don't h8, particip8

trying so hard to be positive can't always prevent other people from acting negatively. remember how i'm sensing a storm a'comin'? remember someone got stabbed and killed? remember the shooting? well this evening, something way more benign happened.

who wants to help out with a thought/energy experiment?

tonight, young and i returned from a nice evening of productivity at a coffee shop and we went to look at his newly improved bike out behind the crib and we found our bikes had been STOLEN!

we are sweet, loving people. we would never steal someone's bike. (no, my bike wasn't locked to anything. young only had his front wheel locked to his frame. shutup. i've gone all summer leaving my bike unchained back there.)

instead of asking you all to focus your brain waves on bad karma following the thieves, i ask something else. please focus your brain waves on good karma finding young and i.

young is unemployed. i'm practically unemployed. we are sweet, happy people.

look:


hope for a chicago job for young and for something good for me, or face this:

bones

in one of my all-time favorite books, the main character senses a storm on the horizon. it ends in a battle of all the gods of all time of all countries/cultures.

anyway, i have had this same sense of doom and gloom on the horizon for a while. last week it seemed some of the rain was beginning to fall. last night it stormed for real and today is windy. i think it's really just the change of seasons that's causing the real weather. it could also be what is giving me this change in internal weather.

a friend wrote a really relevant blog post recently and it got me thinkin. she and i are really good at analyzing everything til it evaporates from all the brain waves we're bouncing off it. remember how one time i blogged about art and how it sometimes makes me mad that i can't just revel in the beauty of life because i'm too busy thinking i'm being a cliche idiot? her post makes me think about this and the tendency to seek meaning in everything you see and encounter.

it's really hard to decide what to think. sometimes i try to just take everything at face value. most times i like to think that the-higher-force (god, jah, odin, whatever) is all. it is in everything, it is in you, it is in me, it is in this chair, it is in the latte i just drank. it is also in the kids that beat a fellow student to death last week, it is in the electric chair, it is in the pedophile living on your street. it is trying to tell me something. but i fear the mental and emotional toll it takes on me when i am listening too closely to what it is trying to tell me.

the moral of this blog is that all is love. also, i'm seeking understanding through broadcasting my confusion. one day soon, i will feel like this:

(airbrushed art atop a hood of a truck a few block from the crib. spotted en route a gay cop rooftop party. srsly.)

narcissisisissy

well now that i have my computer back i'm trying to get it back in motion. CLEAN SL8! we tried to set up some video editing stuff today but no dice.

i figured out how to get my webcam working, though!

here's a little eye candy for all you lovers out there:

favorite onomatopoeia

today's blog post is all about NEWS. fuggedabout synchronicity (but not for too long because it's really awesome and you should actually pay attention to it.).

news: i quit the coffee shop.

news: i got my computer back (thanks!).

news: gunshots on my block this afternoon.

news: i'm doing my homework at a bar:


news: i start an internship doing content management (d0rk) at this production house tomorrow.

***

sometimes, if i have too many things i'm thinking about, it makes it hard for me to talk. also hard to write. easy to run. (probably also easy to be around since i'm quiet.) i learned tonight that tears for fears makes for a totally radical running soundtrack.

protect ya neck

last night i realized that i have reverted to this really pathetic mindset of my youth.

when i was a kid, i was so sure i was going to be kidnapped. if mom left me in the car for a minute while she ran in to pay for gas, i would triple-check that she'd locked the doors and i would sink way, way down in the seat so no one could tell i was there - a sitting duck. i have a pretty vivid memory from age 7 or 8 of playing with my soccer pal (lonely child!) in the front yard, and a woman pulling up in a station wagon. her mouth was moving and she was looking at me. i knew she was saying terrible things to me and was about to throw me in her trunk. i ran inside, crying. two minutes later, she's in the house. she was mom's friend and she was singing to her radio and that b!+ch laughed at me.

this was not the only time i freaked out like that for no reason.

i blame my mom for being over-protective and i totally blame the media for instilling in me this irrational fear of being so cute and irresistable that i thought every grownup stranger wanted to steal me. no one wanted to steal me.

at some point my mentality switched, my cuteness was put in check and i became over-confident in my invincibility. i'd insist on leaving parties in college alone, walking home with my brain swimming in all kinds of substances, just a little woman on her own.

last night i went for a run and found myself on edge every time i saw another pedestrian. at one point i was walking (bum knee) and there was a man walking behind me and i tried to keep my cool but i got too freaked out and powered through the pain to run a few more blocks to increase distance. while i felt bad for thinking this dude was going to stab me in my neck, i knew i shouldn't take a chance continuing at a slow pace.

