cinderellaca

but hey, january is so last month. so here i am.

and can i just say, do i dare say, i think there may be a tiny flicker of light at the end of this big ol' dark tunnel! things are improving but they've been deproving for so long now i'm scared i'll jinx anything good that might soon happen, so i'm just not going to say for sure just yet.

sorry i know that was not the easiest thing to understand.

today i:
woke up with a headache but i refuse to let it beat me;
am working on a collage i started last night after weeks, nay, months of procrastination;
went grocery shopping and fondled avocados;
did some laundry; (my washing machine leaks all over the garage floor. but hey, clothes gotta get clean.)
am watching a new storm blow in;
am alternately wondering and marveling and despairing at people on the internets;
playing with zasu.

and its still early i got hours and hours to do more important things.

1. The clock seems to stop - all the pressure and rushing around ends and time stands still. There is no more timetable, no more due dates, or deadlines. We got nothing but time, time, time! Which leads to item number 2 -

2. My internal alarm clock goes away. That thing in me that makes me wake up at 6:30 every single day, even Sunday, even in the summer, no matter what - it just stops. I slept til 9 this morning! whoo! It's probably due to exhaustion, but whatever. No complaints here.

3. I don't have to cook for a week! Well, not serious cooking anyways. Everyone's happy with turkey sandwiches and leftovers.

4. No more Christmas music! *le happy sigh*

5. Those inflatable santa's and snowmen all my neighbors have on their lawns are left shriveled up on the grass! huzzah! death to inflatable santa's and snowmen!

6. There is a lot more room in my freezer now that the turkey is gone.

7. We still have half a pan of fudge left, and nobody we have to share it with!

8. We got enough dvd's as gifts to keep us occupied for at least another week.

9. The stores have already got rid of the Christmas stuff - and replaced it with Valentine's/St Pat's Day stuff.

10. I am free to redecorate and play with my house again (all the painting and mucking around was put on hold til after the holidays.) First up, paint and do something with my entry.

Saturday we were at my mom's home in Modesto, visiting her and my brother. It was pretty mayhem-y, but a good time was had, hopefully by all. I certainly can't complain, seeing as how it's my fault the whole thing came about. I had been getting all nostalgic in the last month, remembering the holidays from my childhood. One of our old family traditions was an annual trek to Modesto to visit all the relatives - 2 sets of grandparents, and a multitude of aunts, uncles and cousins. At that time, my mom had been the only one to move far from her old hometown, and we only got to visit everyone a few times a year. Christmas was one of those times for big get-togethers, and, at first, we tried to keep that up when I became an adult. But in the last 15-20 years, it really lapsed. All the grandparents passed away, and an uncle as well. The cousins grew up and had families of their own. People scattered across the country. Even when my mom moved back, the visits occurred less often. Plus, we were shocked to find out that most of the family there were never all that keen on the big family Christmas celebrations anyways - they apparently had only gone along with it to humor my mom! wha? ppflllft Mess with my poignant memories will ya?! Man, was I disappointed to find that out.

Anyways, after I moaned to my mom about how much I missed that stuff, we decided to start our own family tradition, a little late but better than never, to get together at her house for a nice, albeit smaller, pre-holiday dinner. Maybe one of these days we can cajole some of the other family members into joining us, but for this year it was just us and my brother. It's really just as well this time, since we were winging it and made a few mistakes - from which, hopefully, we can learn. For instance, we had way way way too much food. Also, my poor mom was so flustered because she had to work the day before and didn't have time to get a lot of things done in advance, so was last-minuting a bunch of things. Everything was great mind you, but she wasn't able to relax and enjoy it as much as I wish she had.

We still had a really nice time though - everyone was in a good mood, and that's the important thing. I spent some time getting my mom set up with a blog, too. I'm kind of pushing her into it, because I think she'd really enjoy it, and I'm always finding other people's blogs that I think she'd love to follow. She has a great style and loves her home, but these days, she seems, unfortunately, to be bogged down with the business of life and not getting to focus on the things that have always made her happy. Blogging just seems like it was tailor-made for her. I don't know if she'll get into it, though, we'll see.

Sunday we went to my sister-in-law's home in Oakley for a brunch potluck, which is becoming something of a tradition, too. We brought bread - fresh muffins and pumpkin bread. There was also this delicious strata my mother-in-law makes, which I need to get the recipe for, and hashbrowns and lots of fresh fruit, and mimosas to drink. Lovely time! Brunches are neat too, because you socialize and party and everything, but then you still have the rest of the day to recover and you don't wake up the next morning with a hangover =).

