knoxville sunday

im presently sitting in a cafe in knoxville killing time and savoring internet access before i have to go back to katies and get ready for mb's wedding. as per usual its weird being back here, but this time its worse. this time the memories are more distant and less recognizable, and with half of my friends all moved away the feeling i remember most is the loneliness. the thought of staying here, finishing what i started, being different, making a new life for myself, being with the awesome group of art students i was with, it all sounds great, but every time i come here i am even further assured that that might have been more a fantasy rather than an attainable reality. im not so sure i ever fit in well here, dont know why, but it just never really worked no matter how hard i tried. its difficult to see a dream fly away from you, but at least ultimately i made the right decision.

tonight i see a good friend of mine who is actually slightly younger than myself get married. for once i am a guest and not a photographer. both aformentioned aspects are going to make this a weird night. ill report back on this.

im gaining weight and its making me mad yet i dont do anything about it instead i just make more pies and cookies to eat. ugh time to get out of here.

hey two nights in a row this is a good start. and for those of you who were wondering i was fairly productive today. my room is actually starting to look somewhat organized and my computer finally has more than 7 gb of memory on it, damn large image files.

i spent all day cleaning out my room throwing out old things. i went through all my books. im sure the used book store will be happy to give me two dollars for an armful of books that is worth hundreds. i found old diaries that made me laugh. i was such a neurotic person...still am. it was interesting for me to see how narrow minded i used to be compared to now (so yeah, if you think im narrow minded now...) i found entries written out of excitement, and entries written out of sadness and senior year despair, before there was this blog. i found lyrics about aperture, and i cant remember what they meant. books that contained sad memories i threw out. i found the old journals we rotated throughout high school and as i shuffled through the pages i almost couldnt believe the words, of others and of myself, were really written by us. those lives seem so distant and different from the present its often hard to find the connection. i didnt throw those away, i never will, they are priceless. an uncomfortable, dramatic, homormonally induced difficult moment in time captured forever in those three books. i found my first sketchbook, with magazine clippings, song lyrics, poetry and simple line drawings amassed over the several year span i took classes at the art center before i became a real art student and thearby voluntarily crushed my own soul. it was interesting to see the change in subject matter, attitude and approach throughout the book. i found what i thought might be a poem but it wasnt marked and i couldnt recall its origin, i still like the words so i googled it, turns out it was a good old song by john:

if melody is my destiny
then whats left of me
ill give to you

if next to me is all that you need to be
would you settle for fantasy
if its the best you could do

can i have my cake?
can i have you too?
would you follow me?
could i ask you to?

i dont think ive ever even heard this song. i dont need to.
this is why they tell you to always keep old sketch books. they become treasures in the sand one day.

finally i cleaned out my supply box. this coupled with an earlier rampage of ripping out cool shit from magazines before i threw them out sparked it in me. i touched a marker to paper to see if it was dry and youd have thought it was the most exciting thing in the world. it made me really want to create, i might not even care what i create anymore, just something. something to get it out of my system and make me feel real. something to remind me where i came from so i can figure out where i got lost and make it go away. i swear i was a better photographer, writer and artist as a sophomore in high school than i am as a junior in college.

ashley's australia pictures have sparked my sense of wanderlust and craving for change and freedom. i want to make adventures.

ok seriously, im going to write more. i really want to its just that im pretty sure youre more bored with my life than i am...not too much interesting going on, i should be thankful for that. but i know the sadness i feel when my blogger friends have not updated in forever (you all know who you are), and i being the stalker that i am feel frustration because they might want to be out living their lives instead of sitting in front of the computer all the time writing about it so that i can peep into their lives and souls. cmon people lets see some updates. i wanna know all the skanky and emo details.

so lets catch up since its been so terribly long...

two weekends ago i shot ryan's brother jonathan's wedding. i really enjoyed it, it was one of the most fulfilling weddings ive done though im not sure why. perhaps because the people involved were a little more familiar and a little less like strangers. perhaps because i got some killer shots of the two of them when the rain miraculously dissapated for the remainder of the afternoon as soon as the church doors opened at the end of the ceremony (see above: ignore the shitty color space, still getting used to this whole internet thing you know) perhaps because they really appeared to be in love, which i often find a rareity these days. whatever the case, it was fun, they have really great families and i think they are liking the pix so far at least.

spent most of the rest of the week in athens keeping kelley company and packing up what's left of my things. the house is going to look pretty bare without our stuff there, but looks like we're going to have to buy practically nothing for the new place which im quite excited about. we also ate cookies and sushi and ice cream but not all at the same time. im super excited for next year.

