing every face orifice into what i hope and fear was a used handkerchief of the type that the fuddy-duddy-englishmen-type carry.

seeing that he was headed straight towards me, i remembered how only this morning i vowed to take good care of myself so i would not get the flu, even though i (foolishly perhaps) decided not to get a flu shot. too late, i realize now, i called out "excuse me!" a split second later, he smashed into me, spilling my coffee all over me and knocking me off balance-- and off the sidewalk.

"JESUS!" i cried out, perhaps calling out to Jesus to please not let this nasty snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron infect me with his grossness, perhaps just expressing the intense exasperation i felt at having been completed ignored. is it unreasonable, i ask, to expect people walking down the sidewalk to pay attention to wear they are going? to who they might run into? especially when they are sick and in the process of grossly, publicly, disposing of their illness productions, however ineffectively?

then, to my surprise, and the part that forced me to share this gross story with you:

"PLEASE! I COULDN'T SEE YOU BECAUSE I WAS BLOWING MY NOSE." i heard him snap at me as i walked on, shaking my shoes off and inspecting my jeans. my ears perked up when i heard him, and i made a face that said "what the hell?" but didn't turn to face him.

"ASSHOLE," concluded snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron, so loud that i heard him over the disco jazz playing in my headset, even though he was several feet away by then.

hmm. sigh.

i walked on, back to work, shaking my head in wonder.

people say i'm mean sometimes. i think i'm pretty nice. no... i can't let that slide. i'm not that nice. i can be mean. and speaking of mean, there are a lot of things i wish i had said to snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron. so many things.

but i didn't say anything. why? because i was foolish enough to learn manners growing up? because i have learned my place as a girl/lady/woman? that i'm supposed to put up with rude asshole men treating me like i'm invisible, like i'm worth no more that a common handkerchief? that as such, i'm not allowed to speak up for myself and under no circumstances am i supposed to be rude?

oh, you showed me, snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron. i forgot all my teachings but you showed me with your rough talk. i'll know better in the future. i won't expect common courtesy in the future. if i make the idiotic mistake to do so, i won't bother standing up for myself and i promise, snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron, i promise i'll never insult you, you fucking asshole snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron.

trying not to externalize. trying not to externalize. the thing is, i'm not going to internalize anymore either. and that's kind of what women are taught to do growing up.

it has been so hard to learn how to let stuff like this go. but i'm trying.

snot-nosed-jerk-face-moron is just lucky that the reverend al green came on to soothe the savage beast (me). i just hope i didn't get SARS or the avian flu or whatever widespread epidemic is (not) going around this season.

charity >:)

sexual chocolate.

maybe the funniest thing ever.
did you get some in YOUR halloween basket?

from Coming to America (1988).

images (passing the time while my car is inspected).

it's official...



WHO's old?



free coffee (if you'll go through the trouble of scraping it off the bottom of the decanter...)



straw flower.



richard is never dull.



me, looking strange.



gumballs.



camera case? or MONSTER?!?



you talkin' to me?!

random varied images (i went home this weekend).

traffic. i wasn't able to leave until thursday at about 4. i caught all the people looking forward to a long weekend.
at least i tried.



yoda stretching. i love this cat. i wish you could know how soft he is.
if you do, you already know you're lucky.



my little brother isaac doing something very mysterious/mischevious with the ginger sauce. oh, but he loves the ginger sauce...



my elderly lady tubby. i love this cat. she is unbelievably beautiful.
evidence of god? maybe.



mom squeezing richard's eyes out.
(lovingly, of course...)

baxter and austin pic; charity survey.

here's a sweet picture of my sweet brother and his sweet wife.

and here's a silly survey from me.

1. Who was your first prom date?
my best friends. i never had a date-date.

2. Who was your first roommate?
patsy/lorraine was my first roommate at college.

3. What alcoholic beverage did you first drink?
everclear and koolaid. then i had newcastle. it's no wonder i still prefer beer over liquor.

4. What was your first job?
cashier at the fresh market; across the street from guilford college, which is my current dream job.

