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Saturday, January 15th, 2005 link Goodbye old school journal This is my last free time before school starts. I feel like I should hurry up and relax. I don't really know what to do with myself today. I have battling urges to get up and do stuff and similar strength urges to do nothing but read a book.I'm so excited about starting school and spring and finishing my contract and painting and being busy doing Alanna things. I wonder if I'll ever find a way to support myself on art alone. Seems so far off.
Friday, January 14th, 2005 link We went to a new place by our house that went in to the space that used to be Sweat Heat. It's got morocan snack foods. You can get plates with three different things. We tried meatballs, canellini beans and eggplant caviar. They serve yhou lots of yummy flatbread and they have really great mixed drinks. I give it two thumbs up. I think we will go there often. I am all down with snack foods. After our dinner snacks and drinks, we walked down to Madrone Lounge on Fell and Divisadero. It was a typical Friday night meat market. I was bored to tears. I really don't like dj bars. Give me a corner bar with a juke box any day of the week. I kept making signals to Tom. It was Jhina's birthday so we stayed for three drinks, long enough to see Jhina get nice and toasted, and then we skidadled. It was our first night of cigarette temptations and we made it through.
Thursday, January 13th, 2005 link I was trying out some of the free webhosting options out there in the world. I found Bravenet.com. They are ok I guess. All the editing tools are all online and are written in DHTML that doesn't work on Mac browsers. But I don't know. it's ok, it's free. Here's the webpage I set up. I guess one cool thing about it is they let you just get right to the html code and go wild. Most places would probably force you to use their gui tool. And they gave me a free message board and a free web journal. So leave a nice message on my message board, ok? Maybe we can get some nice chit chat going. I always wonder who reads this thing. I shoudl send some slides here this year: Gallery IMG I finally made my new zealand photos main page pretty and fixed the broken link that was on the front page for months. Woops! 
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wednesday, January 12th, 2005 link I had a nice dinner with Carol tonight at Moki's in Bernal Heights. I was at the studio, I could have painted but I didn't. I got home early to try and finish my captain Kidd book but I got all caught up in getting information to Carol about getting her website set up for her to edit on her own. Tomorrow is Thursday and the next day is Friday and then it's the weekend and then it's the week that I start school in. I'm so excited about starting spring semester but so nervous about balancing school and work for 6 more weeks. It'll be wacky, that's for sure. My boyfriend is working so hard these days and I miss him.
Tuesday, January 11th, 2005 link Hi Tuesday. You weren't very good to me. Good riddance.
Monday, January 10th, 2005 link Aya! I got caught out in a torrential downpour tonight. I left work at 5 so I could stop by Japan Town before heading to the studio. I have been trying to find a thermos and possible a leak proof bento box or something to take my lunches in. I take bag lunches pretty seriously and I'm tired of having leaky food all over my fruit in my lunch bag. And the thermos I have, although I really liked all it's features, like a tea basket for loose tea, I just can't get a tight seal on it, so when I take a drink, the hot liquid spills out from under the lip of the mug and all over my clothes. It is really annoying. It's also not leak proof which means I can't carry it in my bag and wherever I go, it's constantly dribbling everywhere. So you see, my life is just terrible, the way I'm living it and the only thing that'll solve my problems is a leak-proof thermos and some sort of leak proof, microwave safe lunchware. These things were not to be found in Japan Town. I tried to look for Zojirushi brand things but all the places that were listed on the Zojirushi website just didn't have jack doodle. One place had a thermos with a cup attached and a little pour spout. But see, I knock cups over all the time at work so I need something that is relatively spill proof. Each time I take a sip of my coffee/tea, I screw the lid back on. Hmm, maybe that's why it leaks, overuse maybe? Naw, those things are supposed to be indestructible.
Oh, anyway, so while trying to find a thermos (I'm picking out a thermos for yoouuuu! no ordinary thermos will dooooo!), it started raining hard. I got pretty soaked and was tempted to have dinner somewhere in Japan Town but kinda wanted to get home and have a nice big bowl of miso ramen in my own home. So after grocery shopping for fresh ramen noodles, very nice dried shitakes, pork slices and other things, I got on the 38 Geary in the pouring rain. I was soaked. Then I got off at Masonic to get the 43 because clearly walking home from Geary was not an option. Just crossing the street to get to the 43 bus stop, I got completely extra super double drenched. I couldn't have been any more soaking wet if I were completely submerged. But soon I was home and in a dry, warm pair of pajamas and a dry hooded sweatshirt eating miso ramen with shitakes, bok choy, pork slices and onions. So yummy so so yummy. It made me want to write a list of things that rocked in 2004. I am so damn excited about my bento box. i can't even tell you. Look at an enlargement of it. Isn't it the coolest thing ever? No more carrying around grocery bags full of loose yogurt containers with pears and oranges and leaky soup containers. No more I tell you. No more wiping pasta sauce off my bananas. I can bring yogurt with fresh fruit and it won't split open and leak all over everywhere. I'm pretty sure this thing is going to change my life. I can eat very exciting hot lunches and dinners at the studio. No more dry cup of ramen.
Sunday, January 9th, 2005 link I drove to Pacific Grove today to get my paintings. I stopped by Rob's house on the way and played with his cats for a while. I have cat on the brain lately. I got to play with cats in Pacific Grove too and was fed large quantities of strong coffee and amarettis. It was a nice, relaxing drive and the weather held up ok. I got home to discover Tom cooking a very nice pasta meal for me. He's cool like that.