This year we are not having a big Christmas tree. It just seems too extravagant for our financial situation. However, we are still decorating our house for the holidays. We have several small artificial trees we usually use in various places about the house. This small white one usually goes in our bedroom, but this year I put it in my office window. I just recently painted my office walls a pretty intense blue color, and the white looks really nice with it. I'm just happy to have a way to use my favorite ornaments.



It would be nice to have a real white Christmas with snow, but that really doesn't happen here in the bay area. The most we can hope for is a light dusting of snow up on the hills - which we actually did get Monday, though it's already all melted off. Lots of rain forecast for the rest of this week, though, and it has been abnormally cold here, so who knows, maybe I'll have something to show by the end of the weekend. *fingers crossed*

Woke up around 4am with a headache and it has not left my side all day.  Its the kind that makes you weak and cotton-headed, in addition to the pain.  It seems to be subsiding just a bit now, though this has happened a couple times earlier today and just when I thought it was really going away and started to relax it came raging back worse than ever.  But I hope it really is quitting. I like a headache that's a quitter.

Its really dreary here today, possibly that has something to do with said headache.  Oh, I've heard people say that the weather can't really affect headaches, that its all in your mind, but that's where the headache is, you know - my mind.  And all I know is that when the weather starts to get dreary and overcast this time of year, when the pressure starts to fall, I occasionally wake up with headaches. *shrug*

In spite of pain, I had to go grocery shopping this morning. I had no easy food in the house.  And it's a lucky thing I did go, as I found myself the recipient of a free turkey! Huzzah!  Lovely!  I didn't know anything about this free turkey giveaway thing - maybe they had signs in the store, I don't know.  I wasn't up to reading anything, just following my cart wherever it went, throwing bread, jugs of milk, cheez-its and sudafed in as I crept through those aisles.  Impulse buy of the day: yorke peppermint patties. Mmmmm.  So the checkout person (was it a man or a woman?  I can't remember, I think woman - I remember the voice was annoyingly high-pitched) asked me "and, would you like a free turkey?"  For a moment, just a split second there, I considered saying "oh no thank you i can't deal with that right now." Thank goodness I wasn't that far gone and instead I said "sure."  

So, now I have a nice 15lb turkey in the freezer.  That should feed 12 people.  Thanksgiving is happening with or without me.

I love this time of year.  Autumn always has such a sense of expectancy attached to it. I can see all these things coming in the next months, lots of entertaining for holidays - we're starting it off with hosting my husband's family for Thanksgiving. Lots of chores to be done in the garden, buttoning things down for winter.  We've already started clearing out the last of the vegetables from the garden - carrots, tomatoes, radishes - all done for the year.  Sunset magazine had an article recently about growing winter lettuces, and I was sorely tempted to try, but we've never had good luck with lettuce here.  Frankly, I kind of like when we just let winter take over the yard, anyways, and don't try to produce anything from it.  I have other projects I'm more interested in pursuing now.  For one thing, rain barrels. But that's just the beginning of an idea at this time.  I'll write more about it later if it actually works out.

Also expect lots of downtime, and cold time, too.  So I'm working on things to blunt that chill.  The other day I put together enough bean soup mix to get us through April.  I love 15-bean soup for dinner on winter nights - so warm and hearty.  And very filling, just some good bread on the side and you're set.  I used to just get the little bags of 15-bean soup mix at the grocery and follow the directions on the back, but the last time I did that, the bag seemed to be more split peas than other types of beans.  Also, the recipe seems pretty minimal.  So I went searching for a better recipe and think I found a winner.  Also putting together my own mix of beans so I could minimize the things we love less (like split peas) has worked out really well so far.  It's nice to know that we always have the makings of this on hand.  And, as a bonus, it fills this decorative jar on my counter quite nicely!


Also, planning to knit a blanket this winter.  I have a pattern that I made for a friend for Christmas many years ago - it turned out so nice, as soon as it was finished I immediately thought I'd make one for us someday.  This seems like a worthy project for the next few months.  Need to go through my giant box of yarn and see what I have, what I need.  More on that later, I guess.

