forest monasteries:

Wat Pah Nanacha (Ubon Ratchathani)
Wat Umong (Chiang Mai)
Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampanno (aka: Tiger Temple, Kanchanaburi)
Sunnatrum Forest Monastery (Kanchanaburi)


http://chm.forest.go.th/th/

shrine for forest spirit

to do

thai sunday orchid market (bangkok)
orchid/butterfly farm (mae sa valley near chiang mai and near Doi Suthep and Doi Pui national parks)
petchtamsee cactus farm (rayong, th.)
uncle chorn's cabin of cactus
mae sa snake farm
deaw cactus farm

community forests:
> making CF disabled friendly (e.g. Malaysians Against the Discrimination of the Disabled at the Kota Damansara CF)
> khao lak CF
> Khao Din CF
> OISCA Thailand Agro-Forestry Center in Wat Phrabuddhattakpaa
> Northern thai mountains
> Joko Community learning Center
> Umbilical Cord Forest in Maela-Up Village
> Hua Han CF

i am miss piggy and boiled egg nose on steroids wearing 20 dolla galaxy nail polish, soaking jeans and weeklong unwashed hair. korean bbq feast last night and i forget that our xmas extends into the evening with late gifts and video games and no one is awake but me this early. and mocha cake from angel bakery for breakfast.


also i think this summer i will visit a few graduate school programs. plant the seeds before southeast asia.

successful community forestry in mexico

notes for spring trip

via brian

locations:
deep south side of Montauk
national seashore on the cape
north fork of long island
plum island national seashore
also, right in the heart of NYC

fishes to see:
striped bass, fluke, sea bass, flounder, blue fish

extras:
home base in springfield, ma
overnighters
late april, early may

i feel as though i am not yet in my skin. or that i have left my skin behind and i cannot find it. okay so i'm trying to crawl back into my skin, but i gained 20 lbs, and i need to rethink the situation which probably means learning to stand still and accept that i am more naked than before because i've embarrassed myself as witnesses saw me trying to get back in my skin. actually though, i wish a pot of gold could be found underneath my bed and then i would pay all my parking tickets and the trivial things that i will be giving up to compensate the accrued penalties. thoughts! you must leave the mind!

perfect time to go back to la.

who is there? my tribe

it's very cold here. family and friend gathering makes up for it. such strong ties to mama - private and intense. i think my brother has his own version. amazing how that happens. right now everyone's already gone- that was so fast.

to be done, in the warmest room of my house, my bedroom:

re-curate plants
study for exam
cv
internalize
horticulture courses?
california identity
listen to j. mitchell's blue

suddenly i want to know everything about her, anything mama has to say.

encouragement this morning on my visual development. it feels strange because i'm familiar with no feedback, no dialogue. in that way it's very sad. today feels pretty sad actually.

zen

when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

wouldn't it be nice

sickness reins

low key busy:
individual arts grant for artists seminar
cover letters
wisconsin southeast asian heritage language program
thai homework
thai forestry reading
san francisco galleries

drunk

we act in harmony with our conscience

yamamoto masao

a kind of amazing day on several levels:

- intense concentration/real hard reading (thai forestry: a critical history)
- a stronger organization of my itinerary/destination points/historical sites of political ecology
- photography resources/contacts in the sf area
- an amazing lecture by darcy padilla
- being vibrationally excited for how much there is to do!
- feeling the hard work
- inspiration all day

METAPOPULATION

lisa olstein, white spring

I am working on a specimen so pale it is like staring at snow from the bow of a ship in fog. I lose track of things -- articulation of wing, fineness of hair -- as if the moth itself disappears but remains as an emptiness before me. Or, from its bleakness, the subtlest distinctions suddenly increase: the slightest shade lighter in white begins to breathe with a starkness that's arresting, and the very idea of color terrifies. It has snowed and the evening is blue. The herders look like buoys, like waders the water has gotten too deep around. They'll have to swim in to shore. Their horses are patient. They love to be led from their stalls. They love to sharpen their teeth on the gate. They will stand, knees locked, for hours.

it's that time of yr - the first five questions

It is difficult to be happy unless one is good-looking, intelligent, rich, and creative.

Happiness is more a matter of my own attitude towards myself than the way other people feel about me.

People will probably think less of me if I make a mistake.

If I do not do well all the time, people will not respect me.

Taking even a small risk is foolish because the loss is likely to be a disaster.