the increase of crime in the 'hood can get in your head. the logical sector of my brain knows that since i have very little to do with neighborhood gangs, i'll probably make it home in one piece every night. still, i hate that i'm keeping the other sectors of my brain in a prison of fear.

if it bleeds, it leads

so i was txting with a coworker last night and she wrote "i bet he burns it down," referring to the coffee shop (i'll not get into why she would write such a thing). a few minutes later i hopped on my blue beauty to get a cup of coffee. as i round the corner to the cafe, i see something like this (but from a different angle):


in my brain, i'm all "OMG WTF HE CAME IN AND SHOT THE PLACE UP OMG OMG OMG."

then i see two homegirls sitting outside and they told me that two people got stabbed in the street. they said the cops were rude and wouldn't listen to their accounts. one friend said a cop said, "are there any credible witnesses here? someone besides crackheads and gangbangers?" ahhh...tolerance. gotta love it.

this morning jeff txted me that one of the guys died. the bloody rags were still in the street a few hours ago when i stopped to get coffee.

moving onto happiness/synchronicity:

we went out to dinner the other night and i hastily grabbed a bottle of wine while young took forever choosing stupid beer. then at the restaurant they provided us with a wine key. check it out:

the wine key matches the wine! brand and color! hubba hubba!

awesommmme

yayyy pavement reunion tour!!!

bobby and i consummated our love to the backdrop of Slow Century a few years ago. we decided the reunion is a sign that the flame of our lovelight still burns bright.

i didn't even know about pavement until after they had broken up. once i learned about them i was in love. so you can see why this is exciting for me.

i learned about them when i learned about soulseek, around 2001 or 2002. that was my introduction to "indie rock." i used to hang out in chat rooms, hoping to someday be as knowledgeable about good music and cool as the other users. wtf? it never occurred to me that these were just lonely, pretentious hipsters that must not have been that cool because they were also hanging out in chat rooms 'til all hours of the night.

hangin up

today a friend was saying that none of his plans have been working out for him lately. my advice? "you should see what planet is in your sign right now. maybe mercury is in retrograde." about fifteen minutes later, i'm at the cafe and an acquaintance was having problems with the printer and i asked if mercury was in retrograde and she gave me an emphatic YES. i'm wicked in tune with the planets.

anyway, mercury in retrograde is supposed to snarl many things, including communication. the unsynchronous thing for me, is i can't stop communicating!

for some reason, i'm totally homesick for friends and family. more than i've been since getting here, i think. and all i want to do is talk to everyone i love (that isn't in chicago) on the phone all day and all night.

most interesting about this is normally, I H8 TALKING ON THE PHONE. timing is weird and you don't know what kinds of faces the person is making and you can't hug people on the phone and i never know when/how to end it.

in the last five days, i've spoken with mom, dad, shawn and emmett on the phone. i have tentative plans to talk with brother jeff on the phone on saturday and i'll probably try to call brother paul around then as well.

dungeon master

school started. i just got out of class (i'm in a computer lab because mine is still at the mechanic) and i am so sure i'm in the right program. we have to blog for this class. srsly.

i also started having these thoughts during class that went along the lines of: "wait, are the internet and blogs and videos and all of that just my hobby? am i pursuing a master's degree in my hobby? is that acceptable? is that smart? is that going to take me anywhere?"

in the end, i think i'm okay with it. i think i don't care if it's acceptable and i do think it's smart (i'm going to be a MASTER) and it will take me somewhere.

OH MAN I ALMOST FORGOT:

brother paul txted me while i was in class to inform me we lost another hero. RIP patrick.

earlier kitchen synch posts about p.sway:

- bad tattoo
- bitter bout the sleeves

opaque mind

i am without my computer for idon'tknowhowlong and i'm kind of okay with it.

i am terribly homesick for a few special saratogafriends. hurts. luckily, i have totally reliable dudes here in chicago to entertain my feeble mind during sad daze.

i called dad today, not a routine occurrence, and while i left a sweet voicemail, i saw two bros walkin' around in beatles shirts. if you don't know what the beatles and daddy mean to me then y'all don't know me. so much synchronicity.

just got home from a long day with a pal and a night with two more pals in tow and i'm tired and i put on rubber soul (in honor of pops) and it brought tears to my eyes. few albums can make me weep in such an unexpected way.

also, here's some good, though fake, synchronicity: there was a really big garage/yard sale thingy goin' on in andersonville today. young and i went and at one house there was a milk crate filled with vhs cassettes. half of them were episodes of O.G. Degrassi. i said to young, "did you watch this?!!?!@!11" and this one woman that lived there started cracking up, telling us how we were the third couple (gross) to comment on the tapes and that in each couple (we're not) it was a white chick and an AZN dude and she (whitey) had an AZN husband. so good. i bought a scarf and 9 boxes of sparklers and some smoke bombs.

