holy, holy

it's sunday and i'm full of holes. the cardigan is one of my absolute, hands down favorite pieces of clothing. it's really tattered and enhances my raggamuffin essence, but i don't care. it was held captive in a friend's car for months and finally returned to me a few days ago.


and the full effect:

flicka!

last night i found my old flickr account. i tried to find my old webshots account where i'm sure i posted hundreds of photos from junior and senior years of college, but i think i might have deleted the albums.

anyway, seeing these has made me wish i carried my camera everywhere i go like i did a few years ago. i think i took some cool shots. i'll be sharing them sporadically, when i feel i have nothing bloggable going on (not really true at press time).

here's a favorite:

this creature's name is ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) and he is one of the most undefinable people i have ever known. he grew up on a farm without running water and the joke among our circle of friends at the time was that he is an "acid baby" -- hippie version of a crack baby. i met his parents a few times and i think it is entirely possible that he is, indeed, an acid baby.

for a time, ceilidh would make his way into our suite in the middle of the night, climb in bed with me, and take complete control of the covers. not only did he disrupt me when he did this, but he'd also wake my poor, sweet roommate, amy. he'd come in and say loudly, "ally, what are you doing? you sleeping? move over!" and make his way under the pink covers. nothing romantic ever happened between us. it couldn't have. i've never shared a bed with a more selfish sleeper.

ceilidh started being weird and moved to a different res hall and we all kind of lost track of him. he'd either ignore us or act distant if he saw us out. rumor had it that he moved to some remote beach in california with a girl. who knows where he is now. i went to suny plattsburgh two winters ago for a "newspapers in the internet age" conference and i'm pretty sure i saw him there, as a student.

holdin' hands

i just had a really intense sychronicity.

while composing a killer cover letter for an ideal-sounding internship, i was writing about how people are compelled to spill forth their dreams, worries, fears and other things from their brains into my ears unprompted. as i was writing this, i was thinking specifically of a woman who talked to me for about twenty minutes a few weeks ago and was telling me about all the problems she's having in her phD program at northwestern. she went on and on and sometimes i thought she was going to cry. she kind of seemed to expect me to have the answer for her. all i had was "yeah, that must be really tough to not have support from the institution," and "aw, man, i'm sorry" and a few "F*CK THE MAN!!!!"s.

so i was thinking about her, right? i'm at a coffee shop right now, not the coffee shop where i'm employed and where i met this woman, i'm at a different one. AS I WAS WRITING ABOUT THIS BROAD SHE SAT DOWN AT A TABLE IN MY LINE OF VISION. srsly.

if that isn't synchronicity, i don't know what is.

in other stupid news, i've been living in chicago for a year now. i feel at home here and i feel i made a good decision in moving here and i feel really lucky to have such a wonderful network of love and support here. my friends in chicago are my brothers and i love them very much and they love me very much even if they are ashamed to admit it. i'm about to embark on a journey of knowledge and i feel very confident that it will exceed my expectations and with love and support i will exceed my own expectations.

i'm feeling positive today so if you need a morale boost, gimme a shout. your butt looks great in those jeans. also, i'm wearing a favorite shirt that oozes positivity (with poor posture):

i love u(nicorns), man

ok, this is the moment y'all have been waiting so patiently for: a new video!!!!

i went to the bristol renaissance faire this weekend and took a lot of footage. i also ate an artichoke and drank a lot of wine. i encourage everyone to experience the renaissance faire at least once in their lives. it's a really friendly, positive environment. good vibes.

unicorns: so real from ally brisbin on Vimeo.

intelligence for your life

do strangers ever affect you more than people you're close to?

i was just biking home from the bank and a man in a lexus suv berrated me and i almost started crying. and then i fantasized for the next two blocks about going home to lay in bed and cry. because a stranger in an ugly-but-expensive-therefore-desirable car took out his frustration with his failing marriage and ugly children on me.

i'm sure there are other reasons i felt like crying. maybe lack of sleep and stress of some sort. it's not pms; i've already had two periods this month. that also means i'm not pregnant.

anyway, i'm uploading a video from this weekend's renaissance faire. i took almost an hour of footage so i'll probably make a few videos. in the meantime, here are some photos:

a fairy and her unicorn/pegasus/man:

the most tender necromancer in all the midwest:

"eeeyyyyyyyy":

holiday mantis:

'this sucks ... '

happy birthday, jeff. i'm glad you were born. srsly. this blog loves you.

never walk along the seine

when you willingly begin your day before 9 am, it's either going to be awesome or awful. at 11:16am, i am confident this is a good day.

mostly because this song will be (has been for the last hour already) on repeat in my dome:



a blogger i follow posted it today on his blog. i didn't really read the post and it has very little to do with the song, i think, but it was enough to inspire me.

if you hung out with me two summers ago, you probably were in my car at some point, and i probably played this for you and sang and danced. i haven't listened to this song since that summer.

one day i rolled into last vestige and the two homegirls were there and i was all "omg i need new cassettes for my car." i drove home with this bumpin' through my saturn-issued system, where it remained for the majority of the summer:

my life was forever changed. the cassette got warped from the sun or from playing it too much and someone who was special at the time bought me another copy. people are too nice to me sometimes.

when i ride the metrA from chicago to the burbs i sing in my brain "riding on the metra-a-a-a." i've known since this masterpiece entered my life that when i finally make my way to europe (i'm shooting for this summer. who's coming? i'll be eaten alive on my own), it will be loopin' through my ipod. but mostly this, the hottest track (aside from "sex").

this song gives me so many good feelings. i hope i've given y'all some good feelings by sharing.

overheard in line at jewel

man on cell phone: would you like to join me?