Totally Agree Agree Very Much Agree Slightly Neutral Disagree Slightly Disagree Very Much Totally Disagree

colour space

a good day yesterday because it felt confident and self-initiating and i apprenticed under MASTER SAM and learned the holy ways of the canon IPF 8300 and canon IPF 9000! learned about perceptual and relative colourimetric. i love all the ideas around translations of colour space (from device to device), how they differ in effects from hue to tone, gamuts and capacity.

very anxious lately about the job that helps me get by, but i am honestly doing the best that i can do- so what more can i really do? it can't be for me if i get fired. i think i am still a good person, right? mp said, "do your best! no more, no less!"

my first grant application is almost done! i have decided that i am going to thailand either way.

thai classes are good. i am learning how to read and write. i also might adopt a language buddy to practice with.

"In this phase of the project, the aim is to better understand the nature and scale of the crop-raiding problem around the forest by documenting it in detail (with maps and measurements) whilst also plotting the seasonal distribution of elephants inside the forest. The project will also test different crop-protection measures – including ropes smeared with oil and chilli-pepper paste - and will develop a locally-based, and managed, ecotourism venture that builds on the project in such a way as to benefit those who bear the cost of living with elephants."

waiting for the rice to boil

no bra
re-arrangement of kitchen and "photo/film center"
plants up to neck-dream come true
cook books actually in the kitchen now
new equity, 22" monitor
the usual sf gray haze
15 min ab workout
newman o's, hint o' mint

SFMOMA jordan belson

the screening was amazing. an hour + of visual music:


if not film, then its on beta. no computer or digital alterations at all. seriously wonderful.

it is so cool that sf is/was the hub for all of this amazing film work. another great screening next week at the PFA with works by bruce connor, freude, barbara hammer, george kuchar!

a cross pollination of cultural ecology and the reach of poetry in visual language

"In preparation for this proposal and project itinerary, I have become more aware of the personal and professional responsibilities I am dedicated to. Although I see graduate school and working as a mentor in an educational environment in the scope of my career, I am also invested in the person I will be as I approach these goals. For this reason, I am committed to the openings or interruptions in life which unfold into a fuller sense of our world and ourselves. I see the spirit and experience of this trip as much more than the refinement of visual skills and the cultivation of the mind. I want to develop a practice which entails involvement with communities and other notions of audience as I am aware of the opportunities for artists in society is increasingly valued.

With the project I have proposed, I believe there is a powerful potential in the investigation of landscape as a language for the manifestation of culture which is expressed in the changing architecture of the land. The nature of this venture is interdisciplinary, allowing for a transcendence of boundaries in visual, ecological and anthropological fields. The gift of a multi-perspective question gives an encompassing examination of a significant environmental, cultural and political issue in Thailand. I have confidence in this project as a landmark towards the honorable role artists can have. "

avant-garde

i feel blessed from seeing the screening at the Pacific Film Archive tonight. Avante-garde works from 61-71 along w hutton, jordan and severson in person:

Robert Nelson -Oh Dem Watermelons
Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley - Schmeerguntz
Lawrence Jordan - Duo Concertantes
Alice Anna Parker Severson - I Change I am the Same
Bruce Baillie - Valentin de las Sierras
Lenny Lipton - Doggie Diner and Return of Doggie Diner
Peter Hutton - July '71



tomorrow night there is a jordan belson screening at SFMOMA but that kind of collides with ss and ks' collaboration in Magic Magic Roses. man, bruce baillie is where it's at. his movie was brilliant and beautiful and lawrence jordan spoke of it particularly well, a "personal poetic documentary... right out of his life...keeping the edge of the frame mobile..."

the whole work is never before the viewer.

what is wrong with people?

whale week

after a long nap in a plywood mobile home, we tandem biked to see more blue whale bones at the long marine lab. there was one full sized blue whale erected as sculpture and a baby sized one as well. earlier that day, my brother sent me a picture text of the beached blue whale that expelled its own baby after a few days of bloating and decomposition at bean hollow. when i had dinner with him tonight, he said i should be glad that i did not see it as he will never forget the smell of dead whale: sweet egg rotten seaweed blubber.

it is the first blue whale to wash up in thirty years. they say that the heart is the size and weight of a vw beatle. you can watch real time necropsy videos of this whale on youtube:

date w myself

to keep me calm after hours of research.

miss you too e. youle.

a source of inspiration for the day:

a couple hours at the marin headlands today where i found a stretch of blue whale bones near the headlands nursery. dream come true.

+harvey milk rec center up and running
+recchuiti chocolate asphalt jungle mix & an its-it mint ice cream cookie sandwich
+mysterious object at noon

lyfe right now

rose: cultural access e.g. movie screenings, things to do, walking around town, the library, good folks

bud: sf symphony playing work by john adams, readings dates, new movies to see, halloween and thanksgiving, all the glorious reading to be done! and i just bought a new monitor for photo work!

thorn: semi-dramatic, but even still, in the best way possible

layers - filters

rethinking the effects of light
CONTROLLING THE EFFECT OF LIGHT/LAYERS


the non destructive image
cognitive linguistics


adobe TV

from santa cruz to san francisco

sneak peak p. 2

sneak peak

never pass an opportunity to travel or see your family.