Spent some time in the garden this morning.  As Autumn really sinks in, I know that soon the garden will be done for the year, so I'm trying to get every last drop of delicious pleasure from it that I can.  We've already had a couple of rainy days (including that one pretty strong storm a few weeks back).  Though I've always been one to wander around in the winter months too - fortunately, living in California means a fairly temperate climate and there's always something good going on out there, even in the coldest February.  But Autumn is always especially nice around here - our oaks are going all red and gold, the maples are already mostly bare and the poplars are losing leaves in big heavy drifts, though you look up at the branches and there's still so many to come down.  The giant alder in the back is still hanging on green, seems to me it loses it's leaves last, and takes the longest - it's such a big messy brute!  Additionally, our roses are making a last gasp at flowering.  I should cut them back but I just don't have the heart to do it right now.  Also, our herb garden seems to be going just absolutely mad right now, with the exception of the chives which don't seem to like the damp and chill, and the basil which is determined to flower.  Sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, and parsley is all looking lush and lovely though, and I'm tempted to try drying a bunch of everything, though I really prefer cooking with it fresh.


Anyways, as much as I enjoy it all, I'm also getting hit hard with the 'burrowing in for the winter' instinct.  Getting ready for all the things that need doing in preparation for winter, and the holidays, since they're basically here - this Saturday being the kick-off for the holiday season by my calendar, which states that Halloween to New Years Day is the official celebration period of the year.  I've already packed away my sundresses and lightweight things and replaced them with my wonderful sweaters, which I'd begun to miss in the evening and early morning.  Haven't had to turn on the heat yet, but I know it's coming.  I really, REALLY miss my old fireplace these days, but we can enjoy some late fires out in the patio with the firepit.  There's a lot to do in the Autumn, but its all pretty enjoyable stuff, and soon it will be time to settle in with a dozen good books and hibernate.

feel their duty to protect Halliburton and similar corporations from lawsuits supersedes their duty to ensure that the people who work for these corporations have access to justice that is supposedly guaranteed all citizens. edit: actually, its probably more that they feel their duty to ensure that Halliburton and similar corporations continue to get government contracts worth big bucks (at the expense of employees civil rights, safety and well-being) is the all important factor here.

Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN)

Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE)

Kyl (R-AZ) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

senate vote results 68 yea, 30 nay, 2 not voting.
http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00308

honestly, its such a slam dunk amendment, i can't understand why these 30 would vote against, unless maybe they were in somebody's (say, some large corporation's) pocket.  it will be interesting to see what they have to say for themselves.

Well, the entire northern half of California is covered by storm clouds, the remains of typhoon Melor. If this is just the tag end that has travelled across the ocean to get here, I'm really glad we didn't see the full force storm. According to Weather Underground the storm is ranging from up around the Oregon border to as far south as Bakersfield.  Just moderate rainfall where I am in the bay area, but pretty gusty.  Lots of tree branches down.  I worry about our alder tree in the back yard, which is just gigantic and has this crazy lean right towards our house. Rain and wind are heavy over in Modesto where my mom lives, though.  Always makes me nervous because she's a courier so always driving for work.  But she's a good driver, so she'll probably come through it all ok.  I'll call her later tonight.

Had such a nice weekend, we went to the Pleasanton Antiques and Collectibles Faire on Sunday, and though it was a little grey in the morning when we got there it eventually got sunny.  Saw a lot of really cool things (as well as some bizarre things).  Was gonna post pics yesterday but my image host was down all day.  Here they are:




probably the thing I wanted most to buy, if only I had $95 just lying around.
( More pics back here. )

Went to the Olive Hyde Gallery today, it was their Art Guild members juried show, which concludes tomorrow.  Nice exhibit, mostly very traditional type of work - a lot of watercolors and oils, some photography as well.  Also a few more unusual types of things (see Richard Horton's wooden sculpture, called "Smudged Buddha", below).  I think my favorite things were collages by various people, but I have no pictures of those to share =(. 

The annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival is going on at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco this weekend - would love to go, but got some sickies in the house, so we'll probably just hang out at home and be mellow and comforting.

