America <3 Helvetica

Note to self: Even though you saw "50 Years Of Helvetica," you should still look at the Slate slideshow on it. When you aren't packing, doing laundry, etc. I leave for Colorado tomorrow morning. I will resist.

It's like the zoo, but quieter.

(Way to not make this post when it was originally written around 11 AM, Lindsay.) So, when my museum adventures on Wednesday went awry, I elected to go to the Natural History Museum. I don't know if it was the California or Los Angeles one or what, I've got to be honest. Also, I got five strikes in a row bowling yesterday. Thanks goes to Karen, my good luck charm. I'm Karen's mediocre luck charm, she got all spares in a row! Hopefully, Karen has learned that it is important to Google Alert yourself. I cannot even tell you how much more common blog talk is IRL ATM, for some reason I've been getting into it a lot, and perhaps that has to do with "meta" and things. Or it's just trendy. I guess I'mma go outside and wash the Prius after I eat some lunch. And now, for some random photos from the museum.

Got me a housewife!

A "housewife" is the term for the Civil War-era sewing kit that a soldier would carry on his person with thread, needles, a few extra buttons (view a real-live Confederate "housewife" here via Anderson Militaria). Allison Smith brought her "housewife" down from Brooklyn with her the first few weeks of class, and since I will soon be marching off--not to war, but to a sort of encampment-- I decided to make my own. Photographic evidence follows.

Dude.

How is it that blogs have the ability to hurt my feelings, when they're being published to the whole entire internet, not to me? In accordance with my not reading blogs that don't do anything positive for me, I'm just going to have to make those changes for now. Which doesn't matter much seeing as how I'm not going to get a ton of internet for the next ten weeks anyway. I'm thinking of heading to Geffen slash Museum of Contemporary Art here in Los Angeles to see the exhibits WACK: Art and the Feminist Revolution and Poetics of the Handmade, appropriately. I've never been to either museum, so I figure that will be fun, and maybe I'll go work at the Academy downtown again tomorrow with Randy and visit the LaBrea Tar Pits and LACMA while I'm down there. I've seen most of my friends down here, I'm getting pretty restless to move on and out to Colorado. It's super easy to be complacent and bored and drive everywhere. I had In-N-Out grilled cheese animal style, I've got to wash the clothes and socks I've worn while at home, I've got to pack a few things, but I'm kind of ready to go. Just a few more days.

Futuristic raincoat, ho!

In the future, we all wear asymmetrical-zip orange hoodies with taped seams and HellyTech (whatever that is) to protect us from the [acid] rain. You should probably be more prepared than you are. Today I visited the good ol' High School @ Moorpark College and Mrs. Simpson (who's married to a man named Sheldon and does salsa, LOVE IT!), and Judy Gould (who always did our professional development with us in high school). They got rid of the grody couch I spent many a before-and-after-school waiting for my ride on, but they have a real-live office now, and it was good to see all. Very wierd to explain that I will be graduating in a year. Also got to hang out with an old friend, Erick, who, if not in a committed relationship, I would surely pursue. This man has gone weeks without lovin'. This attractive, artistic, romantic guy. He's working on building his credit so he can go to CalArts, which is awesome except it costs more money. But, we mused on relationships and love and lust and art and things of natures multiple and complex. Also, he's a Freemason. Cool, man. Let me know how that works out. Also hung out with my aunt and uncle, stopped by my cousins' but let's be honest, she is way too high-strung, please remind me never ever to be like that with my children. Please let them get dirty, want for more toys because they don't have all of them, and see their cousins often and not in kid-centric modes. Not everything revolves around children, and the sooner they're made to realize it, the better. And I'm spent.

I do not believe in skin care regimens.

My sister did the Proactiv thing long ago, and somewhere I have a few bottles of them lying around. But you ask me to do anything consistently, and I will look at you like you're crazy. This was especially true for moisturizing and daily sunscreen, until a few weeks ago when one of my fave cheap-o brands (a la Jane and Topaz), Wet-N'-Wild, came out with a couple different lines of skin-care products (Fresh Face, and Fresh Face Acne). But, in this $5 product I found a light moisturizer and sunscreen (not sure how great a sunscreen it is, but if I'm putting it on it's better than nothing) that smells and feels good, and that's a start for someone who's so young that they don't have a regular skin-care habit. It's also not fruity or botanical, and I know a few gents who'd do well to take a little better care of the skin on their face. As for the whole 4-step line-up? If you have a face-wash, spot-treatment, and astringent you like already, or only need one of the above, don't freak out about getting the whole set. These are decent stand-alone products, and I'm reccommending wholeheartedly. Try Drugstore.com or your local Rite Aid, the CVS near me didn't have them.