Thailand's forests
In January this year the Thai Government announced a ban on all logging. The decision to scrap 301 existing logging concessions followed disastrous flooding, brought about by deforestation. In November 1988, 14 provinces of South Thailand were devastated. Mountains of logs, undergrowth and mud swept down on hillside villages leaving more than 430 dead, 300 missing and 70,000 injured.

The race for profits by the logging companies has stripped the forest cover of the country. In the 1940s more than 70 per cent of the country was forested. By 1985 the figure was down to 29 per cent and that was suspected to be a gross overestimate from the Royal Forest Department. About half this area is meant to be protected forests - national parks and wildlife sanctuaries - but the protection is seldom enforced. And after the strip logging the land is left as scrub grassland or used for arabic farming.

The public outcry following the November floods has at last jolted the Government into action.

From Asian-Pacific Environment, Vol. 5 No.4,1989

tropical malady

political ecology

deforestation of thailand

note to self:
what are the policies around forest reserves in thailand? what is the reinterpretation of land use with these new laws? consider the political economy of local resource use, regional patterns of land use, ambiguity of land tenure, research FAO, food and agricultural organization of the united nations.

ss and i toured w the curator of painting and sculptures at sfmoma. he walked art table through the fisher art collection. loved it.

reading:


to read:

o. paz

Moksha is a gnosis and a praxis. First, it is a knowledge. Not in the modern sense of knowing- which has been generally reduced to information about this or that- but in the more ancient sense of realizing the truth: that is, making it real and effective, living it and becoming one with it. Moksha is self-knowledge. To understand oneself, one must practice introspection and eliminate the superfluous: karma and all that goes with it, enthusiasms, dislikes, nostalgia, affection, ego, personal consciousness. In that way one discovers that one's true self is other. This self has, according to the different schools and religions, various names: atman, sat, purusha. It is also emptiness. It is neither an I nor a you nor a he nor a she. It is neither a noun nor a pronoun. It has no weight, size, age, taste: it is only...

productive monday

brother time.
mc time.
half moon bay nursery.
fitzgerald marine reserve w harbor seals (described as marine sausages!)
skipping lecture to do (photo) work at home.

last night he said, "you should try breathing deeper. you should feel your stomach rising up and falling down. press it if you want, when you're laying down and doing deep breathing." later, i looked down and saw four needles in my stomach, laid out in a cross. there were also three on each inner arm, and a lot on my feet.

i have a grand amount of time, but it still doesn't feel like enough. i suppose i've been doing a lot of adventures. i went to arroyo seco two weeks ago. i think im going to monterey this weekend. i find that i take pleasure in going to bed early. i'm not outing like i thought i would, but i find that i am at home reading or on my computer editing. i am trying to decide when is the best time to buy a new monitor. i am also trying to schedule the next two years of my life (loosely).

i'm not necessarily counting the days that pass, but as the next day comes certain things surface as more important, more urgent. here i am in san francisco right now, but i think that can change.

roman jakobson

“Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.”

i am not even done reading, but this article is really good.

24 hr day

from work to dr's appointment to farm meeting to baseball game (giants vs. rockets, but i like to say rockies) to seltzer w lime at a bar near home. now i am awake from a very deep slumber!

baseball is cool. it looks better in person, and the feeling is better than seeing it on tv, as minute as they are from the bleachers. and they serve insanely delicious gilroy garlic fries.


sol lewitt print!!

how do i know so many wonderful people?

solid sunday with the home girls.

i just realized that i have only been sleeping an avg. of 5 hrs every night before work for the last month. one of the effects: i do not detect any indication of hunger, only feelings of fatigue spirit.

friday afternoon i met kc and mc at the maritime museum where they sailed in and anchored next to historical ships. mc got into a dingy and rowed to me- three teenage girl tourists behind me sat on the steps watching everything. he reached the shore and kissed me on the cheek! then there was the audience that giggled and agreed i was the luckiest girl ever. he rowed me back to the boat to sail underneath the golden gate bridge in poop weather. we came back wet (and witnessed 3 solo sea lions) and very hungry. irish coffee at irish bar, and then a second irish bar with guinness, fish n chips, mashpotatoe thingy and cribbage. we slept among the historical ships after i rowed in circles to get there, also among ghirardelli square and dolphin swim club. we woke up and made tea right on the boat! i was rowed back to shore through a marathon of swimmers. i had to work, but they spent another two days out there in much better weather. i am very envious.


soft kisses on the eyelids of the sea!