• Read like bejesus! I have four library books due in one week. I have not finished any of them, though I have started three of them. It is a foregone conclusion I will have to renew at least some if I intend to get them read. But the only reason I am in this predicament is that I have been slacking with the reading. Slacker am I.
• Bake more cupcakes. Cupcakes are imperative!
• Look for a job. =( This makes me sad, but enough is enough. I need to stop worrying about everything that's going on economically, and just get a job. It doesn't have to be an elaborate job. Just something that pays enough to keep us insured (or ideally offers a health care plan). I keep waking up at 5am, and lying there worrying about money stuff that just seems to be completely out of our control right now. On the same subject . . .
• Set up an Etsy shop or at least set up a shop section on my website. No reason I can't be trying to make my hobby pay for itself, even if partially.
• Paint my office blue. Robin's egg blue, I think. Something like this:

except office-stylee! Although I sort of loooooove that little table and stuff to set up in my garden, too. Oh well, no time to be thinking of garden furniture and decorating now that fall is upon us. *stores photo/idea away for next spring*

• Get into some Halloween spirit. The last few years I've pretty much skipped the fun of Halloween, I'm not sure why. Outgrew it somewhat and it just seemed like more hassle than fun. But, I think I could dig it again, now. Or at least it could serve as a distraction from those things that wake me up at 5 am.
• Cut my hair! Way overdue, the ends are just . . . ugh. Its not pretty, kids.
• Oh yeah, I need to add that I need to get to the Olive Hyde gallery this weekend. Been meaning to for the last couple weeks but keep getting sidelined.

Aside from all that, i read this this morning and found it funny and pretty much dead on, too.  "How To Talk To Complete Idiots", Mark Morford's sfgate column - hope y'all enjoy it!

note: gotta frost em with the cake decorator tip. it's less time consuming than spreading the frosting, looks way better, and provides all those little crevices for holding the jimmies in place. also it's easier than you'd think - hardest thing about it is getting the decorating tips out from behind the baking pans at the back of the cabinet where i hide them with the cookie cutters i rarely use.

"We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost."

stem cell research, anyone?

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

nice that the camera zoomed in on bush's face as these words were spoken. goodbye, guantanamo bay. goodbye, patriot act. welcome back, civil liberties.

"We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan."

yes!

"With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet."

yes!

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

yes!

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. "

oh my gosh! he included me, little old non-religious me!

"To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it."

"America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."




he does have a way of energizing one.

ok, so life has been full, i've been quiet. quick catch up - radiohead at hollywood bowl were amazing, unfortunately certain members of the audience were not. offset? hmmm, well it might have been one of the best shows i've ever attended but was by no means my favorite concert experience. just no fault of radiohead's. so thats all i'm going to say about that. i will certainly go out of my way to see them again, but probably not at the hollywood bowl. berkeley audience was probably the best crowd i've experienced yet, for every show i've gone to there, so i hope radiohead will go back there again.

meanwhile, i've scored tickets to the bridge school benefit end of this month - very happy about that! NEIL YOUNG! and wilco! cat power! also jack johnson, death cab for cutie, zz top, etc. happiest / most excited about young and wilco. what a great year for shows this is turning out to be! huzzah! also going to see the decemberists with everyone just before thanksgiving. not one of my highly-listened-to bands anymore, but they put on a nice show when i last saw them couple years ago, and this will be a good evening for us around the holidays. =)

baseball is over, as far as i'm concerned. oh i know theres all the big games left, but i don't care about those teams that are playing, so its over for me for the year. even though we had such a bad year in terms of games won/lost, we had a lot of fun this year - tim lincecum's pitching, brian wilson's nail-biting closes, omar vizquel's pizzazz, the triple play, rookies rookies rookies, sprinklers, 50 year anniversary, diving catches, molina, sandoval, burriss, cain, bowker, the all-star game, kruk & kuip, and on! my gosh, how many shaving-cream-pies-in-the-face did we get to witness as these rookies got their first homeruns in the majors? and because our expectations were so low we weren't surprised or particularly let-down when we did badly - we kind of expected it; but it was just that much sweeter when we did well! eager for april.

classes have been a let-down, and i've come to a decision that maybe i want to quit. well, maybe not quit completely - but i'm so frequently disappointed with my experiences lately, and i just keep wondering what i'm doing this for. so something definitely has to change. either i stop taking classes altogether or i find a different college or approach it a differently or something. i hate to be a flake. but i really don't need this in my life. i dropped psych already after big disappointment with the structure of the class and the repetition, spending the whole first month going over what i already learned in other classes. i've hung in with english, though frankly i'm beginning to be disappointed with this as well. i know the trend in education is to put people into groups and have them present lessons to each other and student teaching student and all that. but god please. i still think reading should be more of a solitary activity. especially when the majority of the students aren't particularly into reading and literature in the first place (and why are they in this class, then? oh, its an easy A probably. except its not. you do have to work. surprise!). anyways, i'm going to see it through because at least i'm getting to read some cool stuff i wouldn't have thought to otherwise. but in the future, if they are pushing student teaching student, then maybe i'll just take it further and cut out the class altogether, eh? i can take that initiative myself without all the hassle.

