Adventures I used to have

When I was 13 I had my first job. I worked a few days a week, enough to keep me in video games. I'd stay up and write all night. 2008 was my first summer without a job. I didn't know what to do with myself. I had plenty of adventures though. I longed for something more to fill up my time. This summer will be my first summer without a summer vacation, except for maybe 3 weeks of break. I'm totally done with this.

OK, so that didn't explain a lot.

So now let me explain. I'm severely bipolar but even I'm deluded about it. I know people who are bipolar who are in less good shape than I am. I feel like I don't deserve to be called "severe."

I've always been like this so I don't really know anything different. I've been told that it becomes more evident as a person gets older, but I always did have this sense of inner turmoil, the mood swings, delusions in intense manic states. The violence, the outbursts, the punched-out picture frames and boxcutter thrown into the wall.

It's not normal, even if it was the only thing I knew.

I guess it's getting a little clearer that I'm severe. I take lithium now. The first day I started my dosage it made me so blank and slow. I could barely walk a straight line. I thought "If this is what normalcy is, it's way overrated."

But I kept with it. I fought the nausea. It got less and less. I could think more. More importantly, I could still create.

My mom, who once said "It is SO DIFFICULT to live with you!" remarked on how calm and even I was.

But I don't think I'm taking enough. I feel like it wears off around 5 or 6. I'll figure it out in time.

The success of destruction

I remembered. to work so hard on something, throw yourself into it so fully that you lose yourself. The end result is satisfying and beautiful but you have nothing left of yourself. Burned out and hating what you did for taking you over.

I don't know why it should come to me now. perhaps it's the subject matter of a final project--Beauty and the beast. Beauty undergoes a change that turns her into a beast. Maybe I made it too reminiscent of my life.

Brief rememberance

I started looking at apartments today. When I used to be bored I'd look at shoes, clothes, electronics, games, but never apartments. Shoes and clothes, I could play grown up Ms. Corporate (pink half-shaved bob and sexy black patent Dior pumps included). Electronics and games I could whisk off into a world and roll everything up into stars. Apartments though. That's the last frontier. Striking it out on my own, for real this time. I don't know when, but when the time is right it will happen.

The Wilshire Royale said hello to me. Instantly summer came rushing back, full of heat waves and iced coffee with shots of caramel sauce and hours sunning my bare unemployed ass and reading stories, beautiful stores about God and wholeness. I was learning to be whole after finding out my parents were divorcing, albeit amicably. I realize how blessed I am that my parents get along so well. They consider each other friends. The wholeness I saw in them inspired me to heal. To stop throwing knives at the wall. to stop drop-kicking lawn furniture clear across the yard.

Wilshire Royale. A gorgeous 1920s building in Los Angeles. I never met you but I saw your pictures online. I measured out your studio apartment against my room and tried to live in it. I pared down everything, anticipating the move. I had dates set aside to tour a few buildings I liked. I thought and thought and made plans. Inside I nurtured this idea of "my own place," my little studio apartment.

I interviewed with FIDM a few weeks after my imaginary nesting. The support I felt just from my first visit made me waver. Was I sure I wanted to put it off that long? So I changed to Fall (2010) Semester, Los Angeles campus instead of Winter (2011). In the meantime, I had lunch with a friend. Each step I took down Montgomery sealed my decision. This is what I have to do. I just have to feel it was right.
"Are you sure you want to move to LA?"
It'd been the first time I'd heard that from a non-family member.
"Yeah, it's a lot less expensive down there. I got a studio lined up, 750"
"But you don't have any family down there, do you?"
It hit me in perhaps the goofiest way possible.

In the video game Earthbound, homesickness is a real status condition. Alone, reachable by a phone call, but just not the same.

"I have some friends down there."
But I knew that their lives and mine wouldn't sync.

Why LA? A friend of mine moved down there. LA... a city I hadn't been to proper since I was 5 or so. LA. to start anew. To live an an old Hollywood building. Dinner parties with imaginary friends served Martinellis clustured around my bed/table/surface.

