recently

I. hampshire mod 16 reunion: “donuts”

II. hampshire college mod 16 reunion: “photoshoots”

III. Briefly, Chicago: “sam’s new haircut”

(before)

(after:)
IV. Briefly, Chicago: “kerianne composts!”

V. Cute Things: “all over”

VI. Built a Bed Frame: “big project”

VII. Mom and Dad Visit: “best business trip ever”

 

let’s go dancing.

hello friends!

let me take you on a journey* through my magical Friday night.

[*NOTE: after careful consideration of the fact that most photo-documentations of concerts tend to be blury low-lit blobs of color and stage-equipment, I decided that I would document the night via drawings of my impressions of that part of the night.]

This journey started many months ago when my good friend Juliet said “OMG ALIYA, I’m coming up to NYC to see my good friends/ favorite band ever PEARL AND THE BEARD play. you have to come see them / I can’t wait to see you.” I said, “OMG AWESOME.” and bought a ticket.

Forgot about it for a while and then bam it’s time to go! Have to admit, I was more excited to see Juliet than I was to see the band, but I mean, she flew all the way up here from Jacksonville Floridaaa so they must be great / why not enjoy myself there too!?

The Cast:

For this adventure I was not only joined by the amazing Juliet, but also by her also delightful friends visiting from Boston, Emily and Brandon. Emily and Juliet had known each other since they were so little, and Brandon had an awesome red flannel jacket. Some awesome facts: Juliet and Emily kinda have the same hair-cut, even though they haven’t seen each other for months! Brandon and Emily are buying a house in June! woah how exciting / congrats!! and, that house is across the street from a CARPETED grocery store. think about that one for a bit.

We ate some great dinner at this thai place. best Early Bird Special ever (especially because according to Florida standards eating at 6:30pm is NOT qualifying for Early Bird Specials) = $15 for tons of delicious food. TAKE A LOOK!

my fav was the pad-thai with “veggie duck” — it was SO GOOD!!! any thoughts on what (fake meat product) I was eating though? (not tempeh)

Then we headed over to the KNITTING FACTORY. nice place. there was a bar in the front of the concert-y part of the place, and there was an adorable baby hanging out with us at the bar. a baby in a bar. only in Williamsburg. It had cute shoes too. (side note: since moving here I have seen an innummerable amount of little kids on razor scooters. tons. i will attempt to photograph them all from now on. this makes me think of the Great Pregnant Irish Lady Count of 2009)

Anyways.

The first band was THE LISPS. They were a delightful fun/energetic/circus-y/self-described-”quirky”/dancy delightful band that I just loved. totally got me going dancing and singing along and just smiling even though I’d never heard their music before. I also learned that they had just written a musical that was being produced by the theater organization which Brandon works at, which is so cool. Fav lyric was from the song “try”: “try to take responsibility for your crappy life, try to eat the seeds, try to peel the skin, try to be in the place that you’re already in.”

Almost as good as their performance, though, was the 3 intense Fans attending the show as well. They were probably the biggest tallest dudes of the whole audience, and they stood in the very front of the crowd, and were so enthusiastic and singing every word and dancing around and punching the air and being excited. They were so adorable I didn’t even care that they were blocking my view. So my documentation of this set is as follows:

A: super cutie guitar man with the curly hair and red pants (who’s totes married)

B: super cutie lead singer / file-cabinet drummer (?) who wore the best dress that had this hemline that was varied without looking tacky and circus-costume-y, and who pulled off the adorable look without looking 10 years old. A beautiful singer

C: super cutie quiet stoic bass man (are all the bass players stereotyped into this category? sorry)

D: super cutie intense drummer man. he used his shoulders a lot to feel the music / beat. i liked that.

E: MY FAVORITE FANS! You just wouldn’t have thought these big guys would’ve been so into this music. I loved it. I’m a fan of them.

Later on in the night, Brandon went and spoke with the band and introduced himself, because he had been the one writing the grant to get them the money to produce the musical. And they’d never met! and here they were! together!! It’s Networking Making Friends Time!!!