my inner dialogue

projects

-research assistant/volunteer at conservatory of flowers
-apprenticeship at magnolia editions
-cactus sculptures
-everyday still lives
-caring for the body i have
-hand made area rug
-metaphor sweater (yrs before this one is finished)

ouroboros

yes gabo met me at work and then we drove to my house where i showed him my dead snake. today it started to smell pretty bad. he said why didn't you refrigerate it? and i said, fuck i didn't think about that. we walked the neighborhood and collected a survey of flora for a new still life. i'm aiming for a still life a day. i guess that means tomorrow i should do another still life. of what? oh, that makes me wish i had bought that chia obama pet- his hair would the be alfalfa sprouts.

i am drunk tired- i spelled my name out wit the florida st. plant survey... inspired by alexis anne mackenzie and took photographs of it during different times of the day. yes, it got blown away a lot, and yes the flies began eating my snake. we will see what it looks like soon. i can't stand fuji film, but that's all i had to work with.

i'm bad, i told z i'd do the dishes but i just made more dirty ones and still have the old dirty ones in the sink. mac says he likes hearing me talk about how i see films, basically translating my experiences to him and now he wants to watch more abstract films. i love that kind of influence. which reminds me, how can i surround myself with people who are better than me? (as in, people who are more experienced than me who i can learn from)

z and i went to a pacific film archive screening the other night that was not well curated by david wilson, but had some noteworthy films like jeanie liotta's eclipse (she has an amazing signature at the end of her films, her name in really big cursive); len lye work, although not well projected; a really awesome ben russell film in which he collaborates with lightning bolt; mothlight by stan brahkage; and gary beydley's hand held day which i'd like to say is my favorite because i take the most inspiration away from it- it is contributing to still life ideas!

I believe that producing pictures, as I do, is almost solely a question of wanting so very much to do it well.

mc escher

i am being shaped

by so many things this week:

1. j. newsom's have one on me?
2. starting a new job next month
3. new classes to take- photography & marine bio lab
4. learning bharatanatyam
5. unfolding friends

i returned home today after driving up the 1 (from santa cruz), and i felt this anchor that nothing is like california. i love it here, it is so so so beautiful (its a toss and turn for southern and northern california). or rather, i love being able to be in a place and move through with appreciation. there was a sign put up by a coastal strawberry farm meant for driving, but i think its applicable to everything. "SLOW RELAX". i just made a small version to put up in the house.

i feel really fresh. the result comes from a recipe that is of archery in the sc archery fields, eating hamburgers and saffron almond sorbet, tandem bike riding, brother time and soul talking .... and then i came home to loveliest letter from hodgie! i feel all the sweetness up to my ears and that is so fresh.

and i am taking pictures, and walking closer to a much tighter practice. i took home a squished snake from the archery woods. it's buried in beautiful ferns. it'll make a striking still life. he is across from me on my kitchen table, not smelling yet. his bones will be so beautiful.

"However great his troubles he never asked help or made
any complaint, as if, like a philosopher, he had learned that without
hard work and suffering there could be no pleasure worth having."


read this, good story about a dog,

I'm into my new bag that was embroidered on my camping trip. z doesn't like it, but must girls who see it are into it. i think it's a really positive reminder of the things that we feel good about- i mean why not? the embroidery states my initials and are circled by the words "what i possess"- yes, strictly inspired by maira kalman.

Opportunities for growth are often disguised by situations that appear confusing, unpleasant and painful.

"shifting the emotional center" r. creeley

i lint rolled Brad today, worked on William T. Wiley clocks and a UV printed John Yau book.

anyway, i am looking to move back and forth from two emotional fields. the point is to keep one's eyes open, to be attentive to reality, and the self amidst it, for as long as humanly possible.

and to be as human as possible.

Don't throw a fit:

If real love doesn't fit you like a glove

on my mind

hasselblad 501cm
hasselblad 503cm
wista 45 dx
toyo 45cf field camera
leica m6
strange strange still lives
albino fruit
spaghetti strap sun dress
really cheap living
hunger

picasso's mistresses

olga khoklova
marie-therese walter
dora maar

last week i made granola for martha stewart. today i spotted chuck close's self portrait and his portrait of brad pitt in tapestry form. today was day one at http://www.magnoliaeditions.com/.

....How well i related to Syndrome and a Century... and how unbelievably moved i feel after watching it just now- there is something new? Very layered. And it is strangely Thailand in the way I, a part american, remember it.

Religion, memory, love, understanding your lineage? Oh I can't wait to see Apichatpong Weerasethakul's other films.