Come the second interview, I knew that San Francisco was the place. It wasn't indecisiveness. It was the right thing.

So why am I looking at this old sign now and feeling a twinge of sadness? Sometimes I just can't help but think what would have happened if I'd chosen to move there. I was enamoured with the idea of my little studio apartment. A little place to take care of, to own. The little prince and his flower.

What I've been doing

I got a job back in October. If I'm not working there, I'm working on projects. Life is busy, but good. Part of me misses hanging out every weekend but the other part of me enjoys having an income again. I'm definitely better off than I was a year ago or even three months ago. I'm sleeping a lot better, though I keep waking up briefly every morning at 5. Luckily I fall asleep again.

I need to cut back on the caffeine. I'm always up up up and trying to slow down, but sometimes I need a burst of energy. Too much too much. I didn't "get" adderall, amphetamines. I can't focus. I'm vibrating, I'm generating heat. I'm scrubbing a spot on a dish. Too much coca-cola. Lightheaded. Feeling "spicy," where all the blood rushes to my face. Too much caffeine and sugar tends to produce feelings that are almost like a panic attack. The worries and the spiral down into a path I thought I left behind. I need to hang with my friends because I'm sitting alone and when I'm alone I'm doing the same things over and over but sometimes it's okay and I need to get gummi worms for an art project and I need to do this and that and think about what to bring to LA and to finish my work in Illustrator and my InDesign newsletter and sleep better and talk to this person and fix this and...

I almost fell out of my chair. When was the last time I forgot to stop breathing?

Well, I can't complain too much about life. I'm busy, but it's the good busy. Unfortunately the 365 fell by the wayside. Between closing in SF, taking BART home, and then working on my own stuff I started to fall behind. I still love fine art photography and now that I'm in a place where I'm working on art every day, I don't feel so directionless.

Ready to Roll

Wednesday I go to campus to register. The 4th I finally get to pick up my bigass totebag (hello, shoulder strain) and get my new ID (I can finally stop feeling like a slimeball when I use my old student ID), and head back for a job fair on the 5th.

Where did time go? I can't wait to start. What an area to be attending classes in--right in Union Square!

Today I got some bento boxes and chopstick. All are a matching pink. I now have a fancy neoprene lunch sack, too. Spam musubi, here I come.

I'm excited to be doing what's relevant to my life. I will be doing stuff I want to do. Memories of senior year--working on my internship project (sewing a dress from a muslin, which then turned in to sewing another one from scratch because I finished so early), pushing myself to not miss school at the detriment of my own health, even subconsciously holding my breath as I embroidered Saul Bass' golden arm on the back of my dress (and subsequently falling out of the chair when my lungs couldn't take it any more).

Junior year of high school I was a horrible student. I skipped a lot of school. I was depressed in a way I hadn't been for years. The kind of mornings where it just hurt to move. Everything looked bleak, including college. I was on academic probation for the majority of the year, but somehow, I swung it. I passed all of my classes and got out of the funk. I was determined to make senior year great.

Around July something felt weird. Like a lump in my abdomen. It hurt. I paid it no mind. It slowly grew, but since it was on my lower left I didn't do anything. I overate. It's a muscle. People can think up some awfully interesting explanations for something serious. I stopped wearing jeans because they hurt to zip up and button. And four days after my 18th birthday, it ruptured. By the time I got to the ER there were no cysts showing up on the ultrasound but an abdomen full of fluid was an indication that one had indeed ruptured. After a few very unfun hours in the ER I went home, worrying about an english paper I hadn't finished.

I didn't even take a whole week off. By Thursday night I was so bored of sitting at home, drifting in and out of sleep watching Miami Vice and Spongebob that Friday morning I more or less snuck out of the house and went to school.

I enjoyed my little summer extension but now it's time for me to do work again.

Birthday!

Here's to decade of life number 2!

In which I remember why I stopped drinking black coffee.

So after a horribly mediocre pot of coffee I made earlier this week (It's been a while since I've used a drip coffeemaker) I perfected it. No longer is it coffee-flavored water but a tastebud burning pot of hellfire.