lost jewels and faraway friends

i have a life trend of losing my favorite pieces of jewelry. i usually move on and realize that it's okay to let go. i think that maybe the universe is telling me that i have to switch it up a little more and keep the people guessing since i pretty much look the same everyday, just in different colors.

the only piece of jewelry that i ever thought i'd have forever and that i had some weird sort of sentimental attachment to is this guy:


he went missing sometime after 12:01 a.m. January 1, 2009. i blame bob carlton. i also blame DA's new year's eve party. i also blame myself.

i think about that necklace every day while i decorate myself. i borrowed it from mom once and never gave it back. i think she felt validated in her 1970s fashion sense, since that's when she bought it. i still haven't told her i lost it.

this is the scene to which i awoke after losing the necklace. miss those dudes. miss that space:


i just checked ebay and i guess cut-out mercury dime necklaces aren't as unique and authentic as i thought. anyway. moral of the story: buy me lots of diamonds. i take good care of precious possessions.

other moral: stuff is just stuff. get over it, ally.

one divine hammer

"you are being girlier about this than i've ever seen you be."

that's what i was told last night. it was only true because i was catching brian up on my neurotic brain patterns of about a week. compressed, those patterns create a total chick (i can blame where i am in my cycle, right?). he gave me a really good explanation of the simple manner in which the male brain works and explained that females tend to over-analyze words spoken and subsequent actions. i feel like i understand the world so much better now.

i get all these thoughts and have all these internal conflicts about my femininity, especially since i am the only female in my social network. oh god, i could go on for hours about what level female i am and what type of post-feminist i'd be if i ever chose to walk the path of an uppity idealist. i could go on for tens of minutes about self-expression through dress and what it means to me. i could go on for days about body image and hating to look in mirrors versus societal pressure versus early life experience versus health versus wanting to wear a certain style jeans versus loving chocolate too much versus male attention versus volume of sex versus quality of sex versus breast size versus versus versus ad nauseum. but at the end of the day, i find myself among men who don't really care to hear any of this. i've been told, "you're like a dude with boobs." thanks?

i think about how there are myriad blogs by women about their dating lives. i call it the "carrie bradshaw syndrome". i don't know of any blogs like this written by dudes. i'm sure they exist. but i'm sure the female-run-lovelife blogs outnumber the dude-run-lovelife blogs. hence chicks being too emotional and over-analytical and searching for meaning behind every stupid meaningless interaction.

brian opened my proverbial eyes. to all future boyfriends (assuming i retain this point of view): you owe brian, bigtime. i now recognize that i need to look at things more simply, take it at face value. i will be your dream girlfriend.

not to say that i'll be able to vanquish emotion from my experience-digesting-mechanism. i am a squirming coil of emotions. rather, i will be more understanding that most things said and done don't have as much thought behind them as i give after the fact.

roger and i were talking about life's mysteries recently (i was telling him all of these things i like to think about regarding human experience of time and the afterlife and ghosts and, you know, synchronicity) and he said "why do you have to add mystery and 'magic' to life? why can't it just be what it is?" i guess that's the moral i got from brian's talk. boys are so smart!!

of course, i am a huge hypocrite: writing an overly analytical blog post about the existence of and my distaste for overly analytical blogs by women about love and men. i blame these:

right?

why is the sky blue

since i'm bad at updating the other blog, i'll promote a new post here. click the image, please.


also, peep some more flickr photos:

these make me nostalgic for the days of being friends with craig and andrew. these were taken in the fire tower atop hadley mountain in 2006.

this is i & i & craig:


craig is a brilliant, shining, beautiful man. he's engaged to a beautiful iranian woman. i don't know if he'll be living in america after the wedding. he is living his dream -- an inspiration.

this is andrew "cush bone" cushing:


he was a founding member of the notorious gang from saratoga springs high school: 6-bone. the gang may or may not have originated at maple avenue middle school. regardless, andrew is also a brilliant, shining, beautiful man. but in a different way than craig. andrew is a good writer and draws awesome comics. once we went to a pink floyd laser light show and hated every minute of it.

juggaho

i think it's a little weird when i follow strangers' blogs and feel that i could be friends with these people in real life. a little weird, but also a little validating that there are other internet dorks out there that have similar senses of humor(s?) as me. also, if some stranger fell in like with me from my blog, i'd be pretty flattered.

ever since i found this dude's blog i've been hooked. i bought two shirts from him. i am totally convinced in the least creepy way that we would be best friends if ever we met.

anyway, so on sorry i missed your party today (another sense of humor i can relate to, but who can't, really?), they posted juggalo photos. AND linked to brendan donnelly's blog. look at his juggalo post. remember this?

oh geez, am i a total creep?