rounded out the weekend at the lake doing absolutely shit nothing. it sounds crazy, but i think i am seriously still recovering from school...yes it really was that bad. kelley and jordan came up and we tried to evade the rain between rounds of cards and lots of way too rich pie.

talked to ebeth tonight, im headed to the knox on saturday for mb's wedding. it still hasnt really set in that i have friends younger than myself getting married. e is different. she works at a kids camp now, im pretty sure she previously didnt like kids so hot. she talked a lot about her fiance, which is certainly natural, but i could just tell that we arent in the same place in life anymore. i fear that from this point forward we will have increasingly less and less in common. but i am excited for her, because this was all what she wanted and its how it was all meant to work out for her. im sure that shes going to be so happy and that makes me happy for her. i cant help but think though, given that so many of my ut friends are already engaged, that my move has prevented me from feeling the pressure to enter a stage of life for which i am so not even ready right now. going to weddings every weekend doesn't really help reinforce the desire for marriage haha.

so here i am, im not sure how many weeks into summer, and ive accomplished not too much so far. the relaxation, however, has been a good and neccesary addition to everything, but there are so many other, still relaxing things i wanted to do this summer that i will never accomplish at this rate of lethargy. sooo ive got to be a little more disciplined. i swear i used to be really disciplined. i also used to have patience, love to sit for hours and work on random useless craft projects and be able to focus. now things are different and i dont really like it. im going to blame it on technology. so i think now would be a good time to separate myself a bit from technology. allow myself to slow back down a little. so even though no one reads this im putting a call out for good books, like really good ones, like on the road kind of good. ive gotten more inspiration from music and books than anywhere else. the music is kind of dying now too, but ill fix that in time. so if you have any must reads please let me know : ) oh and for all you literary buffs i also equally appreciate good poetry which if i understand it (lol) i often find more visually rich and inspiring than books. my absolute fave hands down is pablo neruda. ill leave you with a line of his:

I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

-Pablo Neruda Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair

sexy? oh yes i think so

grapevine fires

i have literally been sitting in bed all day. i dont know what ive been doing, it seemed productive at the time, but now im not so sure it was. now that my life is finally not in shambles due to the uga art program im really going to try to write more often, though im pretty sure no one reads this anymore anyway lol. the beginning of the summer has been a busy one, but im just still reeling over spring semester being over it all still hasnt hit me yet. ive been working a lot, doing some editing for brenda and shooting weddings of course, ive got a portrait sitting on sunday and in a strange life-circulating kind of twist of events im shooting ryans brothers wedding this weekend. revisiting my first solo job ever i suppose. ill pray for more organization and skill level on my part this time around. im about to start working on some more business-related stuff as well. ill be updating my website and creating a much prettier word press blog that will hopefully become the cornerstone of my marketing strategy...oh and i jumped on the twitter train even though i still dont understand the point. now that im in the graphic design program i feel almost like im living someone else's life. things seem so different, but in a good way. ill hopefully spend some time learning more about all that jazz and i want to try screen printing at home, ill let you know how that venture goes lol.

last week we went to the death cab concert at the fox. after hearing mixed reviews about their previous live performances i had low expectations but i really enjoyed the show. i thought the lighting really complemented the music well without being distracting. i actually downloaded narrow stairs right after it came out last year. i loved i will possess your heart and was pretty let down by the rest of the album, so i listened to it once then trashed it. after hearing everything live i redownloaded the album and i actually like it now. its a shift from plans for sure, it lacks the droaning beats and repetition prevelent in plans and transatlanticism, but it takes a nod back to some of their earlier stuff. of course, i dont know shiz about music so this could all be wrong, just a humble thought. i particularly love grapevine fires. if i could paint worth shit i would paint this song, the imagery in the lyrics gives me goosebumps. and ill leave you tonight with that.

We bought some wine and some paper cups
Near your daughters school when we picked her up
And drove to a cemetery on a hill
On a hill

And we watched the plumes paint the sky gray
But she laughed and danced through the field of graves
And there I knew it would be alright
That everything would be alright

Would be alright

the best for last.

this semester has been a toughie, probably the most challenging one yet. my workload was unfathomable, i was under a great deal of pressure to get into the graphic design program, i put an unhealthy amount of stress on my body with long nights no sleep awkward diets and too much stress, i was living out of my bedroom and dealing with some pretty heavy room mate issues, i was still adjusting to a a new school and trying to build a new life and of course along the way always on the desperate search to find out who exactly i am once again. all the struggles, the lack of sleep, the stresses, the tears, the physical and emotional pain were canceled out this weekend. and i will tell you why.

