Evidence

I went to see a movie recently that really wasn't very good but there was a monologue performed by Julianne Moore that was really truthful about relationships i think. So i scoured the internet to share it with you, here is some evidence that film can be very truthful:

JULES: "Its no secret, your mom and I are in hell right now and the bottom line is marriage is hard. It's really fuckin' hard. It's just two people slogging through the shit, year after year, getting older, changing -- its a fucking marathon, okay? So sometimes, you know, you're together so long you stop seeing the other person, you just see weird projections of your own junk. Instead of talking to each other, you go off the rails, and act grubby, and make stupid choices, which is what I did. And I feel sick about it because I love you guys, and your mom, and that's the truth. And sometimes you hurt the ones you love the most, and I don't know why. You know, if I read more Russian novels... Anyway... I just wanted to say how sorry I am for what I did. I hope you'll forgive me eventually. Thank you."

I cant seem to get the lyrics of Janelle Monae's song "cold war" out of my head, its so painful and yet so comforting at the same time. Its one of those songs that is fantastic because it makes you feel so much all at once. I identify with it so many levels and am also excited by the music. It a bunch of happiness and sadness wound up into a great tune. Also the video is particularly awesome if you get a chance to watch it. Evidence that artists are still kickin'lyrical ass:

So you think I'm alone?
But being alone's the only way to be
When you step outside
You spend life fighting for your sanity

This is a cold war
You better know what you're fighting for
This is a cold war
Do you know what you're fighting for?

If you wanna be free?
Below the ground's the only place to be
Cause in this life
You spend time running from depravity

I'm trying to find my peace
I was made to believe there's something wrong with me
And it hurts my heart
Lord have mercy, ain't it plain to see?

I recently learned to use imovie, well, i recently tinkered around with imovie...this is my first humble attempt to make something that resembles art with it, so go easy on me. Its a compilation of places, people, and things that i have encountered in my life in the past few years that have given me a lot of joy, and made up my life. Most of these videos are taken with my blackberry and are mostly sentimental, or are clips from my video logs from china. My only regret is that i did not video more of it as it were happening. Its a bit of a manifestation of something i have learned in my early adulthood: that nothing really means much unless someone is there to share it with, and that home is the people you love. Evidence that i have lived:

art ethics.

Here’s something I haven’t talked about in a while if only due to distraction. After my yearlong hiatus from all things seriously photographic I’m getting the itch again. I remembering how much I love painting because it is so physical and ancient, and im experiencing a bit of trepidation about this new venture in the world o’ art that begins come October. I know I want to try but I’m not exactly sure how its all really panning out with me. The more I think on it, the more important it seems that I should continue to evaluate the way I feel about digital art and art in general as a means to an end. I just don’t want to find myself two years from now up in a dark room posterising a pill bottle in photoshop and using font to convey things like "betchya cant eat just one"

What I would really love to do is book covers, or magazines. I think this has come up because it has occurred to me that I’m getting in to the business of coercing people, which prompts me to think… is all beauty coercion?

Is all allure inherently trickery? Can we not avoid persuasion at the taste and smell of something exquisite? We think and feel and eat with our eyes primarily, and so, i have to try to navigate the ethics of this new thing that will possibly become my life.

You have to get past a lot of tape before you really start to become prolific and my website is a bunch of old shit by now. Well not shit, but old, at least in terms of what im capable of i think. So i suppose im a little concerned that i will, as i and so many others inevitably do, begin to hate craft out of frustration and burn out. It is here that I assume I will glance back at Colorado and say “if only i had chosen you.” But I guess the grass I always greener.

So if I’m to remain on the up and away from the trickery of modern advertising, I need to ask myself a few questions. What am I doing this for? How does this make the world a better place? Does this help only rich people and coerce only consumers? Or is it some kind of beacon for people who love things to be beautiful. Is it its own art form, or just a perversion of a few? I am now trying to count all of the times in my life that an ad has helped me in some way... cricket cricket.

Well I do have to say that have always appreciated a beautiful cover to a good book, or a fantastic layout in a magazine, or a good deepened cover photo, or a flawless piece of packing, namely bottles, specifically liquor and wine bottles....GASP...they’re so pretty. Okay, so there is some redemption to this I think, it’s just kind of under the radar.

right?

