The Prius is back in my life!
Freedom!
I decided to take the eco-friendly road this morning to school by parking it at a park-and-ride in Universal City and taking the Red Line train from there. I squeezed that beast miraculously into the sliver of a singular space left on the lot of hundreds of spaces, and hunched to keep myself from toppling under the incredible weight of my bookbag as I took confident lunges into the depths of the public transportation underground I am now so happy acquainted with. Upon realizing I had left my wallet in the car, I turned into a monstrous storm cloud and pillaged the energy back to the Prius, huge bookbag in tow, my grumbling in no way aiding the aching in my back. I would use the rolly bag I have for school, but it's impossible to get over the shoulder to haul up and down stairs when all of LA is in my way and I have to forgo the elevator/escalator (I get those two mixed up).
This week has been a quick one. All of my time has been devoted to school, although I have been taking periodic breaks to bask in sunlight. Oh, glorious, glorious sunlight. Part of me feels very smug about all of this sun. Poor Seattle, all cold and dreary. For endless months it will continue to be dreary. And I get to wear this crochet halter top and none but a light sweater in the evening. I get to squint under the shade of my hand in the city streets. I get to give my armpits air AND sun as I lay spread out on the mouse house patio. What has two thumbs and lives in a sunny place? THIS GUY.
Plans to move out are solidly planned as plans for sure. But the when and where are unsure. For now, I will be concerning myself with textiles, flats, croquis, and pinning my bias cut dress together so properly it will make my teacher's head spin.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Everything's Changed. As per usual. Sigh.
I am in no mood to blog, but I am obliged to write every week because I'm not giving up! Never will I ever give up! So what if I don't really have a stable, sane place to live or a car and I have to rely on Poni to cart me back and forth from the mouse house to the bus stop! So what if I feel like my hair might be thinning, or going grey, and I've still got stomach problems from India! So what if I might never be able to fill all the career demands my creative instincts inspire...I will be tortured with creativity forever! So what if I am down to two beebs and the only song I've written lately is a song commemorating the death of Winona, David's eternal love?! (long story, for those of you who do not know the intense relationships my budgies nurture...) So what if I miss my friends and family, but am numbed by the intensely perfect weather and the copious hours of schoolwork I must constantly be fitting in!
Anyhow...I don't even know why I'm complaining. Life is great, why would I be in a bad mood? I suppose a bit of bitterness is rising to the surface of me as seeming turmoil (i.e. change) again rakes its fingernails over my home life. Anytime my security (i.e. habits) is(are) threatened I become sullen. And that's that. I really am as sensitive as they say. Anything could set me off! The trick is: to hide or not to hide? To communicate or let it go? Which battles of the many that are possible are worth fighting?! GOD I love school. Nothing could be more riveting than the fiber content of every one's clothing in Textile Science, or draping a bias-cut Claire McCardell inspired seersucker dress, or deciding whether a baby hem as opposed to a single needle hem would be appropriate for a blouse, or journaling about fashion theorists and digressing into canyons of self-assertion that fashion matters, damn it! It matters to ME!
Poni got a massage from a lady named Goldenbear recently (a birthday present from me) who can tell you all about your past lives, and often the past lives of others in your life while she does so. She told him that he and I have known each other in a couple of other lives, but not many, and those she did mention included a life in which he and I were both little Russian tailor boys who made cool outfits for ourselves and sometimes got drunk and fooled around (we were into each other but communist Russia didn't allow our rainbows to come out, I'm sure). In another life Poni was an actor on the stage and I was his costume designer.
In any case, I have been into fashion (and gay, apparently) for many lifetimes. I feel like a little Russian tailor boy in many ways as I go about my life at this school. There are plenty of gays (men/MTFs) here, but they may as well be straight California girls, too. Really hot, really bitchy, and really intimidating. Today I was EXTRA fixated on the "fabric" on the other girls in my classes. Must have just been a full moon...yep. Very overwhelming and stimulating, to say the least, to be surrounded by so much beauty. These girls are true glamazons. They wear expensive clothes and are way too cool to be friendly to a nerdy, giggly little Seattle queer like me. I wonder if they can tell that I'm nearly ten years their senior? I wonder if they can tell that I'm queer and even if I were looking at their clothing and not their glistening...features, would they think I was perving on them like everyone else in the world must be? These days, here in California, I wonder that a lot...whether my gayness is written all over me or not? (aside from the rainbow on my wrist...I know, I know...) Whether my age is written all over me or not? Even if I wanted a reliable answer, everyone here in Los Angeles seems just a tad too fake (or is it nice? polite?) to ask.