Shelter animals

Mom and I visited my father down in Los Angeles County at the East L.A. shelter, which used to be a place where they housed dairy cattle, and was meant to be a temporary facility 15-20 years ago. The place is a mess, not room for anything, they've got 50 healthy rabbits with no place in the new facility (that they moved to today, and unpacked, and put animals in, and are open to the public tomorrow). Literally, my dad made decisions to have five animals destroyed while we were there. There were at least two big dogs to a run, five or six or seven little to a run. It was crowded, smelly, vast. And this is one of, what, like four shelters my dad works with in the city? Anyway, kind of crazy, but their new facility is beautiful, if lacking in kitty quarantine and places for the rabbits. It's definitley a job my mom couldn't do, though. She's too compassionate, too sensitive. Cares too much about each little creature; There's just not room for mom in a place like that, it'd break her heart every day to make those decisions, and my dad does it and can make those decisions pretty easily because somebody's got to.

THX1138 makes me want to shave my head.

June gloom really gets me down. It's these periods of fog through noontime that make you feel like it's never really morning, going straight from dawn to afternoon. Sometimes, it's not about figuring out your feelings. Sometimes, you need only open your eyes to what you're already doing, and go from there. But what do I know, ey?

I love the outdoors (and the consumerism that goes with it!)

REI trip included the purchase of three pairs of hiking socks of varying thicknesses, heights, and outdoorsy heathered grey colors, replacement of my old "port" colored Newport H2 Keens in favor of the new Keen Venice H2 (meaning water/land hybrid) in black. I'm gonna miss those big red Keens, but these definitley fit better, with no pinching across the widest part of my foot like the same size of the Newports. I also got a sort of ridiculous little Pelican case for my digital camera, which is pretty exciting because it means I can literally take it anywhere, also keep it dust- and water-free when spending most of my time outdoors. Also, I found a pair of Merrell mary-jane's for $40 and I got them to help balance out the wear and moisture on my Keen light hiking shoes. This way I can give them time to dry out, and avoid trench-rot. I can't even put into words how excited I am for camp. I've even been listening to the parenting and supervisory seminars-on-tape that our camp director put on CD's for us counselors, and am looking forward to employing some of the strategies mentioned by the speakers. And I'm looking forward to doing it again next summer after I graduate. I'm happy that I've figured out a way to keep the outdoors in my life despite being a full-time student in an urban environment. Maybe through leadership training and retreats outdoors intergrated into student affairs is one way to work it in the future. Heading up to UC Santa Barbara's hillel (Jewish student organization) to see the Stein family perform. Traffic going down the grade is bad apparently. Oh, so-cal.

On nostalgia and mail.

This past semester, I made a show of destroying old printed-out emailed love letters into a paper pulp. Yesterday, as a favor to a family at my synagogue, in which the youngest of the three boys has hoof-and-mouth and the father has leukemia, the mother had to move because their landlady lost the house in a divorce, so I was helping this stranger unpack her and her husbands' office. There were two huge 5-gallon bags of yellowed paper with blue and red spot colors, in packets--correspondence of her fathers' parents, dating from 1944 to 1947. It's sort of disappointing to think that that legacy won't be left to our childrens' generation, the sort of understanding that comes from reading old letters--because the 1's and 0's will be lost to the ethers. I spent last summer in Minnesota, and while I had access to a couple of staff computers with internet access (and, indeed, spent a good half hour every other day early in the mornings, before my girls were up, trying to keep tabs on the world), I ended up writing at least a post-card a day, a few letters a week. And to those who weren't at camp, my parents, my school friends, I think of those postcards and letters as pretty darn special. That being said, those Gees Bend stamps are awesome. The two-cent stamps that sully their image? Not so much. Somehow, I lost a pair of pants at school, so I'm on the hunt today for a new pair of jeans, and some SmartWool socks. I am trying to resist getting a $70 Helly Hanson raincoat from Sierra Trading Post, but I think I'm losing the battle. Is it sad that all I seem to do in southern California is shop?

Cars and baths

Two things I don't realize I missed quite so much until I have them back. Boba tea, trips to the Valley, use of the Prius and its' sweet, sweet XM radio. Also, I purchased sandals at Nordstrom Rack that has built in bottle-openers. Why do I need one in each shoe? Great question. I just don't have a lot of prolific blogging to do right now. I'm really greatful to be around so many people who love me, to be able to help myself and others. It's kind of silly, but I do miss Baltimore allready, and my friends there. I wonder if I'll ever be one of those people that can close a book when it's done, move on to the next, and not worry about whether or not they got all they could have out of the first. And then, of course, I get real-live grown-up opportunities to hang out with very charming, intellegent, witty company, and part of me wonders, what did I do to get invited to the cool-kid table? And, once there, will I be as mature as I am capable, or will I live up to my own capacity for immaturity? By the way, I am WOEfully behind on my RSS feeds, so I apologize for the lack of links as of late.