I mean there is something to living in and around and using art. Even just being in Morgan’s parent's respective houses the other day (I wish I had photographed more but I only got the one photo) was like this fantastic...thing? An art museum really...I mean, they ARE just things, but it makes you feel a certain way to live in and through and around art. Its like the reason that people play fantastic music in the backdrop, and the reason...if they’re fuckin’ lucky, have a Rauchembourg or two hanging on the back wall. It just and experience to live with art, its the same way its an experience to live with a person, or with an instrument. Its does something to your cognition and makes life generally more enjoyable if not just different. The more you live with a painting, the more it means to you, you start to attach memories and feelings to it and it evolves overtime as you look at it. Until one day, its just...part of your life. The space you live in is not the evidence of your life, but rather the skeleton that your life fleshes out. It sort of makes me feel like a hermit crab. A stylish hermit crab.

Its hard not having anything that is ever really certain sometimes, there are things that are certain for the era, and when the times are changin’ way too fast and you feel disoriented it can be exhilarating and it can be discombobulating. Its also exhausting constantly debating yourself, I suppose what I would like to give myself the permission of doing is to say that there is nothing wrong with taking a step back from self evaluation and self searching and change and constant upheaval and just stand there for a minute in your own happiness. It sometimes healthy to challenge and to let go of your stagnancy, and it sometimes healthy to stand still in your happiness. Be still and know that i’m content in this current phase, and i don’t wish to be disturbed for the moment. There is some sort of power in saying, “This is true right now.” Its true that I love you right now, and its true that the peach I ate this morning was sweet, and its true that all of the things I currently believe and feel are good and okay for now. And there is not shame in telling the guy next to you who is debating your every feeling and inclination to just shove it. You don’t always have to be something for everyone, and you don’t always have to question everything. Some things are better left untouched, while others thrive when moved. For now, I’m feeling good where I am, and im just gonna take a breath. I sometimes and lately have been afraid of the person im becoming. Perhaps it is here that change is a bit rapid and often for the moment. There’s nothing wrong with taking 5. Everyone needs a break.

Art and design are very ephemeral. It’s very hard to explain why and what art does, I don’t think anybody really knows why they do it, except that they just have to. It somehow salvages life for me in a way that I cant very accurately explain. And for this reason, I believe that art is a type of faith. Something that appears to you that you trust to do what it always has. And although it lets you down, quite often more than not, it keeps living and it keeps coming back. It is also very hard to say what art even is! I think, we identify with art in this way: because we alike art are not sure of what we are but endure in the absence of certainty. Though painful, we keep changing. A whole mess of success and failure that really has no rhyme or reason that can be attached to it, and yet it is this great romance that leads us on in a very Sisyphean way. The great sorrow and the great joy of life, is finding out why the fuck we do anything that we do at all. What is the what? What is the question? What's it to you, and what’s it to me? Maybe this is why we keep calling it up for coffee. It has no basis, no concrete definition, no practical implications as far as survivalists can prove, constantly evolving, does not have a specific or even sometimes reasonable way of being reached, and doesn't even always show up when it says it will. Furthermore, offers no guarantee of giving you anything in return necessarily. Art is a big fuckin’ flake.

I suppose the nirvana of this task is finding the "sweet spot" where you can create with the acceptance that what you toil over may be meaningless, with the iron clad hope that it is not. Maybe its worth it or not, but its definitely rewarding. Inherently accessible to all who posses a pulse, art is the peoples science, it is for everyone and by everyone alive, but sanctioned as the quiet obsession of an elite few.

a site that is so much fun its almost as much of a time suck as facebook:

http://www.sweet-station.com/blog/

the unframed awesome watercolor/crayon drawing in mo's room at her dad's house:

Yea, you.