Anyhow...I don't even know why I'm complaining. Life is great, why would I be in a bad mood? I suppose a bit of bitterness is rising to the surface of me as seeming turmoil (i.e. change) again rakes its fingernails over my home life. Anytime my security (i.e. habits) is(are) threatened I become sullen. And that's that. I really am as sensitive as they say. Anything could set me off! The trick is: to hide or not to hide? To communicate or let it go? Which battles of the many that are possible are worth fighting?! GOD I love school. Nothing could be more riveting than the fiber content of every one's clothing in Textile Science, or draping a bias-cut Claire McCardell inspired seersucker dress, or deciding whether a baby hem as opposed to a single needle hem would be appropriate for a blouse, or journaling about fashion theorists and digressing into canyons of self-assertion that fashion matters, damn it! It matters to ME!
Poni got a massage from a lady named Goldenbear recently (a birthday present from me) who can tell you all about your past lives, and often the past lives of others in your life while she does so. She told him that he and I have known each other in a couple of other lives, but not many, and those she did mention included a life in which he and I were both little Russian tailor boys who made cool outfits for ourselves and sometimes got drunk and fooled around (we were into each other but communist Russia didn't allow our rainbows to come out, I'm sure). In another life Poni was an actor on the stage and I was his costume designer.
In any case, I have been into fashion (and gay, apparently) for many lifetimes. I feel like a little Russian tailor boy in many ways as I go about my life at this school. There are plenty of gays (men/MTFs) here, but they may as well be straight California girls, too. Really hot, really bitchy, and really intimidating. Today I was EXTRA fixated on the "fabric" on the other girls in my classes. Must have just been a full moon...yep. Very overwhelming and stimulating, to say the least, to be surrounded by so much beauty. These girls are true glamazons. They wear expensive clothes and are way too cool to be friendly to a nerdy, giggly little Seattle queer like me. I wonder if they can tell that I'm nearly ten years their senior? I wonder if they can tell that I'm queer and even if I were looking at their clothing and not their glistening...features, would they think I was perving on them like everyone else in the world must be? These days, here in California, I wonder that a lot...whether my gayness is written all over me or not? (aside from the rainbow on my wrist...I know, I know...) Whether my age is written all over me or not? Even if I wanted a reliable answer, everyone here in Los Angeles seems just a tad too fake (or is it nice? polite?) to ask.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Second Week of School and Full Upheaval of Sorts
Drama, drama, drama. For once, the world, rather than my own devices, has me sinking in a pool of dramatic circumstances. To view the world from an FIDM point of view would reveal a sea of nobodies with a smallish storm of fashion designers reigning overhead, judging the sea and raining on it because it wasn't wearing the correct water. Fashion students seem to feed on negativity, like high school students (which many of them barely used to be), and I find myself trapped in conversations in which the bulimic girl is not embraced, but shunned for being a bitch...in which the students text under the tables, and complain at the extensive amount of homework. I find it difficult to make friends here, to say the least. It makes me feel old to no longer be the brunt of dramatic episodes, the high priestess of gossip, the girl (or should I say..."woman"?...is that correct yet?) who enjoys and appreciates her schoolwork as a vice rather than a chore. When did I manifest into the homebody work-a-holic my Cancerian legacy promised I would become? When did everyone get so young and bitchy? I no longer look for fat rolls and zits in the mirror so much as wrinkles and gray hairs and varicose veins (we Cancers are also very vain)...that is, when I'm feeling terribly susceptible to the mutiny of fashion consciousness. The most vain of all art forms. Possibly the most ridiculous and necessary art form simultaneously.
Luckily, I feel a deep connection with this art form, and a supreme challenge to have come into this kind of scholastic environment at perhaps the very peak (or a little past the peak) of my youth and beauty. So much emphasis is placed on the designer to be competitive, not only as an artist, but as a beautiful individual representing their art in publicity. As an individual realizing my own deterioration and the sad reality of inevitable change, and as an extremely emotional and most certainly vain individual at that, embracing this career will be a challenge of utmost importance.
Moving on...
Aside from drama and judgment being a general theme as of late in my work life, I have been facing many dramatic and challenging mental twists in my home life as well. What is it about the holiday season that rapes one of so much...composure? Clarity? HAPPINESS? Why must the darkness bring upon darkness? I feel strangely empowered in this years wintry months, and found myself puzzling at the somber moods of my Seattle friends, and unpredictably, my Los Angeles family as well. Poni has found his job challenging in that he is a member of a family for a living, which is altogether invasive, subtle, and deeply impacting. To feel the wave of energy from a family blossoming and pubescent is very humbling, indeed. And I know so well the incredible power of pubescence. Oh, how I continue to marvel at my own ongoing pubescence to this day! Pubescent families, including my relationship with Poni, are like wildly hormonal teenagers. DYING for responsibility, unable to comprehend their inability to fully grapple with that responsibility, and also quite prone to DRAMATIC bursts of immaturity.