Saturday, January 8th, 2005 link My kitchen may be small but it is mighty. I've been cooking tons lately since it's been raining, I'm on a school break and I just haven't felt like leaving my house to paint. So my cooking is getting out of control. We've been having some really tasty dinners and soups. Today I chopped up some carrots, celery, turnip, shallots, garlic, and some fresh herbs, threw them in the crockpot with some stock I made a while back. We'll have hot soup tonight and tomorrow for this stormy weather. My produce box last week from Planet Organics had 8-10 apples in it. I decided to make some individual apple pies for our freezer. I chopped up the apples, cooked them in butter, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, added in some dried cranberries and made some flakey pastry dough. Later, when the dough is properly chilled, I'll roll out little individual circles and make little calzone-like pies. McDonalds apple pies ain't got nothin' on me.
Friday, January 7th, 2005 link I did not manage to make it to Anastasia's performance art at The Lab. Instead I had a relaxing evening with Tom. We started out to Cala to get groceries for a nice dinner but their selection sucked. So we decided to walk up the road to Real Foods. It was raining however so we were forced to have a beer on the way at Kezar Pub. They have very good looking buffalo wings there and tasty sounding things on the dinner menu so we must go back there. Tom swears I've been there before with him but he is mistaken. After our beer we walked up to Real foods and found very yummy things. We got some Manchego cheese as well as a nice looking cheddar, some fresh mozarella, oricchiette, gnochi, prusciutto, bread, wine, peas, mushrooms and fancy honey. They have lots of yummy stuff there, we need to start going there more often instead of Cala all the time. For dinner we had Orecchiette with ricotta, parmesan, peas, mushrooms and prosciutto. It was tasty, like fancy mac and cheese. We adapted the recipe from one in "The Complete Vegetarian Italiian Cookbook" by Jack Bishop. Which, by the way, is a fantastic cookbook whether you are vegetarian or not. After dinner we watched our freshly delivered copy of Return of the King. We were up past 2am which was sort of painful for me since I had to get up early this morning, but I just couldn't tear myself away.
Thursday, January 6th, 2005 link People are concerned that I'm not updating my journal every day anymore. I've just been busy doing other things. I haven't felt like geeking out on my own computer after I get home from wrangling a lot of code at work on my work windows box. Maybe I don't want to be reminded how much nicer my Mac is. Just a couple more months on this project and my updating will get back to normal. Tomorrow Anastasia, the woman who curated our Jesse Street show, and a friend of the studio's, is doing some performance art at The Lab. She's the one in the black clothes on the top of the page.
Wednesday, January 5th, 2005 link Tonight instead of going to the gym, I went to Q and had macaroni and cheese. it was goooooood. I'm just having too much fun being lazy these days. Gyms are for suckers. That reminds me. I heard someone say "College is for losers" on the bus yesterday. It was a young kid, probably around 18 years old. His friend was giving him grief about dropping out. I wanted to say "HA! just you wait. You'll be miserable, flipping burgers your whole life." But then I thought, well, that didn't happen to me. So I decided to let someone do the lecturing.
Tuesday, January 4th, 2005 link I went over to the North Bay tonight to see Dorothy's show at The Mill Valley community Center. I had some sparkling pinot which made me want to drink more. So I got home and made some vodka, campari and orange juice. It was good so I had some beer too. I was pretty loopy and it felt nice. Then I sat on the couch and watched really bad tv, like the amazing race and fear factor. Very satisfying.
Monday, January 3rd, 2005 link I was going to paint tonight. but I thought I should go home and do some reading on struts. But when I got here, I was really hungry and ended up making eggplant parmesan, then got distracted on my computer. It's 10, I'm finally getting around to reading. I know I'll read for 5 minutes and fall asleep.
Sunday, January 2nd, 2005 link Two new encaustic paintings for ya. These are officially the first paintings I finished in the new year. I guess you figured out that I painted today. Painted a bunch, several hours. I also gessoed 10 new small canvases that I got from Dick Blick dot com for a great price. Next fall I should have tons of small paintings to sell. If'n you don't buy them first. Please buy them now though, pretty please. Boy do I need to rearrange my paintings page. It's so bad right now. I won't be able to get to it until the spring. It's a little bit of a miracle that I painted today. I was taking a short break from painting and really enjoying it. I started drawing yesterday though. Tom plays music in our living room on Sundays so it a good way to force me out of the house when I'm feeling lazy. It's hard to leave when it's so rainy outside. Here is a Walk Whitman poem for you: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) A noiseless patient spider, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saturday, January 1st, 2005 link Happy New Year! It's been quite a year. Here's a brief rundown: I broke my foot last christmas so in January I finally got it casted after a very long 9 days of waiting. I had my first art show in January. We went to London. I lost 20 pounds. I had another art show. I started school to finish my BFA. Tom started a band. I quit a job and got a new job, all in the same week. Seems like almost everyone I know got pregnant. We went to New Zealand. We spent a week in New Jersey with Tom's family. I ate more vegetables and fruits from more local organic farmers. i threw away less plastic, I was better to my body than I have been in years and years (but still a long way to go). I had less hangovers. All in all, it's been a pretty great year. I like to make a little "things to work on" list. Here's this years: |
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