5. What was your first car?
82 buick regal. bro-bro. the only car i've ever had with automatic windows and door locks. and velvet interior. very fancy, just old. like me. :)

6. When did you go to your first funeral?
at age 5, my grandpa ralph. very sad.

8. Who was your first grade teacher?
ms. whitfield.

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
my dad took me and my brother up with a friend of his in his friend's plane when i was about 5. it was very exciting, and possibly the first time i experienced a sense of my own mortality. age 5 was a tough time. my parents got divorced, too.

10. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with?
baxter and i used to sneak out, but i was technically an adult at the time.

11. Who was your first best friend and are you still friends with them?
my first best friend was allison smith, and no, we're not still friends. we were friends because our dads were friends. when my parents divorced and i moved with my mom, my relationship with allison suffered, which is fine. my next best friend, bibi, was more interesting anyway. she had about 50 hamsters.

12. Where was your first sleepover?
i think at allison's.

13. Who is the first person you talk to in the morning?
usually myself. i usually talk to sam first thing, but he's not technically a person.

14. Whose wedding were you in the first time?
my mom's and stepdad's.

15. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
moan a little bit. hit the snooze button.

16. What was the first concert you ever went to?
the first real concert was the indigo girls swamp ophelia tour.

17. First tattoo or piercing?
ears when i was 5, i think. geez, that WAS a big year.

18. First celebrity crush?
kirk cameron? jennifer connelly? who knows, really.

19. First crush?
although i had a "boyfriend" when i was 4-5, i think the first guy i was really crazy about was andrew williamson in the 7th grade. i thought the sun rose and set around him. i was surprisingly boy crazy from that point on (considering how shy i was and how i never dated).

20. First TRUE love?
i was simultaneously in love with hooper and allen in college, which was extremely problematic for all three of us, i think.

21. When was your first detention?
i had to stay in during recess in kindergarten coz this girl beside me was talking during arts and crafts and ms. sharpe thought it was me, which really broke my heart, not just because i got blamed for something i didn't do, but because she thought i would talk during class. i LOVED class! and then i had to take a frowny face home to mom instead of all my perfect behavior smilies. that was very sad. i also got detention in 8th grade from mr. hill, that short little troll.

by special request: sam and max.

sometimes, they are the most boring cats in the world.


sam and max (not) doing interesting things. i swear they were playing with this thing earlier.


max kneading while i talk on the phone.

tecate weekend: may 06 (update).

images from the weekend in lenoir this summer with mom and richard.
see blog entry: unfinished.


this sign is the only thing separating the smoking from non-smokings sections.
contrary to its imposing appearance, it was not an effective barrier.



instead of "no shirt, no shoes, no service,"
lenoir signs warn "no weapons, no alcohol." interesting.



tecate and sudoku in lenoir's most terrifying hotel.

viva las vegas! part one: fremont street.

i won't be able to post part two for a while (even though these pictures are from july, i'm just now getting to them) since i haven't gotten them developed yet.



my beautiful hostess: nikki aka felicia.


oh, the desert mountains. so beautiful!


the powers that be decided fremont street would be better if it were covered by the world's largest television screen or some such nonsense. i am sad i will never see the cowboy and his cowgirl with the night sky behind them, lit only by the neon from the surrounding signs. times they are a-changin' i guess.

truth and fiction.

i recently finished the kite runner by khaled hosseini (website). it's a good book. i've wanted to read it for a while but put it off. it's about a man who grew up privileged in afghanistan before the taliban took over. by the time they did, he and his father had been smuggled out of the country and gone to the united states. he goes back years later for various reasons, largely hoping to make peace with the demons that haunt him, i think, and finds his homeland unrecognizable. at times i thought the book was a little too hard to read. parts of it were very violent and overwhelmingly sad. the story is about redemption - it says so on the back cover - so i knew something bad had to happen in order for someone to need redemption, but i'm not sure the story of the redemption he finds is worth having those images in my head, because they do remain there. on the other hand, reading about such a place, and the beauty that used to be, the beauty lost, gave me a new perspective too.