On top of all that was vaguely implied above, the car I have been using has broken down (RIP? Gotard the Prius), leaving me completely reliant on my mate for transportation to and from our bungalo in the rolling hills of Laurel Canyon. It is all I can do to keep myself feeling sane in the midst of almost total reliance on other people. My housing has been provided for me, my car was free-ish, my schooling is currently on loan but the same principle applies, and now I'm left without the ultimate freedom of transport. I'm trying to keep my composure and gratitude while enjoying the peace and magic of Laurel Canyon, but also praying from the depths of me to somehow find myself comfortably in the arms of the one person I feel truly comfortable relying on: Me. But alas, lessons are learned when we are uncomfortable, right? F*cking lessons can kiss my....I mean, I'm so happy to be able to have all of these incredibly interesting opportunities, and so many generous and amazing people in my life!!!
The library closes here (FIDM) at 7 PM on Fridays because no one aside from me is dorky enough to want to study on a weekend evening. It is quiet enough to hear the GaGa whining from the earbuds on the guy eight computers down from me. I henceforth pack up my rolling-tote and commence into the dark and tepid night, onto the bus and further into the bungalows of my coveted friendgroup, where we will toast reality all over again.
Luckily, I feel a deep connection with this art form, and a supreme challenge to have come into this kind of scholastic environment at perhaps the very peak (or a little past the peak) of my youth and beauty. So much emphasis is placed on the designer to be competitive, not only as an artist, but as a beautiful individual representing their art in publicity. As an individual realizing my own deterioration and the sad reality of inevitable change, and as an extremely emotional and most certainly vain individual at that, embracing this career will be a challenge of utmost importance.
Moving on...
Aside from drama and judgment being a general theme as of late in my work life, I have been facing many dramatic and challenging mental twists in my home life as well. What is it about the holiday season that rapes one of so much...composure? Clarity? HAPPINESS? Why must the darkness bring upon darkness? I feel strangely empowered in this years wintry months, and found myself puzzling at the somber moods of my Seattle friends, and unpredictably, my Los Angeles family as well. Poni has found his job challenging in that he is a member of a family for a living, which is altogether invasive, subtle, and deeply impacting. To feel the wave of energy from a family blossoming and pubescent is very humbling, indeed. And I know so well the incredible power of pubescence. Oh, how I continue to marvel at my own ongoing pubescence to this day! Pubescent families, including my relationship with Poni, are like wildly hormonal teenagers. DYING for responsibility, unable to comprehend their inability to fully grapple with that responsibility, and also quite prone to DRAMATIC bursts of immaturity.
On top of all that was vaguely implied above, the car I have been using has broken down (RIP? Gotard the Prius), leaving me completely reliant on my mate for transportation to and from our bungalo in the rolling hills of Laurel Canyon. It is all I can do to keep myself feeling sane in the midst of almost total reliance on other people. My housing has been provided for me, my car was free-ish, my schooling is currently on loan but the same principle applies, and now I'm left without the ultimate freedom of transport. I'm trying to keep my composure and gratitude while enjoying the peace and magic of Laurel Canyon, but also praying from the depths of me to somehow find myself comfortably in the arms of the one person I feel truly comfortable relying on: Me. But alas, lessons are learned when we are uncomfortable, right? F*cking lessons can kiss my....I mean, I'm so happy to be able to have all of these incredibly interesting opportunities, and so many generous and amazing people in my life!!!
The library closes here (FIDM) at 7 PM on Fridays because no one aside from me is dorky enough to want to study on a weekend evening. It is quiet enough to hear the GaGa whining from the earbuds on the guy eight computers down from me. I henceforth pack up my rolling-tote and commence into the dark and tepid night, onto the bus and further into the bungalows of my coveted friendgroup, where we will toast reality all over again.
Friday, January 7, 2011
First Day of School...Again!
I have a love/hate relationship with the first day of school. Inevitably, I am a subtle jumble of knots inside. Nervous, bashful, and anticipating a wave of intense pressure and responsibility so great as to shrink me even further in stature. However, I have new school clothes, a fantastic number of slumber hours under my belt, a relaxed, healthy overall person thanks to an extensive and fulfilling holiday break, and a raring excitement to get back in the game of fashion. Bring on the textile science, draping, fashion sketching, and seminars! Bring on the Hogwarts-style instructors with their blood-painted nails and cat eyes! Bring on the swarm of highly fashion conscious but rarely friendly fellow fashion students! Bring on the young whipper-snappers and the older fashion students poised to hide their inner turmoil over the great tragedy of aging! Bring on the lack of time to eat, play, go out, or do anything but be a fashion design student! Bring on the lovely humming and buzzing of my life as a student, currently on the President's Honor Roll with a 4.0 GPA (we'll see how long that lasts!), armed with years of both matriculation at other establishments, and also years of partying-out-my-seemingly-endless-search-for-some-form-of-freedom-I-can't-put-my-finger-on-it.
Anyhow, I simply must do some asanas now. More updates to come on the fresh quarter of the "winter" we are experiencing here in the this city I fall harder for the longer I stay.
Cheers!
Anyhow, I simply must do some asanas now. More updates to come on the fresh quarter of the "winter" we are experiencing here in the this city I fall harder for the longer I stay.
Cheers!
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