anyways, didn't intend to ramble and whine so. feels good to vent a bit, but also leaves one windless.

i'm so sleepy right now

raging headache this morning.

i've been developing film lately - 6 rolls of b/w stuff to play with. including some 620 film. now if i can find my large film carrier i think i have somewhere i can try to print some of this stuff. but not until this headache goes away - last thing i want is to be enclosed in a stuffy darkroom (closet/bathroom actually, with the window masked) with this pounding going on.

had such a great start to the new year and then just sort of faded away after january. such is my life anymore - great bursts of ambition and energy interspersed with quiet withdrawal from the world. well, maybe not total withdrawal. here's whats been happening:

classes: well. i started my whopping two classes the end of january. i opted out of the glass class - in retrospect this was a mistake and a disappointment. i'm not sure if it was just my frame of mind or what, but i was simply so frustrated with the instructor. carol is an older woman, a very talented artist, genuinely pleasant and easy to get along with, and completely scatterbrained. her lectures would veer off in 20 different directions at once, and her expectations for her beginning students were very unrealistic. i felt very much adrift in her class, and i guess i'm just anal enough about things like that that i didn't want to mess with it, so i dropped it. since then, i've had time to reflect on that decision, and realize that i should have just stuck with it, relaxed about my own expectations, tried to have some fun with it, etc. i felt at the time that she was such a bad instructor, but perhaps not. many of her students return to take more of her classes - that wouldn't be happening if she was really bad.
meanwhile, the class i stuck with, the critical comp class for english, is the one that i should have been more leery of. its an online class, and, after the first two weeks went by without any assignments from the instructor, i should have caught on that something was amiss here. but this has been the case throughout the course - weeks go by with no word from her, and then she'll pop onto the webct site, give us a couple of essays and assignments that will be due within a week. we rush rush rush to get everything done by her due date, and then 3 or 4 more weeks go by before we hear from her again. meanwhile, absolutely zero feedback on the work we've done so far. i have completed every single assignment to the best of my ability, but with no feedback at all, i have no idea what kind of grade i'm headed for, no idea if i should change my approach, or what to improve or how. i do not know if i am doing anything right. as of this writing, there are 3 weeks left of class. in that time, we are supposed to have a research paper to turn in - but she hasn't assigned it yet. also there will be some manner of "debates", again nothing has been said about this other than the promise that it will happen, but on what subject? when? oh and a final exam of course. the last thing we had to do in this class was a midterm exam (3 weeks after the rest of the school did their midterms, btw) the first week of april. silence since then. this was the class i should have dropped, if i had known it was going to be like this.
interestingly, i recently found a neat little thing over at myspace - grade your teacher. if you go on there and type in your school, you can leave a comment about your teacher - problems, compliments, etc. i looked up both these instructors - carol the glass teacher has many little love notes from students who think she's just the bees knees. meanwhile, this english teacher got failing marks, and was noted for just exactly the kind of behavior i've described, as far back as 2 years ago. i really wish i'd seen this before i registered for this class.

anyways, what else? its been a slow winter here - not terribly extreme weather, but chilly-ish. and then early in april, springlike weather complete with 80 degree days began to appear. then it would go away for awhile. we'd be all chilled again, wondering what happened to our early spring. then it warms up again for a day or two. then frost in the morning. at this very moment, it is 65 degrees but with a brisk wind here. the sun is out, everything is pretty beautiful, but i sit here in a sweatshirt, cold down to my toes. i want my hot summer!

hmmm, we've been having some fun - i took wayne to see the moody blues in san francisco for his birthday in march. its the second time i've taken him to see them (come to think of it, the time before it was also for his birthday, last year), they are one of his favorite bands, and, though they aren't my favorite, they do put on an entertaining show. i don't really mind seeing them, especially since he doesn't kick up too much fuss when i drag him out to see bands that i like. for instance, we saw the black keys in early april, they were awesome! even though i think he really hated the opening band (jay reatard - pretty punk garage rock, way way WAY too loud, but i was ok with it). we have tickets to see REM, along with the national and modest mouse, at the end of may in berkeley. and even more exciting - we plan to fly down to los angeles late august for a nice 3 day weekend away, and i have tickets for radiohead at the hollywood bowl. theres lots of good shows coming up here and there in between now and fall, too. lots of fun stuff to do and see this summer.


