outsourcing

I've begun outsourcing my apartment's composting by collecting all my vegetable goods in the freezer and dropping them off once a week at the farmer's market in Williamsburg. They then turn into soil for local urban growing: http://www.grownyc.org/compost. It's pretty great. The walk from the subway to the farmer's market is really calming with lots of trees and birds and when I was paying for kale, the vendor put two jalapenos in my hand as a gift and said they're "extremely hot. Like you." whoop whoop 

a spider

A brown spider the size of a half-dollar coin has been living in my room for some time. I had accepted it like a pet dog that I would see hustling around on my floor every other day until this morning, when I was sitting on my rug and saw that it was coming charging at me, at which point it had forfeited its peaceful co-habitation rights and I captured it and sent it to the great uncomfortable outdoors. 

underpuppy

Look out - diva coming through. I bought that puppy headband online for myself but, surprisingly, it turned out to be for child-sized heads so I gave it to Char.

le petit naked mole rat

enjoy -

Le Petit Naked Mole Rat from valerie jean on Vimeo.

CHVRCHES

I'M SEEING CHVRCHES TONIGHT IN MANHATTAN . THANK GOD.
This was probably the anthem of my personal summer -

naked mole rat

the entirety of my past two days:

amazon horned frog

chinese dragons

Chinese dragons are occasionally depicted with bat-like wings growing out of the front limbs, but most do not have wings, as their ability to fly (and control rain/water, etc.) are mystical and not seen as a result of their physical attributes.

starve feeling

I have been insatiably starving this entire day. I had cereal and coffee for breakfast; a large bowl of rice, onions, edamame, and mushrooms and half an orange for lunch; and a cheeseburger, onion rings, and some of Aijia's french fries for dinner. And yet I starve again. Can't fight this feeling anymore, I've forgotten what I started fighting for

growing up with missy

Lost years: 1995-1999

I'm sure there are pictures; I just need to find them.

Kitchen sink bathtime

My 11th birthday party, pink glasses

My Esmerelda watch and butterfly overalls

My friend Vickie's birthday at my house, advent of contact lenses

I LOVED this skirt

More bathtime, braces happen

The beginning of the phase where lime green was my favorite color

When we had a rabbit of the same color

High school gym shorts, braces off, living room black leather couches become tan leather couches

Advent of digital photography, the college years, post-jaw surgery, a sunflower I planted from seed

Visiting Silverlake LA

Koreatown Chalfonte apartment

Russian club party

Before I started drawing my eyebrows on

Blonde streak era

Obligatory college rave days

Orange hair era, matching baby blue outfits

Visiting Bagel's new house

First boyfriend, night before moving to New York for grad school

Last Christmas

Just hanging out

dictionary

we made little dictionaries in python about ourselves this week in web 

legs

Last night I attended a wonderful housewarming a few blocks from my new apartment themed: LEGS and hosted by my friend Craggs and her two roommates, all animators. They made heaps of wonderful content for the occasion - animations, gifs, flyers, etc. and I liked it all so much that I couldn't not paste some of them here for posterity. I was surprised/not surprised when I arrived to see that Craggs was dressed as ceviche. Anemones sprouting out of her head and a papier mâché lobster tail mounted on her crotch. Other costume elements (like squid arms) were abandoned on surfaces around the apartment.


Craggs proffered lavender-infused gin, which she mixed with Squirt and served to me as a Vagin and Squirt. She also made the best tres leches cake I've ever had. It was in the shape of a pair of legs in a bed of peaches and strawberries and we ate it on the rooftop by savagely drunkenly digging our fingers into the cake. The left leg was made with whipping cream that had also undergone lavender infusion and it was so delightful that it was gone long before the right leg was (due much in part to my good-humored participation).

stay young wild and free

I tried to make pad thai tonight and it was fucking terrible. I put everything on my plate back in the pot, put everything in the pot in a tupperware, and put it all in the fridge as if I'm not going to throw it all away.

My new roommate is great because she opens beers for me and brings them to me even if I haven't asked for one. I stopped buying beer for myself because it makes me fat but it doesn't count if someone else is giving them to me.

the machine

One week ago, Aijia and I threw all of my worldly east-coast possessions into a Uhaul truck and we drove away. She valiantly drove this great beast of a vehicle half a mile away, parallel parking it like a pro, and, I'm sorry Trouble, but we haven't looked back since. I now live in an illegal basement room in a beautiful, plain white apartment that we found at the very last minute with Aijia, her cat Griffin, and two new friends who have just started school with us. Thank goodness. And we just got our internet installed yesterday! I need nothing else.

Tonight Mrs. Tuckersman and I went to see a play at the Park Avenue Armory called The Machine. It was about the 1997 chess match when Garry Kasparov played against IBM's Deep Blue and it was powerful and fantastic. I feel funny about how there's no way to properly convey how great some things were. The play was staged in a historic armory from 1880 currently hosting "unconventional works in the performing and visual arts," the acting was really really good, and we had front-row seats to it all. The excellent theater experiences that Mrs. Tuckersman finds are one of my favorite things about New York. Afterwards we had late-night mozarella sticks and beverages at TGI Fridays, which is the kind of activity that is one of my favorite things about life.

It's New York Fashion Week and all of a sudden there seem to be leggy, Brobdingnagian, urbanesque model people everywhere stalking about on the streets, subways, etc., laughing and looking young and carefree and not hungry.

This is what the stage looked like -

In 1997, Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest grandmasters the chess world has ever produced, arrived in New York City for the match of his life. He was playing against Deep Blue, conceived by IBM as the most powerful super-computer on the planet. What started as a bid by IBM to raise its profile and stock price became a historic encounter that pitted Kasparov against Deep Blue and its creator Doctor Hsu, a genius in his own right with a lifelong dedication to the game.

Staged by Donmar Warehouse Artistic Director Josie Rourke, this new work by British playwright Matt Charman explores Kasparov’s dramatic battle with Deep Blue and its wunderkind inventor as the world breathlessly watched on live television. The Drill Hall will be transformed into an intensely intimate environment to capture this epic struggle of man against machine.

“An arena extravaganza … a whirl of activity”
–The Guardian (London)

“... the pace and grip of this theatrical thriller made for a memorable evening.”
–THE INDEPENDENT (London)

“Josie Rourke… is no ordinary director, as was shown by her skillful pacing of the action, by turns fast and furious, and then dramatically breaking into moments of unexpected poignancy.”
–The Independent (London)

“[Matt] Charman is no ordinary playwright, as his immensely compelling firecracker script revealed.”
–The Independent (London)