i hope i don't have tea with any international dignitaries anytime soon

one more thing. i have become so accustomed to the word "teabag" in it's hilarious ball-placing context, that i cannot hear it in it's normal usage without crapping up. last night dan told me that despite his lack of cooking gas, he could make tea using his espresso machine. it ended something like this: "a hot cup of water and you just put a teabag in it." i could not stop laughing.

the symbiotic relationship of man and robot-wand

i haven't written since i got all of my hairs cut 3 weeks ago, but let me tell you right now. so much has happened since then! WHERE SHALL I START?

...

the haircut is still looking foxy. i've been told it is the best haircut i've ever had. yeah.

woo.

growing out nicely.



yes.


i don't think posed awkwardness comes across as well in writing. over the computer you have no idea that i just started crying and wet myself in shame. robots will never replace humans for just that reason. shame piss.

speaking of robots.

dan was here for a week and we had wonderful adventures. we saw a man who spoke with the assistance of a robot. or perhaps it was a robotic wand that spoke through a mere human shell. maybe the body was meant to put us at ease as the robot stick scanned our neural activity. i know my neural activity was focused on buying a frozen pizza at the time, but i can't speak for dan. he was probably thinking about the a priori knowledge of the frozen pizza.

we had the worst beer that has ever passed either of our lips. we were in agreement. THE WORST. and we have both imbibed camo. it was at a supposed micro brewery downtown. i didn't want to go as i had heard things, but dan can be persuasive. we taste tested two beers, one of which tasted exactly like nasty cherry cough syrup. we didn't finish the samples. FREE beer and we didn't drink it. so dan orders a pint of hefeweizen, on the assumption that they couldn't possibly fuck up three different beers.

oh, how they did!

dan penned it best when he said it tasted like bile you might vomit after drinking a beer. that was so dead on i could not help him drink it any longer. WORST BREWERY EVER. i think i could pee in a bucket, throw in some hops, leave it under my bed for a few months and come up with a better microbrew than that foul swill.

those are the two antedotes i will share. it was a great week.

and i must admit i am happy to know he has a home to go home to. i really thought it would all be swept away, stolen, or thick with mold and attaining conciousness. it is great to know he owns things. it definitely makes me reconsider my own attachment to physical things, specifically my belongings. it makes me want to get rid of a bunch of clothes and crap and not have so much. i will donate garbage bags full of my clothes to charity.

speaking of charity.

i got an email from my alma mater. they are hosting A Cabaret for Hurricane Relief entitled "Songs from the Heart - Songs of Hope". a cabaret for relief? fuck that noise. mastubatory and absurd.

i went to NYC for the first time. it was just for a day, but it was still really great. i saw a few art shows. i am planning to go again in 2 or 3 weeks. it is a bit surreal to see the skyline. it is such an icon and it felt really odd to see it from afar and recognize it so immediately. it is weird to feel an ownership or relationship with a place that i had never truly seen before. it was also eye opening to see some of the "top" galleries in person. a few nice spaces, but so many of them are in office/apartment buildings. it has the feel of going to a dentist appointment or something and then it's like, oh no, wait you're at one of the biggest galleries in the world. weird, as they are physically so small. in my mind i had an idea of new york and these galleries as some huge, unattainable place, but it is so much hype. it was really good to see this firsthand. overall, the work was highly underwhelming. i saw a few nice pieces, but i can't say i was blown away. i did go to the frick, which was amazing. all of these masterworks side by side. rembrandt and vermeer and ingres and cezanne and it just keeps going. it's a gorgeous space and it feels like walking in an art history book. THAT can be overwhelming.

so, today i have nothing to do but paint. i took a break to blog as there are all of your blogs that i want to comment on, but i needed to update my own first. it is a rainy day (thanks weather machine) and it feels good to be inside and working. i have been making a lot of progress on my current painting and it is exciting. i still can't believe i am here. anytime i start to feel depressed or overwhelmed i just tell myself to look at my life and how i spend my days and i am reminded it is a really good life.

i got my hair cut.

i feel like a new ninja.
i am here to sai blade you into submission with my new hair.

i just watched a slide presentation by visiting artist anne harris. she primarily does self portraits and her work is somewhat hyperreal/surreal, disturbing, but most often very subtly done. she focuses quite a bit on flesh and veins, and although she primarily paints herself she is not necessarily concerned with creating an accurate likeness. i see similarities in our interests but with very different approaches. i am still mulling her work over. i can't find any early examples of her work online, or any of the works that really struck me in the lecture or i would link to them. i think they are definitely stronger as a body of work than individually. i am meeting with her tomorrow to talk about my work. an individual crit. i am nervous.

now i must go read art theory late into the night so i can sound like i have enviable skills in my early morning theory class, but it is all a lie.