The great joy and sadness of life is that everything changes. For the better, for worse, but all sand: fluid, amorphous. I can't figure out why this is scary. I suppose because it suggests that you will lose everything and everyone you love, and rather lightly proposes the idea of adventure and renewal.
The most important thing to me as far as i have observed it is relationship. As much as the person terrifies me, the person sustains me. My friends are my family, as much as i keep running away from them. Im sometimes not sure you all realize how important you are to me, how deeply i feel for all of you. In fact, i maybe seem flippant and hyper independent, but i can only sustain because i have depended on you first. I can only hope that the love i feel for each of you is even slightly mutual.
My life does not fit in a template, and it does not scroll as if linear. Its just there. evolving, changing, being.
When i look at the type of love that exists in Mo's family, the type of honestly and comfort that inst overbearing and isnt perfect, i feel very hopeful. You have always and do believe in me. You have accepted and pushed me. And that has meant more to me than i can ever express.

When i look at you, and you, and you, and all of you I feel nothing but gratitude in the strongest of terms.
I feel that i know who i am in a very comforting way when I'm around you.

I get myself knocked around now and again, it doesnt mean its my fault, it doesn't mean I'm stupid or a failure, and it definitely doesn't mean im going to hell or have lost my way or something. This is my way. Im happy here, with you. If i have nothing else in my life, if i don't live past today, if I never make a dime, my life will have been great because you have all meant something very strong and very fulfilling to me.

" this is who you are now jessy, and one experience cannot undo who you are, how is that even possible?"

"you are okay and its not your fault"

"I will help you"

"You are talented"

"i forgive you"

"i accept you"

"i love you"

"you are my edie"

"i miss you"

"you're ace"

"be careful"

"there are no mistakes, only research"

I prefer to remember all of the good things you guys give me. And its out of control. Its fantastic to feel so much empathy for all of you. Take this little piece of my heart, and anything that i have, consider this my offering you guys. If you need me, day or night, rain or shine, good terms and bad, im a call away, im a bike ride away, im a skype away, im on the next plane. You are my heart. If youre questioning weather or not im talking to you, I am. Yea, you.

Im a little shaken up lately.

Life is good in general.

-j

New Season's Resolutions

I know its a bit late for a new years resolution but Ive never really measured my year beginning January first, and if you ask me you should revolve your year the most important thing to you. To me that is summer, and with today being the worst day of the year, August first, the beginning of the end, the last first of summer, and with my life taking so many changes as of late, Im making the executive decision to list some new season's resolutions. With that said:

This season I plan to...

Give more. Its easy to get caught up in caring only about yourself, this season i plan to give much more of my time, money, and energy to other people (while still taking care of myself)

Sing more and make it permanent. I want my life to be more concretely musical, i saw a posting for a free piano on craigslist today, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship i hope.

Work harder, procrastinate less. Lets face it, I spend way too much time stumbling, phoning, and facebooking. Im gonna kickstart.

Invest more, spend less. Buy only what i need, very little frivolous spending this season.

Im going to try this thing that ive recently heard of that makes a lot of sense that i probably already do mostly but havent been conscious of it. I dont want to eat any foods that have more than 5-8 ingredients listed on the label. Also im gonna cut back on chemicals, that means, natural shampoos and lotions and no make up a couple days a week. If i wont put it in my body then i wont put it on it.

Ignore my current cynicism, more.

check the mirror less.

Make a more conscious effort to fix my posture.

Less cardio, more strength training. (this is the hardest one)

Karaoke, more.

sincerely,

-me

s'morning.

S' morning here and Im glad im awake. Im wide awake, its morning. Im eating an omlette and sippin on sippin' chocolate. Its a gorgeous day, and i dont have much to say. I wish i were outside, I wish i were hiking or biking or kayaking or swimming or jumping or running. I suppose i could remedy these things, but i think ill just go to texas instead. Emmie is coming soon! And my sister will be home from Estonia soon, and my Mom's birthday is coming up which i wont be here for, and so, today i will buy her some flowers from the shop around the corner. Its a normal day.

Im restless again, so its normal. Its a good day, its sunny again so its definitely good. So far, so good. Sometimes I'm very remorseful for my inability to hold still for second, its an affliction, a busy busy busy affliction. I love to move, I love to expend energy, and yet i sometime wonder if I will ever want to sit, because the second i do, i feel like i need to get out the door again.