i remember after september 11th, when the bombing of afghanistan by "the allied forces" began, i felt so helpless and overwhelmed. i could see and hear the echoes of innocent people screaming when i closed my eyes. every night on the news there would be names of more cities being bombed, more colorful dots on the stylized maps of countries many americans had never heard of, much less seen. and images of cities crumbling and faces crying would linger behind the reality where i was struggling to exist. so i was glad to read this book, because through the narrator's eyes, i was able to see the beauty of a country before it was torn apart. or earlier in the long history of it being torn apart, more accurately. afghanistan has a long history of being torn apart, and what really saddens me is the fact that behind these terrible rulers and terrible laws and crumbling economies and crumbling buildings, there are people trying to live from day to day. the images of kids during war tear me apart. it reminds me of a nanci griffith song: it's a hard life. it really breaks me up. i have been so lucky. when i was in nyc visiting my brother, i saw kids roaming the streets in packs, and thought how odd it was that their parents would let them wander around, so exposed to the dangers of big city life. then i read the kite runner. i guess in some ways i'm naive, but i just don't think it's fair that kids have to suffer at all, especially because of wars that started before they were even born, wars that they don't understand, but yet come to experience more personally than many of the people who started them. it literally breaks my heart. maybe i'm too sensitive, but i guess that's what comes from having parents who wanted, tried, and were able to protect me from true suffering.

i opened up the news today and saw that another suicide car bomb in afghanistan killed several people (source). what kind of life is that for kids? seeing that kind of stuff every day, it seems you might get to the point where you don't really even fear it, you just accept it as part of life.

oh, and madonna's adoption of the boy from malawi is being challenged by a "leading child rights group" there (source). this also reminds me of the book, but you'll have to read it to know why.

It's a Hard Life
(Nanci Griffith)

I am a backseat driver from America
We drive to the left on Falls Road.
And the man at the wheel's name is Seamus,
We pass a child on the corner he knows.
And Seamus says "what chance has that kid got?"
And I say from the back , "I don't know."
He says there's barbed wire at all of these exits
And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go.
'Cause it's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go.

And if we poison our childred with hatred
Then the hard life is all that they'll know.
And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go.

Cafeteria line in Chicago,
The fat man in front of me
Is calling black people trash to his children
And he's the only trash here I see.
And I'm thinking this man wears a white hood
In the night when his children should sleep.
But they'll slip to their windows and they'll see him
And they'll think that white hood's all they need.


'Cause it's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go.
And if we poison our children with hatred
Then the hard life is all that they'll know.
And there ain't no place in Chicago for those kids to go.


I was a child in the sixties
When dreams could be held through T.V.
With Disney and Cronkite and Martin Luther
And I believed, I believed, I believed.
Now I am the backseat driver from America
And I am not at the wheel of control.
And I am guilty, I am war, and I am the root of all evil,
Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road.


'Cause it's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go.
And if we poison our children with hatred
Then the hard life is all that they'll know.
And there ain't no place in this world for those kids to go,
'Cause it's a hard life wherever you go.

the dangers of halloween...

donnie darko.

ps. dumbest costume ever?

source.

recent interesting news.

- chavez (ergo venezuela) pledges to protect bolivia if the bush the devil (ergo USA) attacks (source).

- yankee pitcher cory lidle was killed when his small plane crashed into a building in nyc (source).

- al gore's an inconvenient truth won a literary award (source).

- pinochet faces another trial related to his role in the murder of one of the thousands of people whose murder he played a role in when he was dictator of chile (before he left office, he awarded himself immunity for all of his human rights violations. the courts can go back on a case-by-case basis and strip him of this immunity, but then he can appeal. oh, and he's too sick to stand trial and suffers from dementia - what? he doesn't want to remember? - so he has yet to be convicted or cleared for any of these crimes). sigh... (source).

- jen and vince have not split (she said on oprah), madonna and guy are adopting a boy from molawi, kevin federline claims his children come first, katie holmes has her wedding dress, and posh spice looks awful naked (source, source).

peace out.
charity :)

hello new york city! page five: images.

the empire state building.



light. i think this was on 42nd street.



crossing the brooklyn bridge.