And no milk. Or sugar. I no longer have a taste for splenda. It's not that I don't like the taste of black coffee. But when you're drinking a few cups a day on an empty stomach, that's when you lose the taste for it. By cup 3 I'd be cursing the brilliant logic behind what posessed me to drink that much coffee. If I'm totally awake I'm able to pay more attention.

Yeah, that doesn't work so well, especially when you're trying to do work or if you're dealing with panic attacks. But boy it sure gets you awake. Now I like to leisurely sip my coffee and not shock myself into life in the morning.

Wow.

All I gotta say right now is wow, the weather is nice. It's been overcast but not cold. I'm sitting outside without being bundled up. It's very peaceful here. All I can hear is some cars now and then. I'll probably be shooting the pictures for Legoman tomorrow. It shouldn't be that hard to put together. My sunburn from Saturday in Santa Monica has healed. I'm kinda hoping the sun comes back, though.

The Vicissitude of Legoman, Take 2

My senior year I misinterpreted a photo assignment. We had to take a series of photos that somehow showed movement. At least 8. So our teacher told us to think of it as a stop-motion assignment.

Well, I took it a little too literally. Come Monday my classmates had around 8 pictures each. I don't even remember how many I had. I got to make mine into a movie. Towards the end of its completion I was tired of it. Tired of the sound effects (scrape scrape, head rolls in to drumroll, pop as he puts it on, tires peeling out, sound of my friend bashing a PC case to simulate a car crash, and the Super Mario death jingle to signify the end of the little plastic man's life), tired of the first 30 seconds or so of Depeche Mode's "Suffer Well," and just tired in general.

And I lost it. After I graduated the computers were formatted and the DVD disappeared. But this time around I know I can make it so much better.

The Vicissitude of Legoman is about the fragility of life, our material desires, and molded plastic. But mostly molded plastic.

Packing, packing, packing.

I forgot how much fun this can be. See you Saturday morning LA.

I'm trying to fly without checking a bag. On Southwest you can check two for free but I cannot stand waiting for my bag. This is the first time I've flown to a place where I didn't need a heavy coat in a while so it's definitely easier to pack. I also need to learn how to pack light.

I absolutely hate the liquid/gel restrictions.

Vacation Time

I booked my tickets to and from LA last night. Time to chill out and enjoy some beach time! This is the first trip I've taken since spring 09 to Wash U. I don't remember too much other than changing my flights because of someone's incompetence (leading to a million and a half layovers on the way back), disappointed expectations, admonishments about not trying hard enough and why don't you go here, and rain.

I have to admit I was weary of traveling again. What if I can't get picked up, what if it changes, what if...

Life doesn't have to be about what ifs. The past is not doomed to repeat itself. It's going to be a wonderful eight days.

I'm especially excited because I haven't been to LA outside of Disneyland since I was 4 or 5 when my mom and I went down to visit my dad after he covered the OJ trial.

Back to Our Normal Summer

The heatwave ended last night. After temps of 100F during the day it fell to 60-70 at night. This morning I woke up and it was overcast. Joy of joys! No more sun falling right on my bed and nuking me at 9 AM. I get up at 9:30 anyway but I don't like starting my morning feeling like I have to shower. I cleaned out my closet (again... seems to be a neverending cycle) and got rid of a lot of things that don't fit any more or just aren't my style. It feels good to get a bunch of things out and to get rid of things that remind me of not-so-good times.

I've also been playing Super Mario RPG. I'm glad I gave it a second chance (what, 13 years later?) and I'm fairly close to the end. I don't start my classes at FIDM until October so I have time to let my brain drain out more. Ah, relaxation.

All Caught Up

I've been taking pictures for the 365... just lazy about uploading them.

After a backlog of 20+ pictures I think I'd like to stay on top of things again.

No, that was definitely insomnia.

I need to stop downplaying problems. Not sleeping well for over a week at a time is not normal for me. I can sleep through almost anything (except snoring).

I couldn't even fall asleep to my own breathing one night. I think that's when something signaled being wrong.



