reality bites

twice already tonight by delaying my daily shower i've given it up to two people. now there is going to be hardly ANY hot water left. and our apartment doesn't have heat. i've been using clamp lights to heat it up so far...

dreaming.

one thing i forgot to mention in my last post was my weird and twisted dream i had a few nights ago:

the setting: i'm in college, not sure if it's graduate school or not, i guess it must be. on some anonymous campus. my friend maria and i are both students.

so, we're walking aound campus and all fo a sudden in our path is a news reporter, breaking the story that the first case of mad cow disease was exactly where we were standing, and is contagious through the air. so we're like, omg do we have mad cow disease? (we are both hypochondriacs) so we run away covering our nose and mouths, hoping we dont have it. the news reporter said we would feel it pretty instantly if we had it. so anyway, we run into the student union and we're fine.

the next day we're on campus and the same thing happens again-- the disease is spreading at such a fast pace people can't be quarantined fast enough. we make a rn for indoors again, covering our faces. maria tells me that our friend carla has already died of mad cow isease the day before in lake placid, where she lives in real life.

so then i wake up, in my dream. i wake up and realize what a silly dream i had. then as i was laughing about how ridiculous it was, i started to feel weird, thinking i might really have it after all. then i really woke up.

doesnt that sound like an episode of the twilight zone??@

i want to be mejor

a post to wrap up the weekend.

adjusting back to the pace of life has almost become fully realigned. in spite of that, i still spent most of today watching syndicated 90s sitcoms.

i got ahold of an agnes martin lecture from skowhegan, and i listened to it last night on repeat. i think at a few points i momentarily broke into tears. she is so resilient and humored by the world, unphased by the humor in it. she is a freed soul. listening to her lecture makes it bittersweet to think about life as an artist. after i write this, i'm going to start listening to mel bochner lectures also from skowhegan, which i imagine will be a completely different experiment.

on the subject of art, find pictures of richard prince's de koonig paintings. they're interesting...

the mess in my room is intimidating and scary. i don't want to get near it out of fear o getting swallowed in it. it's making me depressed even just walking through it, or thinking about it.

today i bought the in-kraut compilation and brigitte fontaine's genre humaine (which is sooo hard to find in print or to download-- thanks amoeba!) in an effort to encourage me to start working or at least progress in getting things done, but i guess today i just really desired to be in another state.

i really need to stop burning the candles at both ends.

besos mijas y mijos

rock and roll heart

now that i am much less jetlagged i feel more abl to reflect on my trip. here is a summary:

-saw practically every show in chelsea except for the thomas ruff. highlights: charline von heyl, charlie ray, george condo, jason rhoades, antony gormely, hirsch perelman, isaac julien, and there are others. the richard prince at the guggenheim was fantastic.
-i was underdressed the entire time
-visited yale and columbia, and i liked them both equally. they are very different. i think i might like yale more to my surprise. maybe i'll apply next year.
-ate french fries
-bought a book by liz kotz on language in 1960s art, which i am very excited to read
-a sudden urge to wear heels
-became slightly afraid of large crowds
-became slightly grateful for los angeles rush hour because at least you're not on a crowded subway in a random man's armpit for an hour

there were a lot of really emotional moments though. one in particular i felt as i was making my way to the gugenheim on the second day i was there, walking own madison ave in this ultra grey couldiness unique to ny in november. i looked up at all the buildings and suddenly realized how it was exactly how i remembered them, the type of brown and greys in the photographs i held onto for so long when i was homesick, when i was painting from them, and kept for posterity's sake... it was so real. it was very overwhelming.

seeing old friends was good, all good, and interesting. it's interesting how we are all basically the same people our entire lives.

it was a good trip.

now i'm back here, back to my dirty studio that i forgot to clean before i left. listening to kurt weill...

TV = company

i've returned from new york. i am back in los angeles. and i am so tired. i secretly want to hideout for 2 or 3 days to recover.

what an exhausting trip. i really think i should have stayed there through thanksgiving, because i hardly got to spend enough time with the people i went to visit to make up for 3-6 years of not seeing them. saw a lot of art shows, notably richard prince at the guggenheim, charlie ray at matthew marks, charline von heyl at friedrich petzel, isaac julien at metro pictures, blah, blah, blah. i did other things too.

after a lot of drama at my school, i am officially "replaced." i confronted the bitchy-office-manager-who-hates-me on a phone call on friday telling me casually that i have been replaced and to not come back to that classroom. like if i didn't call, they would not have told me. how professional. i honestly can't say i'm too surprised though, because i'll be gone working for rosamund felsen for the next couple weeks too...

more substantive and less transitory concerns to come. happy thanksgiving week.

boots of spanish leather

so, it's coming to an end my friends. my days of teaching at audubon middle are over.

it was mutual really, and truly their loss (it always is), but they've let me go.

alright, i'm being intentionally overly dramatic about this. but basically, since i'm taking the week off next week and then i'm taking TWO weeks off after that, they implied today that they don't want me to be there anymore if i miss so much time. even though they have work to do when i'm gone, and through the end of november through mid december, they don't want me to be back and forth. so when come back from new york i will resign.

as inhuman as this sounds, i'm not really that sad. because i am a heartless warrior, with the grit of a lion, ruthless, strident, self-indulgent. but also because i won't be sorry to say goodbye to all the injustices and apathetic bullshit that parades at audubon and of LAUSD in general, i won't be sorry to not to IEPs, i won't be sorry to be called a devil worshipper or a white bitch (yes these both did happen). however, there are some kids i will miss, the ones i "turned around" and somehow convinced them school wasn't pure punishment, who confide and trust me. and actually do real craft projects (i went to the art class today-- nothing short of a disgrace). and i will miss a lot of the other amazing teachers i work with (there are few), and my brilliantly inspiring mood-boosting TA. but unfortunately, my loyalties lie elsewhere.

this is bizarrely tragic.

no bagging

i really can't complain about my life. i have the most flexible job ever that pays more than decent, i have a workable studio, i have fabulous friends, and i'm not in a wheelchair. today, i just decided to take the day off work to enjoy it all.

i just want to revel. revelrevelletmerevel.

although i still hate cleaning my room.

my roommate comes back in a few days so i'm raiding more of his cds. i dont know why i'm feeling so secretive about it, because he gave me permission. i feel like a kid in a candy store looking at all those cds accumulated when you are 32 in year 2007 because for so long there was no downloading. and all the old classics. i got some shocking blue, old royal trux, francoise hardy, glenn branca, lou reed, things that are classic that i would feel weird buying at amoeba because i feel like i should already own them. only if there was technology to easily press all mp3s onto vinyl. oh, fantasies.