Carrie Chau iGoogle Theme

My new iGoogle theme of the week is designed by Hong Kong illustrator/artist Carrie Chau. Her work seems to be populated with Yoshitomo Nara's girls on holiday or at recess. The colors and sense of movement are making my Monday feel a little bit sweeter.

Check out her description of the first painting, translated from Chinese :

A Non-Stop Big Rope Game

The simplest game is always the most fascinated one. The big rope game attracts more and more people to join in, having fun in the beautiful sky, even Dinosaur wants to join us! We have a very lovely time until Mr. Cloud comes, we might be too noisy... :( But don't worry, let's have a good sweet dream from the very silent sky and we'll get together again tomorrow!

Related links:
matchbox art
start drawing

Back on track!

Spring semester grades just came out & I got an A- on my capstone research project.

Romance is great, working at the library with the kiddies is great - they do so warm the cockles of my heart - and I'm getting a little better at money.

I think I'll be back to blogging a bit on this here. I need a focus - it will probably be public library related, book reviews for the kids and the like. Time to get the act together.

Dear World

Guess what - Life is hard.

I have divided up why life is hard and overwhelming into three categories:

1. Money
a. Have recently discovered I owe approximately three thousand dollars to the IRS. But maybe they are wrong. If they are wrong I don't know how to prove it because these forms are making my head hurt and my eyes cross.

b. Also despite aggressive attempts to pay down credit card debt, I'm still in hock almost $3700.

2. Health
a. Am getting fatter
b.Need a pair of eyeglasses like yesterday
c. The biggest scariest thing of all: my teeth are rotting out of my head and i have no money to pay to fix them. scratch that, the insurance will pay only $2000 total for a tooth and i need alot more work than that done. I have two teeth in the back with increasingly wide holes growing in them, there's one tooth in the front with a dark grey shadow looming and one metal witch tooth that has needed a crown for over year and a half.
d. Need to get myself to a therapist for multiple reasons.

3. Personal
a. Too many dates, hardly any emotional gravity.
b. I am mediocre to poor at following through on all the projects I want to do: gym, quilting, walking dogs for BARC, curtains. I am above average to outstanding at watching television shows and accumulating more books than I can consume.

If I can systematically attack and fix these problems I will feel better about myself, like I'm maybe becoming someone I can be proud of/look up to.

Open Your Heart

ETA: yes yes yes, the Siren Music Festival schedule has been announced & Lavender Diamond is playing, along with Matt & Kim and the lovely scottish band The Twilight Sad. I bet those other bands are great as well.

Lavender Diamond is here with a new album that makes me feel warm and happy inside. I'm serious, this music cheers me up in a way that tea with toast and an impossibly long and compulsively readable book - my usual go to remedy for pushing away my black moods - just doesn't do.

Who will dance in the park with me this summer?
Who wants to see them live in June at the Bowery Ballroom?

get it together

man, i need to get it together! i need to take a shower and clean out my contact lenses as the world looks kind of furry through these eyes right now.

i turned down hanging out with this boy, and this other boy and hanging out for most of the day because i was supposed to write a paper.

did i write the paper? no of course not - instead i watched a medium quality episode of The Office, downloaded a bunch of sad bitch music, and felt moody and then ambivalent and then upset about sex. That is not a good state to find yourself moping about in so lets get it together.

today has been a weird day - i cried, i smiled hard, i kissed someone a whole lot, i barely slept, i got in trouble, i went home & watched Peep Show, i made some realizations with the help of some smart girls.

i'm confused about my own life, so i'm going to stop thinking about it, and start thinking about the Ian Curtis biopic, Control - which is supposed to be out in the theaters sometime soonish I believe. And, courtesy of IONCINEMA.com, a first picture.

Dandelion Season!

while walking to work this morning i came across a little patch of grass in front of the courthouse in queens that's been covered in scaffolding all winter. the scaffolding is finally down and dandelions are sprouting up all over.

picking dandelions is lovely because:

1. they're common enough that i don't feel guilty about picking them when i haven't planted them myself. dandelions plant themselves - they plant themselves plentiful & there sure were plenty leftover for the bees once i took a handful for myself.

2. their petals are soft & i like to rub my nose in them.

3. their scent is so delicate & not too flowery. they just smell like spring and summer camp and grubbing around outside with no responsibilities.

unfortunately, they also like to rub their pollen off on your face. unfortunately i never remember that. unfortunately i walked half a mile like a ditz sniffing my little bouquet and got a face full of yellow.

the upside: no one wanted to stand next to me in the elevator and that's a-ok with me.