Brother and I went to big sur for the night. Much too cloudy to be shouted at by the stars. We did the Andrew Molera Loop, about ten miles and without water for the first 2 until we ran into Dharmesh. He saved us with his water and his tortilla chips and with a lot of art mentoring wisdom. We slept outside next to our fire and slept in a V-shape to share the pillow i remembered to bring (and the pillow he forgot to bring). he played ukulele and i embroidered my initials in the dark on a new bag i like.

c.d. wright

Every year the poem I most want to write, the poem that would in effect allow me to stop writing, changes shapes, changes directions. It refuses to come forward, to stand still while I move to meet it, embrace and coax it to sit on the porch with me and watch the lightning bugs steal behind the fog’s heavy veil, listen for the drag of johnboats through the orchestra of locusts and frogs. An old handplow supports the mailbox, a split-rail fence borders the front lot. Hollyhocks and sunflowers loom there. At the end of the lot the road forks off to the left toward the river, to the right toward the old chicken slaughterhouse. The poem hangs back, wraithlike, yet impenetrable as briar. The porch is more impressive than the rest of the house. A moth as big as a girl’s hand spreads itself out on the screendoor. The house smells like beets. For in this poem it is always Arkansas, summer, evening. But in truth, the poem never sleeps unless I do, for if I were to come upon it sleeping, I would net it. And that would be that, my splendid catch.

i've been fairly depressed for who knows how long. definitively this week, but most likely longer.

i've been biding my time... meanwhile there is a lot of couch investment these days. my description will sound leisurely and productive, but it's at that slow-depressed-pace while reading octavio paz, writing to emma, researching exhibitions i can submit to, and watching really bad indie dramas that i fast forward just so i can see the ending at least. it's suppose to get rid of the anxiety i have about getting out of this cage. the rambling bug, you could say. but also the deep deep desire to be in something worthwhile, neck deep. i am working towards it. i have so much anxiety that i am going to start meditating tomorrow morning before work so i can feel peace, or just no anxiety. i mostly sway back on forth on what i should be doing. i'm too comparative, i know this.

i just wrote to emma about how is it right to bag up what i really want to do? i don't think it is. it keeps jumping at me, but the economy is so goddamn bad. can you believe it? it's so real.

i sigh a lot these days, eat a lot of home made (fancy looking) pizza, and i sleep just 5 hours every work night. at least z's amazing grandparents are in town.

i can't remember who said it anymore, but there are people who are good beginners and then there are people who are good at middles. i think i am always a beginner.

a serious mtn. of salt

sister sleepover. hot dog style with dyna in between her and i.

i've been dreaming for a months and week's about the cargill salt factory i drove by. greg and i visited their salt stacks and morton's salt's salt stacks yesterday. not too friendly of people, but potentially good pictures. lots of palm trees! the most salt i've ever seen in my entire life. how cool is that?


haagan-daz honey vanilla ice cream not that good. peaches, really good.

to john ashbery by frank o'hara

I can’t believe there’s not
another world where we will sit
and read new poems to each other
high on a mountain in the wind.
You can be Tu Fu, I’ll be Po Chu-i
and the Monkey Lady’ll be in the moon,
smiling at our ill-fitting heads
as we watch snow settle on a twig.
Or shall we be really gone? this
is not the grass I saw in my youth!
and if the moon, when it rises
tonight, is empty —a bad sign,
meaning ‘You go, like the blossoms.’

also noteworthy: what remains, a documentary on sally mann.

david lynch's catching the big fish, the audio book!

soil!

repotting soil and pilates!

a warm day, on which i woke up late (6 am instead of 3 am) and got out of work also late. i was living my life along other humans for once and not rushing through the mid night to make bread and sweets happen.

all together, my arm smells like raw egg, butter and sugar and a layer of manure after carrying a bag of cactus soil mix.

what is better?
to be honest about where you are? or confident about what you can do? it's so much of the same thing! but there is a split in how you present yourself. today i preferred the former- to keep calm and carry on.

he is the boss

her looking is good

i love this essay written by sally mann on her new body of work. my sister photographer speaks about love and the body growing old. although the material is idiosyncratically processed, her seeing feels quite real, or actually quite accurate to all the ways she has expressed love to unfold in her relationship with her partner. it is seen in his bodily form and it's grotesque and strange- her method of being real is open and i am amazed by what the sitter shares.

i love her devotion to her practice and her faith to the things that are important to her. yes, it brings me down from my head to meet my heart. i am always asking myself these days how do i continue to do what i love?

i'd love to say something like this to my co-worker emiliano, but my spanish is real bad. we go back and forth all day saying "que pasa loca?" or "que pasa loco?" "nada, mucho trebajo!" or i tell him he is a pregnant with an empanada.

estoy emparazada sounds like estoy empanada- get it stuffed belly? but with child?