Even now, sitting in this house, writing this post, Im somewhere up there, thinking, today should be the day that im out, gone, running. And so i just kind of sit here and toil about it inwardly until it buckles at my knees and I sit down melancholy for the rest of the day.

Perhaps its just community I'm seeking.

Perhaps its adventure.

Perhaps its a combination.

Buckle.

The best thing about the internet is that It gives you a voice. A voice when maybe even no one really cares to hear it. And noise when maybe even youre not sure what it means. fuzzy, fussy, grinding, gives you an output where you would normally call someone and leave the voice in a wire, unrecorded. And now we can chronicle things like this, days like these, and they're precious.

All you daughters go buy flowers, and fathers bring the bacon. Lovers give you lover a call and handymen turn a wrench. If youve gotta run today go run and if you dont have shoes sit still, and sing and clap and dance till ya ill. If youre a bug in web struggle struggle all you got and if ya got it easy today, sunshine and pot, and a whole lot of music and just a bit of food in your paw, and your teeth are gritty or clean or youre young or old or mean. Do you what ya do, do what ya do. Dance or work or scream or screw, do what ya do.

Ive missed photos, specifically black and whites, mostly photo booths. Ive missed photography as art in general. I think im revved up now.

In other news i think this choir has managed to make this song even more moving than its original version, so listen:

gorgeous.

cool, calm, collected.
How did it get to be 11 30?

water weight.

Today Im moving out the last of my things from the northside to morningside. I love that name, its a great name for a street, it sounds so cheerful. I cant wait to address things "dearest you, updates on my life, love me, at morningside, morningside, morningside" terrific.
And while it all seems terrific for the time being, Im still a bit unsettled, and maybe this is because im barely here at all, and so i cant be comfortable. My mind is in the mountains and my feet are in the ocean somewhere, and my heart is always elsewhere.
Perhaps one of the stranger things about life, and the most glorious, is one's scarce ability to appreciate things for the time that they are happening in.
When i am traveling, i wish for a home, and when im at "home" i wish to be gone. Maybe its just me, or just the age old Sisyphean problem of displacement, and to some degree insatiability.

Today i just layed in the sun, because whatever comes at me the sun always comes with me. Its like the riches of the earth, the resource i constant seek, most needed, more than touch, more than water.
It began to rain. all over. I slung my magazine underneath the umbrella and before running for cover took a deep breath and looked up. "oh wait." i thought "im waterproof" So i just sat there, and sat there, and sat and sat, and eventually the sun came back from behind its cloud cover. A miserable little game of hide and seek. And it was pouring, but blindingly sunny at the same time. And i somehow came out of the breath i had been holding, a bit new, and bit fainter. And I thought, maybe i dont have to choose.

And i dont want to choose. Day to day is too delicious to not try everything you can.

And while my current situation, and trepidations that i may have somehow, gasp, made a mistake in moving back here undermine my ability to get up and run these days. Im starting to realize that all we get is this life, and to not use it to the best of our ability in every way is such a waste, its such a fucking waste. For me that involves a few things i could try to list off the top of my head.

I have to exist here, in this time, in this place, with these factors. I can choose to manipulate them but i must work within them, there is no way around it.

I'm thinking...Why am I obsessing about all of the stupid things im obsessing about? I've slowly dropped most of the baggage, piece by peice through my early adulthood. A hangup here, a Louis there. There goes my wallet just now, out the window tumbling itself down the track out of view now, at the mercy of this trains velocity and its own violent trajectory.

I just figure, if no one is getting hired here, and I want to travel anyways, and i can go to school for practically free overseas, then what the white bread am i doing here?

And if i want to sail the world and i can go, now, free of charge, free of worry, free of ailment, then why am i not there by now!?!? Picasso was picasso by 23, and Newton had discovered and invented things and Beethoven composed and Frida had affairs and Judas doubted! and i have done a third of these things in three lifetimes of some people! Its like, i can plan to go ya know, but i mean, a lot can happen in two to three years. What if i lose a leg, what if i die? I may not even make it to that year I plan to go. Im itching to act right now, with purpose, without fear of loss. Sin temor de perdida. And something keeps pulling me on through the bread line. And here I am.

left, right, left, right.

I suppose i just didn't expect to be back here.