OK! Act II was LADY LAMB AND THE BEEKEEPER. Wow. she was just very intense. She was a little lady, beautiful, and totally powerful. She had this presence and a voice that filled the stage and the room and bowled you over.

I drew her filling up the stage with her intensity. Those lights behind her were the only band-mates she needed.

She kinda intimidated me. How can you be so young (and by that i mean younger than me, even if it’s only a little) and so successful (“I’m opening for Beirut next month”) and powerful and sure of yourself? Standing up there in some casual oh-i-just-threw-this-on outfit and just taking the world on! It was inspiring and scary. I want to be like that, and I make all these excuses and distractions and am just not that sometimes. I mean in my own genre, not necessarily with singing. But overall she was inspiring. I need those kinds of people to keep me focused on what I’m really up to, to inspire me to keep being big, superhero, powerful woman out in the world taking all the scary things on. And I know she’s a person too. she probably gets scared too.

AND THEN! Act Three!!! Pearl and The Beard were much hyped by everyone around me and all the opening acts and I still had never heard them. And then there they were, lined up and set up really professionally and just, calmly. That’s how I describe it. Calm and Collected: like, “dudes, we got this. don’t worry. let’s have a great time now”

I loved them! so fun! and powerful and musical and all encompassing. My favorite kind of artwork. They inspired me with their intense/calm dynamic. It was “all cool”, and it was all “super serious” all at once. They were beautiful but not too cutesy. Their music was just very authentic feeling. And I loved how mismatched but also perfect they seemed as a trio. That is my very bad description of what they sounded like. Similar to the way concert photographs never quite capture the visuals, maybe my word reviews can’t sum up the sounds. But anyways.

And then I was exhausted. I woke up at 6:15am to bike to BIKRAM YOGA in the SNOW/RAIN. ohy vey, I’m not in Florida anymore for sure. (It was a great week experimenting with waking up early to work out — but it was a nice experiment. New work out routine for this week!)

but the evening filled me with new inspiration. Some thoughts/ ideas I had that night from being in such a creative delightful space:

• make a line of (non-ironic) crazy pregnant lady clothing. when you’re pregnant i think it must be the best time to wear ridiculous clothes ever. I mean when else is it so socially acceptable to look so bizarre???
• write/make/sing a musical (preferably in collaboration with my super cutie future boyfriend)
• make (real) ginger beer
• a collaborative SINGING PASSOVER SEDER !! (like we find/write songs for each part of the story and then preform them instead of reading the haggadah!!!)
• make a photo-tour of the neighborhood hardware stores with pros/cons/features of each
• make a facebook imaginary-band Page and post weird sounds as my “songs”
• do an interview each week with someone I like/someone I want to get to know/ someone I think is cool or is doing a cool project / someone I’m inspired by.

I leave you all with a quote I overheard at the concert, that sums up a lot about life, really: “I did not want a burrito.”

you’re invited too!

come on down the street and let’s drink some sodas in the heat.

hopefully all the neighborhood hotties show up.

also upcoming: high school 5 year reunion? maybe? can’t decide if I’m lame if i go or what. all my friends who I’ve talked to have remarked about how silly it is or how they’re definitely NOT going. hmmm…. maybe I can bring them with, then we all feel less lame.

Also upcoming: Miracle Forts! at Milagro Center!

Also upcoming: West Coast Bonar/Friedman/Leher Family United! for dinner, for celebration, for Bubbie and Zaydie’s 60th anniversary, for love, for family. It’ll be almost as cute and awesome and together as we were here:

aliya, daniel, sam, michael, david

I can’t wait. I love my family.

reunions!

today i got to have lunch with my first boyfriend, mr. malcolm st. clair. it was so fun! veggie burgers, expensive west palm beach thrift stores (with a section for “After 5 Dresses” and “Tailored Pantsuits” and also rubbery plastic pink pointy toe high heels that fit me but I did not buy), and the beach!

all grown-up friends!

he was that tall when we dated too. he’s not even standing up straight in this photo.

it was basically a really lovely afternoon to catch up and remember that i have some amazing people in my life. thank you mal!