this blog is meant to collect inspiring things. not many "new" inspirations to update with. i still look at things like bharatnatyam you tube videos and think about meadows and secret projects i don't like to talk about until i actually make something happen- you've got to walk the talk, you know?

i've been really inspired by my neighborly relationships. i am always in awe of what nice people they are, and it just makes me want to be nicer to them. so i stop by say hi, give them coffee, talk to the kids, or walk their dog. it makes me love my house more. they invited us (zach and i) to dinner. a simple but grand gesture some how. why is that? they are real adults and are pretty busy, but they want to feed us and take care of us for one night. it's very nice.

you bet secret projects are on the works!

i'm glad to be going to bed early tonight.

personal meditations in older photographs

what one may find for comparison between work now (san francisco era) vs. last year (western massachusetts era) is a different kind of concentration. there is a quality of light that i was able to achieve that i have not found in recent photographs. then again, a lot of my attention has been dragged away by day-to-day living. if i recall life before now, it felt like i was living in bursts and i think that was illustrative in my work.

on the contact sheets, in between the images that i felt were significant at the time, i have sweet fillers/sweet memories. i've put them away all on external hard drive. but together, i think they compose a sense of personal meditation. yes, it is personal and for that very reason it is a different kind of speaking that is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to share.

Why did you make me human?

I slept 16 hours last night. I spent earlier that day losing a good chunk of thumb via microplaning cheese and then I said fuck this and fuck this pasta, cleaned up the wound and cheese and walked a couple of blocks to look at artists books. After, I thought it would be really nice to go to a bar near my house to have a beer and read my Richard Brautigan. I did that, but I unexpectedly got drunk from the 1/2 pint glass. I walked home and slept for so so so long. Sleep debt is what they call it when you build up your missing hours of sleep. So many bodily affects yesterday.

TODAY TODAY TODAY! Oh even though I have to things I don't want to do today, I am so glad it is today. I am so glad to make oven roasted eggplant and eat fresh fresh cheese. My thumb hurts badly, but I will still take a shower as if nothing happened. I will not run my fingers through my hair. My hairs with get caught in between the sliced flesh of my thumb. So unpleasant. It's gloomy, I love that.

I want a sweater like the one this girl wears in the middle:

big day

weekend in big sur at woodsist music festival, only real estate was memorable. i've never been down there before and i wish i had spent most of the day at the beach. camping was nice, under thick, milky stars. a must at least once more this summer. actually, why not next week? i will consider this!

sunday in santa cruz with the fam. they are sweet. baby brother continues to be baby brother with lots of love, balloons and attention. we always help him clean his house!! its gross, like college beer pong, those-are-not-my-dishes, ramen style. shabu shabu for his graduation dinner. my sister is pro at it because she use to date this japanese guy.

my bicycle was stolen (and zachs) the friday before all of this. but guess what! i found on CL and i'll tell you what happens later...

today is a big day in the east bay. swapping cars with sister to go to:

cactus jungle
urban ore
bank of america
east bay vivarium
tilden park

in the last couple of weeks, i've declined from socialization to read (richard brautigan and WWII endurance stories phase), meditate to radiolab in my return to rug-making, all the while drinking very hot herbal teas. i am at peace.

believe me, and egg within an egg and a nine yolk egg

amazing website, and my favorite section:

http://www.poultryhelp.com/oddeggs.html

while i am waiting on the phone to contest a parking ticket

3 samosas, 5 oranges, 1/2 of amazing corn chips from the farmer's market!

i've returned to reading more poetry. i thought i could get in the habit of watching movies more, but i never returned to it. i started with calcutta, but that's as for as i got. zach has an on-going service that is filling up a thumb drive full of movies i should watch. right now he is walking around in doggy print boxers and a bright purple shirt. he told me this morning that his favorite thing to do is wake up! and then watch a movie! and then go back to sleep.

i had my first day of volunteering at the conservatory of flowers this week. i'm really excited for it! they assigned me to work in the "highlands gallery" which is a mostly temperate/cool greenhouse with a lot of orchids. I'll be working with so many orchids. i have never fancied orchids that much, but it is a growing interest since one of my horticultural teachers is an orchid specialist and he's re-introduced them in a much more interesting light. it also helps to see the amazing varieties of the orchidaceae family. it kind of makes you abhor the monoculture of varieties that are available in nurseries. anyway, my project there is a creating a plant list of their specimens in the gallery and also a botanical reference for the plant list.

photography? it's coming along slowly. i have a good number of photos to edit down from this winter and i think i'd like to revisit older photographs to put into this new body of work. i have a photograph at the 40th anniversary exhibition at hampshire college. strange.

i am working 40+ these days. it's good right now. it makes me value the life i have outside of work, but i also enjoy having a job that i am engaged with. it's a lot on my plate, maybe to the point where i am not as emotionally available as i'd like to be because i am in go-go mode trying to get a lot done. but i am young and i like being fierce.