anything else? OH! i went blonde! bwahahaha! i just wanted to do something different, something fun, and jill did a great job making me a blondie. i'm just now finally starting to get used to it. at first it was a big shock every time i'd catch sight of myself in a mirror or a reflection in a window or something. this is what it looks like:




summer fun, i want some!

wayne and i are taking a weekend off by ourselves, leaving in a couple hours. plan is to head down towards santa cruz by way of felton and boulder creek, drive around like mad, eat some seafood, do some fun junk, spend the night, head back up the coast tomorrow. should be rejuvenating =)

Yesterday was a glorious sunny day - it's odd, but I always think of January as a month of crystal-clear sunny but chilly days. One would expect it to be grey and wintry, but every January seems to have a stretch of these perfect days. So, we decided to spend this lovely afternoon at San Francisco.

Adventures at the MOMA



We always like to go to the MOMA, and yesterday we had a (mostly) pleasant time there. Unfortunately for us, the third floor was completely closed due to a new exhibit being installed, so we didn't get to see the work of Joseph Cornell or An-My Le. Some things are ever-present - my favorite Warhol (National Velvet) is still hanging on a wall. Marcel Duchamp's Fountain is still prominently displayed and bringing in the laughs. My husband still looks away in contempt from the Robert Rauschenberg white painting. I still want to sit in front of the Mark Rothko canvas and just stare and be soothed for however long anyone will let me.

Did find two new people to be excited about yesterday:

Jeff Wall makes large scale transparencies illuminated in lightboxes. Amazing photographs, most of them staged, some telling narrative's based on literature or classic art (such as my personal favorites - "After "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue" and "A Sudden Gust of Wind" based on the classic Hokusai print). I cannot put into words the effect of walking into a gallery and having these massive wall sized images, so sharp and detailed, so clearly illuminated, beyond life size, there before you. You feel as if you are there at the scene, with suddenly super human clarity and visual acuity.

Two good sites about Jeff Wall -
http://www.uoregon.edu/~mbuerkle/jeffwall/
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2007/jeffwall/

Also, Olafur Eliasson - whose work elicited mixed reactions. Eliasson is an Icelandic artist who works with color, light, structure and oddly enough, temperature. Unfortunately, I had a somewhat unpleasant reaction to part of his exhibit. When the elevator doors open upon the 5th floor, where his work is the sole attraction, you enter a vestibule in which all the normal lighting has been removed and replaced by yellow sodium lights. Step into this room, and all normal color is leeched away. People's skin color becomes greyish-monotone. For some strange reason, this really bothered me - I mean to the point of physical discomfort, my eyes felt strained and I got rather flushed and hot, feeling almost as if I couldn't breathe, and I even felt a bit weak. Really bizarre. Unfortunately, this affected my appreciation for the rest of the exhibit, even though I felt markedly better as soon as I left that room. But I still felt rather weak and uneasy the rest of the time at the museum.

Easily my favorite Eliasson work on the fifth floor was the One-way Color Tunnel, which was set up across the walkway that traverses over the open section of the museum - if you look down to your feet, you see the lobby 5 floors down. Wayne didn't like that. =\ I had been on this walkway before, though, so I knew what to expect and it didn't bother me. Walking across the direction we went, the tunnel walls looked mostly like black glass, but when you look back its like looking into and walking through a prism - so beautiful.

and from 5 floors below:



Two interesting sites with info on Olafur Eliasson (including that dreaded yellow room, which apparently troubles no one but me):
http://www.sfmoma.org/eliasson/data/index.html
http://www.andrewblum.net/typepad/2007/09/olafur-eliasson.html


Also spent some time at the Yerba Buena Arts Center and wandering around, had lunch, went to Amoeba Records, watched Wayne lose his mind trying to drive San Francisco streets - lotta fun!

things i would like to accomplish this year:


*learn to make cool glass thingys
*remodel my website and relaunch
*take math placement tests so i can . . .
*take some math classes if i . . .
*decide whether to go for a degree or just to continue to . . .
*take more fun classes.
*think about re-entering the work force or . . .
*think about going professional
*read at least 10 more really good books and . . .
*keep track of them here
*go to see radiohead when they tour this summer
*go to see more jazz
*take a decent vacation someplace nice and sunny
*go play in the snow before it all disappears
*paint my office blue
*buff up my abs (and my arms and my legs and my butt)
*paint my front door
*meet some new people
*think about more things i want to do and add to this list and then . . .
*do them!