I'm waterproof,

-j

cibo non bombe!

I cant eat a lot things. I mean a lot. Basically processed foods and anything remotely resembling bread and almost no sauces. I have recently developed a sensitivity to dairy. It plagued my early adult hood. Really, the only time its easy for me to eat something is when i make it at home. And then among those things, many times, I get sick anyways because my body is what it is.

So really, I get a handful of reactions that are usual when explaining it to people.

"oh my god that is so terrible/sad/hard" is one of and the most common of them.

Im not sad. Im thankful. In a really strange way im really grateful for all the limitations. One, because it makes me very conscious of what I eat, and very appreciative of good food. And it taught me to cook.

At the risk of sounding pompous, I learned to cook in Italy( I know) a week after learning of my food allergies, from a pregnant Italian woman. Perhaps this has shaped the way i feel about food. I think one of the reasons (among the many) that i love italy more than any place ive ever been or lived is because of the reverence that Italian people have for food and expression and an almost god-like treatment of what the greater part of western society considers "decadent". ha!

Sex? Good?! Chocolate?! allowed!??CARBS!? for christ's sake, its no wander so many Americans fit so snugly and permanently into the framework of Italian culture, its a veritable AMERICAN PLAYGROUND!

But enough of that. Its more than that. Its not just decadence, Its not just pleasure. Its serious stuff. I mean it. (cracks smile)

I talk about it a lot but really i just cant get over how much food means to me. There are so many ways that it sustains me. I love the idea of food as expression, its beyond survival, its survival plus! I feel this way about so many things that i like to lump together into that category of what i can only call under an umbrella "expression". Art and language and food and dance and theater and sex and music and everything wonderful and luscious in life. I think these things not only enhance life, but give us reason for survival. They are sacred to me. They are my joy and my comfort and my constant.

To create is sacred. And everything that includes. The whole enchilada ( pardon my pun)

Anyways i was packing up my things tonight from my parents house preparing to move out soon and I suddenly got hungry. It was past midnight and while everyone tells you not to eat after midnight, im a bit of an exception seeing as I hadnt eaten anything all day for a couple of reasons. One, because my body is strange and is hungry very seldom, and two, because i dont really eat frivolously very often. I really only eat when i can make it good, by good i mean either healthy or fantastic. I dont like food, i LOVE it, and there is a difference. I love it so much that i almost respect it. Well, not almost, i do respect it.

I suddenly realized we had some gluten free angel hair pasta made from flax and rice along with some fresh pesto and a couple tomatoes. I also suddenly realized how long it has been since i have really made anything that I'm proud of, or since ive been able to cook anything for that matter! ( one of the only draw backs of travel is scarce access to kitchens) So of course, I creeped downstairs witha single light turned on, boiled a pot and began to make some angel hair pesto, with a bit of feta, fresh tomatoes, and some spicy seasoning. In my favorite bowl. With an ice cold water in the mason jar. It looked so beautiful, good enough to eat! And it was, and I did.

My love for food is so faceted its crazy. Its visually appealing, its a work in itself. It enhances something we have to do for survival. Its like, we have to eat anyways why not make it AMAZING! And some people realllly have a gift for it, and a style. Its also very interesting to survey tastes of different parts of the world and wonder why people taste what they do. No tongue is alike, and no body similar. It's a social function as well. Everyone does everything around food it seems. It makes your body work and grow and function, and i cant help but revel in that. Many people beg for it. some starve. Some take more than they need. Some exploit it, and some nurture and create their entire lives around it, humbly and thanklessly. Food is always certain, and food will always come in some way or another. So i dont feel the need to chase after it all the time really. To cook takes my mind away from all that i worry about and focuses it for the next thirty minutes to an hour on the specific task in front of me. "make lovely!" its says "make good!". I love to feed other people as well, it sort of equates with love for me, as much as it can. I feel very strongly about the way feta melds with red onion.

While grating a bit of Parmesan out of habit over my perfect bowl of capelletti, and thinking "i wish i had some pine nuts" my thought was nearly interrupted by my dads footsteps and then and then his sleepy inquiry... "jess? what are you doing?"

And to this i could only reply "praying."