three devendra albums later:

stewed kombu
daikon-carrot pickles
misozuke (miso pickled garlic)
enokidake kaori-zuke (pickled enokidake and shiitake mushrooms)

anderson valley beer fest, wish i could go!

luc tuyman & paul klee in the form of citrus and bergamot desserts

my windows open:
sf camerawork
fruit tree polination
rutaceae family research
mission branch library


japanese pickling

barter coffee and granola

volunteering at conservatory of flowers, working with the horticulturalists starting in june
los angeles coming soon

yoga everyday so far- tiny jacked body? ha, some day.

i made a statement last night that i hope to keep true in as many ways as possible, to experience as many masters as possible. what i mean is that it is amazing to be around people who are better than you, that is, people you can learn from.

z and i saw pharaoh sanders at grace cathedral last night. things i want to remember:

-how he sang into the bell of the saxophone
-how close he came to us
-his cute little white pharaoh style beard
-his frequent silent tappings on the saxophone, how loud it sounded for being so far away
-the security guard who let me save seats without tickets in the best seats of the house, choir distance away, directly behind the platform.

other things that i love that are grander than my existence: grace cathedral

"This stone stuff.
Doesn't it sculpt you as you sculpt it?
While you log and categorize
your skills and deficiencies,
the sad saga sags on,
the stories of other people,
the splendor of success.
It makes you stupid."

Jillian Brall

some things feel better in the early morning, and many things feel very good anyway: eating, writing, thinking.

i love early mornings that i can have to myself at home. it never happens that i can see the sun rising over our balcony. i have been really enjoying my well-rested, get-things-done, quality-people weekend. it feels like i have a life? even though i was just whining about being lonely. i'm not really, but i have days where no one is around when you want someone around because of my odd schedule.

inspiring things lately include:

-the introduction to the gift by lewis hyde (although am not thoroughly enjoying his cultural explanation of gifting)
-frank zappa animation "mr. b"
-farmer's market, homesteading
-serena mitnik-miller's studio, so amazing-it looks like life itself

i just remembered that he makes the best company

salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon salmon


+exposed many rolls of film these last two weeks

-loneliness from over exhausted autonomy/being too productive

+i eat very well at home

i dont feel as though there is anything big to say. i am in the midst of reading many things, and haven't really felt anything hit me yet.

best thing this week, letter from old friend emma. intimacy, sincerity, love in all her words. i miss closeness.

i'm going to buy a very big daruma doll. you fill one eye when you've made your wish, and then you fill in the other when the wish comes true.

i started writing descriptions of the people i've been meeting starting today. example:

April 1st.

Vernon - Gardener for the Golden Gate Park. Took 4 or 5 photos of him. Went to City College for a couple horticultural classes when he took janitorial job via welfare. I stopped to ask him about the fern trees, one being called alsophila and the dicksonia fern tree (the stouter tree). He also worked at a bakery.

i think it is a good exercise to help remember names of all the nice people i meet (it is so nice when someone remembers your name ). i think it will allow myself to think outside of what i want when i am having these conversations to help me really see people as physical forces.

i just biked the wiggle to golden gate and all the way through. i took a whole roll of pictures and now i'm back at home. i saw signs for the bike route to golden gate- next week's adventure?

tomorrow: watsonville, ca wildlife refuge adventure w old smart man from my plant classes.

the decline

rose, bud, thorn,

(dad dinners - family time
mom dinners - family time
el matador - salty sea that made me cry)
a deep welt of grateness

smart mom takes charge of puzzling together moving truck and 1000 pieces of furniture

a furnished apt
3 hrs of sleep
work tour for parents (v. impressed)

bannana w suzzy

2 exams in 2 two hrs

upcoming house warming party

$3 ceramic tupperware, french blue

glad the sun is warming down, time to put on the sweater and v. thick socks. brewing rice for breakfast and dinner. going home tomorrow lunch. home sweet home- mom, dad, brother (w his first tattoo), and aunt i haven't seen in 7 yrs.

my current state is weathered. as usual, trying to figure out how to best manage my time. i spend any free time at the new apt. i love love love it. negative scanner is amazing, and i'm so excited to see more newly developed work when i get my negatives back. i certainly don't have the same kind of time i did in philly to put into photo outreach, but i also wasn't taking classes and etc. my days are v. full. it gives me such a powerful sense of autonomy, but look at me, i am so tired.

i want to lay next to a warm body, my almost black hair bun nestled in yr neck, and my ear to your chest. yes, slow kisses on the the eyelids of the sea.

how i imagine my life to be

how my life is actually:

last night, a lemon in my backyard with elephantitus fell off of its stem, and already it is moldy.