Today I got my ambien. I took it about an hour and a half ago. Everything is pleasant. I know I am going to be sleeping tonight and man, that is a load off of my shoulders. I miss waking up and being awake. I miss remembering what I'm doing. I miss remembering where I'm going. I miss talking to my family without losing it.

Hello bed. I'd like to get to know you again.

Running on Empty

Crunch time. Second FIDM interview Monday. The deciding interview. Application stuff needs to be finished, need two more reference requests, things that were supposed to happen didn't.

Tired of sitting in my chair all day. No matter how I sit it's not good enough. The old abdominal pain comes back and I freak out, envisioning another trip to the ER for a ruptured ovarian cyst. That's the kind of pain that brings you to your knees and makes you remember your place. You are human. You are not invincible.

I haven't been sleeping enough. I don't want to head back to Junior year when I didn't really sleep so much as wait until the next day. I don't know if I slept or what but for three days I don't think I did. Hiding from nightmares.

Of course I'm not doing that now. I'm just working too late.

Starting Again

The feeling I got from some of my peers at high school is that you apply to a bunch of colleges, sell your soul (and money) to the college board, get your hopes for your top school crushed and go to another one and be done with it. Or if you got into your dream school, that was it. Set.

I had an easy time. I took the SAT twice, couldn't care less, applied to my one college (and didn't have to pay any fees), and got in early. Set.

Or so I thought. What you want out of life can change. It's not the end of the world. Realizing what you're doing isn't what you want to do isn't the end of the world. It's just another path.

Change Abound

Well, a lot has happened in the last week. For a while I've been feeling that as much as I love my college, I'm not doing enough of what I want to do. I brought this up about a month ago and predictably, it did not go over so well. Since then I'd been turning the idea of transferring over and over in my head. I've been feeling more and more like I need to have a change of scenery, too.

The 14th we all talked about what I would do.

The 15th I officially withdrew. As soon as I got home I started looking at jobs, apartments, and getting stuff together to sell on craigslist. A job is already looking likely. A friend of mine is leaving a loss prevention position and his boss already likes my résumé and experience. I used to be an Explorer so I have experience in this area. It would certainly be interesting to work that position in the (very rich) community I went to high school in. The idea is to sock money away for college (it's a full time position) while applying to art schools in southern California.

I could comfortably downsize into an efficiency unit.

Yes, I'm looking to move to Los Angeles.

I need to think of a name for my plan. Operation: OutRun? Operation San Andreas?

Tattoo, Part 2

Back in January I got Saul Bass' iconic Golden Arm inked on the inside of my left bicep. A symbol of success over struggle and some really damn good graphic design.
Today I got my inner right bicep tattooed with Mr. Saturn with a balloon tied around his nose which is how he fishes for birdies in Mother 3.

it seems my left arm is all about serious business and my right one is about fun things.

My Love, My Lost City.

A long time ago, but more like it was five years ago, I met you. I don't remember how I met you. How I got to you. There's no memory of it.
Why? Well, there was a term the neuropsychologist I was seeing used. Irony is I can't remember it. Oh, the sweet irony.

I didn't like her. She was a nice person but she was more interested in telling me about the plight of girls at Albany High and how they spread rumors about each other and wasn't I glad that I didn't deal with that?

One minute I was fine, and then fear started to build. In the office I knew I would die. If I didn't get out I would die. I was deaf to everything but the high-pressure hum in my ears like a jet plane about to take off. I exploded out of the Victorian and rocketed down the steps to the street below. Safety? Not there. It wasn't the office that would kill me. It could be anything. Nothing but thoughts of fear and death and the End of Times came to mind.
It was too much.
And the fear and the panic and the terror, that's why I don't remember how I got there.
To end up in a place, just like that.

I found the Lost City of Letters, myself equally lost.

Five years later, I'm in a better place. The Lost City of Letters is not so lost any more. The neuropsychologist's card I so carefully taped under my mousepad ("In case of emergency," she told me) was long shredded to pieces. The other psychologist I saw, that card also became confetti. Perhaps it was unwise to do so, but it seemed like the right way to move on.