in chronological order

• 5:45am: wondering where I am, and what time it could possibly be. Waking up. Going back to sleep.
• business: website organizing and uploading
• messing up my makeup with tears
• being given an amazing map from my amazing host
• following that map to mocha mud
• incompetent copy-shop people who can’t print out my important business lady business cards
• garden-sausage jack-cheese only sour cream on the side please western breakfast burrito brunch with north carolina friend and with d.c. friends of the north carolina friend, people originally from maine, but currently living in oregon. or maybe california.
• the weather finally catching up with florida and creeping above 75 degrees. outfit change to the much cuter (much more portland ready) jumper skirt.
• meeting more friends of friends!
• taking photobooth pictures with natalie!!
• handing out many many etsy business cards based on compliments on my shark earrings. thank you liam and skye.
• walk forever to the most southern eastern part of the PSU campus, only to find that I didn’t really need a stamp today. feel pretty hardcore having the stamp on the inside of my wrist. “Open Engagement” — looks really nice.
• sat in a coffee shop for 4 hours on skype to florida to attend the classroom for my landmark education communication program! was elected the team leader for the spring quarter!!! holy moly!! really excited for this training as a team leader and a organizer and motivator and person who can actually produce real results in my life and others.
• fell while rushing to the bus, and TWO people came to my rescue, offering a hand to help me up. omg this place is so friendly.
• expertly got off the bus at the correct stop and walked to the table-on-the-street potluck between the two houses where we are all staying. Reunions, new friends, salads, coleslaw, quinoa, chocolate cake, beer.
• could not believe how lovely it was to be with mary, amber, eliza, and new friends lauren and hannah all at once. oh my goodness it was so perfect. it rang true.
• exchanging of art-project literature and patches and gifts.
• surgery operation to remove head-stitches utilizing two lamps, a pair of tweezers and debatably sharp scissors. we all feel queezy afterwards.
• adventure to “north” to meet long-not-seen high school friend meg. drink alaskan but not actually from alaska beer and talk about florida a lot.
• make a nest with two lovely short ladies in a pull out bed next to a psychedelic fabric wall mural featuring a deer.
• blog while mary reads from “the wind in the willows” next to me.

goodnight friends. a lovely day on the west coast, a place that feels so far away but also so friendly with this many amazing people surrounding me.

tomorrow: cast reel.  somehow, i have agreed to wake up at 6:45am to cook a wild foraged breakfast which may or may not include elk or eel?? I think it will actually be more like 7:30 for me really. but we’ll see. these ladies could convince me to do anything.

traveling travelling travelllllllling

i feel like a bizarre world traveler lately. Like I should be staying at home and staying still and doing the logical and predictable recent graduate thing of working really hard at a job that is lame and feeling really confused about my life.
But instead I get this opportunity to travel around and go visit all these amazing people and conferences and places. I am collecting and gathering and trying to understand it all more. and, feeling rather privileged about it and trying to justify that, which isn’t terribly useful or productive.

leaving greensboro, nc. i’m not sure when i’ll see this place again, although I definitely said that last november. As i was leaving (wishing there was an ocean on one side so that I could orient myself, figure out which tree is which, which street is one I know or could know, where my friends are, where I fit within that vague abstract landscape shape) I was really mad at that place, at somewhere that I could put so much energy, love, friendship, time into and yet i still can just leave. How can a place a tree a house a sofa a cd you’ve listened to on end since last may not remember how much you’ve loved it? how can it just keep existing and housing new people and holding up other people’s butts playing songs over and over without knowing you have left?

anyways, before this gets too dramatic, this post is reporting that i’ve made it here to the westest of all west coasts, about as far away from lovely south florida as I could manage within the continental United States, in Portland OR. I’m in someone’s house, and they all seem very friendly and nice and my friends both in the other room (traveled from Boise, ID and Montreal, CA) and somewhere nearby apparently but basically I’m just very happy that I trucked my sleeping bag 3,298 miles across the country and that I get to sleep in it tonight.

Goodnight universe. Tomorrow is going to be so incredible. Tonight will be sweet dreams about art and friends and west coast hotties.