(pause, waits for response)

man on cell phone: hello?! it's the olive garden! just starve yourself for a day!


huh??

nu stuff

the biggest complaint other people have about me is my materialism.

i was dating this guy and he wrote me a poem and i was all "yeah, it's cute. but where do the diamonds go?" another guy carved my name into his chest and then didn't even share his psych meds with me. my family calls me ally "what else did i get" brisbin on christmas (that's a lie ... they call me ally "cute" brisbin every day of their lives because we're an honest klan). my bedsheets aren't satin, they're made of woven baby unicorn hair.

anyway, someone gifted me a little flowering succulent yesterday. whatever.

death rattle

sometimes i feel like i'm really grasping at straws when i blog. i'll find meaning in any little coincidence just so i can call it synchronicity.

for instance, when mom was in town this weekend we went to see improv and during intermission the song 'friends of p' came on and i thought it might be synchronous because i've been listening to 'return of the rentals' a lot lately.

or when i heard a song on the car radio and expertly explained to my companion that rappers are rapping about patron a lot these days. i based this statement on the fact that kels talks about patron in a few songs on his new mix tape and they were talking about patron in the song that was playing. my companion nearly crashed the car because he could not believe the woman of class and distinction sitting next to him also had her finger directly on the pulse of the hip hop community. the next day i was listening to the new kels' mix tape and realized that the song we heard in the car was kels.

but no matter how hard i try to find synchronicity in my life, i know it's not as pathetic as decking out a failing business with smiley face decals. that is sad.

h8 taxes

today's a bummer anyway, and then i woke up from a nap to this:


i owe illinois $600. i did my own taxes this year and will never do them again. i owed nys $400. how i owe more money to a state in which i've lived for a shorter amount of time during the given tax year, i'll never know. if anyone has advice on how to fight back against my own naivete, please share!!

also, someone come rub my back.

on a brighter, synchronous note, shawn txted me that she had moby synchronicity recently. i've been listening to moby for the last week/week and a half. i've never listened to moby, never even wanted to. soul mates.

promise not to write another negablog for a while.

other bright note: saw these dudes fo' free last night. amazing.

these colors don't run!

the seagulls pretty much had the beaches to themselves today. it was kind of a fakely rainy day. not a downpour, but not just sprinkles. a tease. it was kind of romantic.

every time i have a satisfactory run along the lake, i feel revitalized and inspired and whole and more-than me. i remember why i'm glad i chose to move here. i pretend that lake michigan is an ocean. i pretend that the city skyline is 450 years in the future and things happening inside and outside of those buildings are way cooler than the reality of what's happening.

today i ran out onto this pier that i've not ever run on before. there were two fishermen out there and lots of seagulls. without my ipod, i was left to run to the beat of powerful mantras. i fell back on an old favorite, "i am i am i am." then i remembered this thing i wrote recently.

the thing i wrote recently was inspired by a solo walk along the lakeshore during sunset a few weeks back. i was in this totally euphoric state and really getting in touch with my hippie-self and then i realized that i felt all cliche and how sometimes i resent art because everything reminds you of something else and there is sometimes this sense of nothing ever being authentic and everything is just derivative. then i think that maybe i'm overanalyzing things and i should revel in the beauty that i feel inside my heart because that IS real.

"Walking to work just before six a.m. and there is a pigeon sitting on the sidewalk, unbothered by my brisk pace approaching. This is stunning to my still-sleepy brain. Then art comes back and reminds me that nothing is stunning. Everything is reminiscent of something else. Everything is a living, breathing metaphor. Nothing is. Everything is implying everything else and I can’t truly enjoy anything I see. All I can taste or feel or smell or even think about is a reaction to something else. There is nothing authentic. It is all the direct influence of everything that has and has not come before it."

i don't know why these thoughts make me borderline angry. maybe because i'm always feeling my own creativity being stifled.

anyway. i try not to have these crazy existential angst-y moments in such cliche situations. my most recent, fruitful existential angst was had in detroit. much better than looking over the splendor of a pretty city.

i took brian's advice and wore a baseball cap. i don't think i've worn one of these things since i worked at ben and jerry's in high school. probably won't do it again, either:

america.

crooked brain crooked brain

alaska is my current synchronicity. it's everywhere!!!

brian just returned from a week up there. today a co-worker told me that her okcupid date from a few nights ago just moved to chicago from alaska. later, i saw two little children brothers wearing cute moose t-shirts that said DENALI.

other important news? i'm not sure i have any.

other thoughts? i have too many. recently a really smart dude told me that charles bukowski had this philosophy: "don't try." don't try to be something or someone or to acheive a certain outcome. it will come to you. i've been thinking about that a lot. i really like it. it just worked for this blog post. i was feeling uninspired and then i didn't try and then this just popped out of my head, and i'm glad it did.

lastly, do y'all prefer posts with pix or without? i feel a photo-less blog post is kind of boring. but sometimes i post a photo just for the sake of posting a photo, and that's not helping anybody. gimme feedback!