People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are "The Advertisers" and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

-- Banksy

(...and i want to see this, too)

I want to see this movie!

I've decided to start some new projects a.s.a.p.

one involving cake, and one involving library books. i'll divulge later. i just need to make sure i don't forget that these things NEED TO get done. for these two.

WE ARE NOT DOING GOOD THINGS RIGHT NOW.


(this is the second time i've linked to something my friend shaun posted on facebook. he's a good resource)

"i'm realizing that all these questions about what kind of music you like and what you do and whatever are really pretty irrelevant...you don't really know what feels right until you can smell the person and be a part of the chemistry, that's what real compatibility is."

(super late conversations can lead to some astoundingly accurate statements like this one. i'm going to miss living here.)

i had a really beautiful day and night.

caught up on the phone with my best friend, went shopping downtown, ate the biggest and wettest italian sandwich EVER at deluca's, finally bought new mascara, got dinner and drinks at galway house, and ended with friends laughing around the kitchen table.

way too many blessings to count.

it's easy to lose sight of how great the people around you are.
it's easy to forget how lucky you are to have them.
today, i tried my hardest to truly be grateful for--and receptive to--the gifts and guidance my friends are always willing to give me.

it may be hard to always remember, but
i don't know what i'd be without them.

my plants are acting as my current boyfriend.

we hang out after work,
they give me free dinner...

its a really nice relationship.

"Forget monoculture, in our fields or in our heads; imagine instead a thousand different communities, adapted to the physical places they inhabit, sharing insight and difference, appreciating small scale and large heart. Where no musician sells 10 million copes, but 10 million musicians sing each night."

Bill McKibben, in Adbusters #90

All goes onward and outward....and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new washed babe
....and am not contained between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good,
The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of the earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself;
They do not know how immortal, but I know.

This week marks the end of my preparations for my work at Gateway, and the beginning of a relatively normal schedule for the rest of the summer. Yay!

****

I spent a few hours on friday learning more about the artists and their individual histories. After reading all different types of stories, I feel so blessed to be a part of this stage of all of their lives. If there's anything I know well, its the feeling of satisfaction and dignity that comes from making things. I am still feeling kind of overwhelmed to have found a way to harness that energy.

Because of these people, I'm feeling fulfilled & enthusiastic.
(even as I pass through little moments of loneliness & longing)

****

A FEW MORE REASONS TO FEEL SATISFIED:
my tomato plants have little baby green fruit on them,
my cucumbers have sprouted pretty yellow blossoms and twirly vines,
and my potatoes are growing too fast for me to keep up with trenching them!

and lastly,
THIS IS MY NEXT DAY OFF:

i'm starting to see--even in moments of loneliness--that I am never as unhappy as I used to be during yucky times in the past.

There seems to be something always holding me up.

As if the strength of my own backbone can keep me tall even when the weight of a thousand tiny problems is determined to pull me down.

...that isn't to say that those problems can't bend me and pull me to the point of nearly cracking.
They can.
They're doing that right now.

But,
there is something else I'm feeling.

...excitement, willingness to alter the way I look at these problems.
...mental clarity, that all things change and grow, without control--
that the hard times pass as fast as the good,
and in all moments it's important to
feel them, befriend them, live in them.

savor the happiness as the reason for living,
convert the sadness into a moment to learn.
(like turning feces into fertilizer)

*******

AND ALSO, DON'T FORGET:

even Conan gets hurt.

ANDRE ETHIER.

so awesome.

This is why I love this place so much.

A QUICK RECAP
**********
I graduated college.

The season is picking up at the farm .

I planted potatoes, tomatoes, arugula, lettuce, stevia, parsley, mint, lavender, cilantro and cucumbers on my little porch.

I dyed all my bleached hair to a simple light brown, to make it easier for me to let my real hair grow. Quitting the peroxide is definitely overdue.

I started working at Gateway Arts. It feels really wonderful to be doing the things I love, and getting paid for them.

************

I feel grateful and excited for what is to come.

(...I'm not very good at updating consistently. I think its because my thoughts come in little bursts and waves. If I don't capture them right away, they have a tendency to float off)