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.