as certain as our beginning, there is an end.

my backyard has been my savior. many hours already of letting the sun clear out the day's stress. oh its unbelievable that i feel such peace upon arrival in this new home. its so quiet and bright, and the weather has been v. good to us.

slowly setting up my new scanner. bright days keep me away from working inside. i read outside. i love reading poetry outside on our baby blue stair case.

i read ted berrigan's III from sonnets the other night, and i almost cried, he stirred me up so good:


Stronger than alcohol, more great than song,
deep in whose reeds great elephants decay;
I, an island, sail, and my shores toss
on a fragrant evening, fraught with sadness
bristling hate.
It's true, I weep too much. Dawns break
slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea,
what other men sometimes have thought they've seen.
And since then I've been bathing in the poem
lifting her shadowy flowers up for me,
and hurled by hurricanes to a birdless place
the waving flags, nor pass by prison ships
O let me burst, and I be lost at sea!
and fall on my knees then, womanly.

7 something hour hike today at the carson ridges behind fairfax. i like fairfax. awesome waterfalls, and 6 different plant habitats within 10 miles. really amazing to walk from low ground cover to redwood to tropics to etc.

photographed serpentine soil, conifers, and orange trees. we found a giant moth larva in a stream. the vultures were too fast to photograph, but they were totally waiting for us to die. they circled around us for hours. im actually starting to understand taxonomy and it makes me feel really good. i can tell you about the mustard family easily.

hound's tongue.

ice cream, kettle chips, and sparkling water for dinner. am so tired.

p.s. apt is so great

i am pretty sleepy, but in a good mood. i'm going home soon, and it'll be so nice to see my family and friends. my aunt is in from thailand. haven't seen her in 7 years!!

im going to ride my bike and take pictures. go to home depot to buy paint for the apt. ikea for a bed frame.

$$$

am inspired by the latest wipnyc photographer, elin berge, who makes stunning work from feeling these relationships between thais and swedes. i miss home.

my epson v700! waiting to move into new apt before i assemble!

tripped to point reyes today, tomales bay, and kehoe beach. we saw san quentin on the way, and stopped at a great bakery. tim said him and his college friends clammed near by with tabasco in back pocket. i've got to do that! we identified nearly 100 different species (native and non-native) today. so glad i am home now though.

sand dunes and beach- it was so neat to see what most of the landscape looked like before much of the urban development in the 1800's. today there is a remarkable distinction between the habitats that encounter the strong winds. the amazing straight divide: vibrant shrubs and ground covers on one side (no wind), and sand on the other (wind).

i always feel good if i took plenty of pictures to be excited about.

tim told me about a wild animal refuge in watsonville, ca. the sector he volunteers for handles salamanders, but there is a hill he thinks i'll enjoy to photograph very much. we've made plans for me to come volunteer too! many wildly decomposing animals. i imagine a slope of old and new bones, scavenged and disarticulated with visual pleasure.

i went to santa cruz yesterday with sister to see brother. i really feel that living here is a good decision. so many good resources and family family family. returning to l.a. soon!

lay me down

what kind of life to lead? is what i'm thinking when i come home.

kae, my sister's roommate told me that this year is my year. she said it'll be bomb or she said it'll be pivotal. jasmine, my chinese fortuneteller, also said good things will come this year and to expect an auspicious 2011. wait, can you believe its march?!

i know i would feel at ease if i was in chinatown right now. tea, dumplings, etc. cheap things. gracefully stern mouths across the streets of chinese people. is that my half future because i am half chinese? i want smile-wrinkles though, but i'm already in a bad mood. i'm basically walking backwards from ever achieving smile-wrinkles.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sooo tired right now that it effects my ability to believe that good things are coming. except zach and i found an apt together! haven't signed the lease, but when i do i'll give out my new address to fellow friends.

a wise girl at work told me that i needed to be an advocate for myself. she is so right. im going to do this starting right now by doing some yoga. and then im going to bike over to the botanical nursery and surround myself with plants. Estelle holiday begins.

training fruit trees! can't wait to get a potted fruit tree. i'm in the midst of deciding what variety!



went to a back-to-back james bennings screening last night of american dreams: lost and found and landscape suicides. the latter was pretty good, although my judgement is uncertain because i still fell asleep. the other one was beyond disappointing.

megan said my 4x5's came out blank. i hope it is because i used uncertain old color film. it means i'll have to do all sorts of test, but my light meter is missing????! i am hoping i just left it behind at home. luckily, super star sis has a nice one i can borrow.

chinese new yr parade today. my nose is inflamed. i feel tired from attempting to be well-rested. spirits are just okay.

!!!!!!!! see you in 4 days epson v700!!!!