it began thursday night. i was still exhausted from the night before staying up late finishing up my graphic design portfolio and due to my stupid inability to nap the following day, but i was determined to celebrate. i went by button's bf's house for a while and as soon as i got out of the car everyone on the porch was yelling my name. they know my name?! victory #1 for the night haha. this made me feel nice inside. then molly and i literally ran downtown leading the group and went to level where our end of the year rave was taking place. i promised my little i would buy her a shot, but the line was rediculously long. standing there, i got a call from my graphic design friends wanting me to come meet them at copper creek. debating in my head the pros and cons of waiting in this rediculously long line i bid adeau to my friends. i had paid $8 for a wristband for an event i didnt even attend. oh well, i missed the white tshirt memo anyway haha.

besides i think i had more fun with the art kids than i would have drunkenly dancing around in strobe lights, i hate those seizure-inducing things. for that one night our group hung in a balance, we were all united in our sense of relief that this grueling process was over, knowing that in only a few days the group was likely to be split and we would all go our separate ways no longer united in the facebook chats in the wee hours of the morning because we were up all night painting or the inside jokes about moon. but that night we were all there buying each other drinks and reveling in the finality of it all, whether we really believed it was over or not. i spent the rest of the night with an incredibly random group of people including a girl dressed like a pineapple and when i got home and realized it was 4 am, i could hardly believe it...i havent been up that late in years probably and it didnt even feel that late at all.

i planned on sleeping reading day away, but unfortunately my body had other plans. i spent the rest of the day cleaning up and turning in my photo final, at which time i also learned that i had been accepted into the photography program...great, but not what i was looking for lol. evening rolled around and through our backyard strolls ashley, it was hard to believe she was even there. she picked me up and spun me around about twenty times and it was so nice to have her back. we headed over to a mexican restaurant in normaltown and illegally got margaritas for the table. those mexicans love their tequila and i was kind of glad i had volunteered to drive because those things were too strong for my taste haha. back at our place we set up the basically full bar jordan had brought over left over from moving out of his apartment. we sat out on the deck creating our own small gathering in a sea of other deck parties until it started raining, at which point our intimate gathering turned into a dance party. i rock teh pocker face better than anyone you know believe it.

i dont really know what time i went to sleep jordan was in and out of my room all night and i was so exhausted from everything that i probably slept through any events that took place after about two or three. its always nice to wake up with him there. i had to grab the address of the church i was headed to later in the afternoon so i pulled up my email to get the info. waiting in my inbox were two new messages, both from moon, one called "congratulations" and one called "wrong email" these two seemed to have conflicting content and so i sat there for a while considering which, if any to open. jordan determined that congratulations sounded happier and i should open that one first. turns out the wrong email one was just concerning some kind of minor issue with my email address. the congrats email told me that i had indeed been accepted into the graphic design program!!!!! i still dont believe it, it came as such a shock to me and its still hard to really grasp what happened and what all this means for my future. however ultimately the only thing that matters is that now i do have a future. for the past three years my life has hung in a balance based entirely upon acceptance into the program both during my time at ut and my time here. now i have something to hold onto, something concrete, absolute and real. its so nice to know where im going. ill be in school for extra time, but once i get out of school ill be trained and have lots of opportunities available to me, graduates of the program always do. im nervous and i still doubt my abilities for sure, this journey isnt going to be easy for me for sure, but it never has been so i guess im getting used to it.

i spent yesterday photographing a wedding and trying to stay awake for the whole thing. i came home and absolutely crashed. im still sleep deprived, but ive got another wedding today so no rest for the weary! my first korean wedding...should be interesting.

ive still got two finals to go, in fact one of them could determine whether or not i pass a class, but my mind is so distracted by all the wonderfullness of this weekend, im not sure how ill get any studying done haha. thank you to everyone who gave me love and support throughout all this, who listened to my depressed phone calls, who understood why i wasnt mentally or sometimes physically there half the time, who picked up the slack for me when i couldnt. i speak a lot about the moment in high school when i stood up on the stage and recieved a department award i wasnt expecting for my work in photography my senior year. i speak a lot about that moment because it was an accomplishment, but not just an accomplishment, it was a milestone reached all on my own based on my hard work and it was recognized. i dont even know where that medal is today, but ill never forget how it made me feel. the last three years have been comprised of a lot of stressing, plan b making, worrying, crying, depression, insecurities and self doubt, and of course a lot of late nights filled with hard work.

it was worth it.