Breif update

I know, I know, a huge blogging slacker. A huge slacker in general, actually, seeing as how my mother has been the most amazing person helping me pack up my apartment and put it into storage for the next 14 weeks. I've been trying to get in a few more hours working the desk at school, and I (stupidly) decided to work the desk from 9 am to noon, so I finished filling out about $500 worth of timesheets and am sorting through hundreds of pages of documents from high school through the present. Really hoping that all of my remaining posessions fit in the minivan my mother rented, because commencement for MICA is on Monday afternoon, and there is simply not enough parking in Bolton Hill to make a second trip something doable. All the rooms in the 'Hoff are unlocked for contractors coming in and doing work through the summer to create higher capacity bedrooms, so my mom and I went to the apartment across the hall, where we measured my windows for curtains and marveled at the paint everywhere. Thank goodness it will look brand-new by August. I should really start tackling these papers. Sigh. OH! I found my digital camera and other bits of technology, which I thought I'd lost in the move. I cannot, however, find my rain slicker, which seems like it's important for this time of year in Estes, CO. Ahh well.

"You sound like you're making a speech"

How does one take a comment like that? Am I too thought-out, too calculated? Am I being political and arguing semantics at this point, just to have something to fight about? Or, have I spent so much time mired in self-reflection and my own myopic viewpoint that I really do have things figured out as well as may happen, and now I talk talk talk instead of making things happen? I also think I probably have said what she said to me to my ex, and I don't recall when or why or what I meant by it, so whole lot of good THAT does me, fallable memory! Or, does it seem like I'm making a speech in that I'm talking a lot but not saying a whole lot about how I feel or how I've come to the conclusions I've come to? Was our exchange full of talking but not really about sharing? Am I gypping myself, my friends, my family of insight and intimacy in favor of the sort of arms-length sharing that always gets in my nerves in others? Too long without blogging, where do I pick you up again, little non-journal?

Awwwwwk-waaaaaaard

Nothin' more uncomfortable than sitting in a computer lab next to a colleague who's iChatting with her boyfriend. Seriously, they're just looking at eachother and IM-ing. Continuing to move out of my studio, blah. Not very fun. Then I've got to pack up my apartment, and figure out what I'm going to want for Estes, Colorado. I gotta say, I'm pretty darn excited about camp. Glad I've got supplies from last summer, it'll make things a lot easier (though I should invest in a new sleeping bag, since mine is real bulky.)

Aye!

I got an "A" for this blog and the exploration in blogging as memoir that went along with it this past semester. I mean, seriously, I got dooced. Darn thorough, that exploration. It was a pleasure, Mikita!

Practice in self-reflection

Being an RA, there was a decent amount of emphasis on self-reflection. Even the High School @ Moorpark College, where I spent my senior year of high school, with it's emphasis on career exploration through ethnographic study and doing all those lovely Myers-Briggs and career assessment inventories, placed a vast emphasis on self-reflection, understanding functions of an individual within society or a given workplace culture. I ha an interview today with Meadow Mountain Ranch for a Unit Leader - Outdoor Specialist position. The interest in this job, and jobs like this, are manyfold. After all, I was nature girl till art school. I was going into fisheries and wildlife management, probably at University of Maryland, College Park. I love ropes courses, rock climbing, being outside, getting dirty, animals and plants, ecology. I am a much different person when I get enough sunshine. Anyway, I talked in my interview today with Buster from Meadow Mountain about lots of things, but some things I heard were that they're a drama-free camp, that they teach you in training to help girls learn to not interact with relational agression, try to break up cliques. Apparently the other Unit Leaders are really open and excited about new co's, and that while I may experience feeling like the new girl come comin' to camp, I feel like I'm not gonna feel that way come the end. Talking about how I'd had to resign from my job earlier, I also was able to talk about not going back to Kamaji, and how it wasn't a good fit, and maybe MICA's not the best fit for me, maybe MICA's ResLife program isn't the best, and when I graduate as much as I might really really love to come back to my alma mater, there may not be an appropriate position, much less an open one, for me. Right, so, Buster complimented me on my self-reflection skills, which a lot of people don't have, she said, and I immediately thought of one of the Student Affairs blogs I read in which they talked about the emphasis on that at their grad program. Anyway, I got offered a position in Estes, Colorado, up near Boulder an Estes National Park, and should have another decent line of work experience to add to my Student Affairs resume, plus a reference or two. Pay's paltry, but the experience should be pretty priceless. You don't always get the jobs you want in life. You apply, pitch yourself as fulfilling each and every qualification for the position, hobnob, use the professional watermarked resume paper. Sometimes, the place offering the job and the person looking to get hired just don't match up right, and that doesn't mean you lose , or that you are a worthless human being. Just means you didn't get the job.

Boob-sweat and all

Such a lack of MySpace girl am I that I only just now got around to changing my status back to single. I've found so many things to be cynical about in the past few days, and I think that shows how tired I am. It's been at times a truly difficult school year, but I'm just a breath away from senior thesis and graduation, then it's grad school for me. I am feeling kind of in need of some Love right now. Most of the time I'm so busy with classes and schoolwork that lonesomeness gets lost in the jumble, which is fantastic. But I really miss my family (who aren't completely inaffectionate), and I miss how wherever J's arms were around me there I was home. Those times are long gone, both being around my parents and being in that relationship, and while home is more and more wherever I am, there's always something missing. Old habits die hard, inside conflicts brew and my lips stay reasonably sealed until the problem makes sense of itself.