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Monday, March 31, 2014

reversed sun

This morning I was sitting on the floor, putting on my face and drinking coffee, when I instantly wanted to read my tarot cards. I stopped half-face and read a ten card spread for myself, and for some reason the reading felt right, acknowledging my current feelings and challenges and projecting the path ahead. In the afternoon I went to Williamsburg to work in a cafe with my friend CVC and when I sat down I noticed that the guy sitting to my right had my first card, The Sun, tattooed large on his right forearm, reversed from our perspective, which is how I had drawn it, in the first position of the spread (The Present), and this felt like an affirmation of things.

The Sun reversed indicates that finding the positive aspects to a particular situation may prove to be difficult. The clouds may be blocking out the warmth, and preventing you from feeling as though everything is on track. You may have experienced setbacks that have damaged your enthusiasm and optimism and have perhaps led you to question whether you can really achieve what you have set out to achieve. You may be feeling depressed, sad or left out. You may be reluctant to proceed and you are no longer enjoying what you are doing. Your direction and path ahead may have become clouded or distorted in some way. Nonetheless, the Sun is never a negative card, so this is only temporary. The obstacles you see can be easily removed if you put your mind to it. It may just take a little more effort than usual.


here you come again

this has totally been my jam

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Thursday, March 27, 2014

goya nightmare

coconut water and vodka may be the worst thing I have ever made myself.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

very la

Rothy was listening to the footage that she recorded of us walking around town last week and she said that we sound very-LA. I understand that that's not necessarily a flattering description but it made me happy because I realized that, although I am slowly making peace with my environs, I am thoroughly uninterested in ever sounding very-New-York.

Monday, March 24, 2014

oink

i haven't seen a live pig since 2010

Sunday, March 23, 2014

video games

last last summer

stetson injury

i accidentally lied down on my favorite glasses and now they're all bent and stupid on my face

Saturday, March 22, 2014

the last day of winter

Wednesday, which was the day before the spring equinox, Rothy and I started a one-week free trial of a yoga studio near Union Square and then we dropped off her childhood home movies at a company so that they could digitize them for $25 per VHS. Along the way she wore a Neurosky and a GoPro strapped to her head and recorded video of the entire trip and from that made these .gifs of me on the subway. We then bought 芝麻球/zhima qiu/sesame balls at a Chinese bakery and ate them on the way to the Whitney Biennial, where we saw cool up-and-coming art stuff, like a PeeWee-esque sexual living room, a little tent against something like a beautiful beaded curtain, and videos about fishermen and Chinese migrant workers in Chengdu. Then we had delicious coffee uptown at Starbucks and then I went and had a most delicious and wonderful rainbow roll and Mexican beer with Mrs. Tuckersman in Brooklyn Heights. Then I went home.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

consented

I had a call this morning with my coordinator and signed off on all of my consent forms. I had one moment of panic where I felt really scared about some possible-but-unlikely long term autoimmune effects and ended up doing some more research before ultimately putting my name down on the lines. Who knew there were FedEx dropboxes in Bushwick?

Monday, March 17, 2014

hematopoietic facts

Bone marrow is the soft, sponge-like material found inside bones. It contains immature cells known as hematopoietic or blood-forming stem cells. (Hematopoietic stem cells are different from embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can develop into every type of cell in the body.) Hematopoietic stem cells divide to form more blood-forming stem cells, or they mature into one of three types of blood cells: white blood cells, which fight infection; red blood cells, which carry oxygen; and platelets, which help the blood to clot. Most hematopoietic stem cells are found in the bone marrow, but some cells, called peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs), are found in the bloodstream. 

Sunday, March 16, 2014

cleopatra

I should really watch this

galvanic current

I'm having another metal-on-metal incident. I can't use touch metal utensils to metal things like aluminum or in this case, a takeout container, because when I put the utensil in my mouth my entire mouth goes sour and won't stop watering. Apparently this occurrence is called galvanic current and is caused by dental work and I've had it forever. 

ain'a that good news

This is happening. My FedEx package of consent forms arrived this morning.
 I broke the news to my parents over Skype tonight. Pa is as usual inexplicably sitting off-camera. Ma may look happy here, but both of them freaked out when I told them that I'll be donating blood stem cells soon. They were not very happy and I had to convince Ma not to fly out but I know that they know it's the right thing to do.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

vitameatavegamin

my new thing is veggie burgers. i don't know why i'm so into them.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

so wind

so it's back in the low 20s degrees, eh?

onward and upward

It looks like the stem cell donation will be happening in April and I'm currently being transferred to a coordinator who covers the New York area. I'm feeling less stressed about the timing and think I'll be able to keep up with school while undergoing this process. One funny thing is that I've been feeling somewhat compelled to eat better and maintain better health knowing that there's someone else who needs me.

Fort

I'm in bed using my phone under my blanket and it's so warm glowy and humid and awesome

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

cookie dough sammich

Delicious or too much? Please allow me to be the judge.

pbsc

12/8/11: I joined the bone marrow registry
12/20/12: I was contacted as a possible match for a man
1/2/13: I donated blood for HLA typing, which is to see if the 6 proteins on the surface of my white blood cells match his
3/5/13: We were confirmed as a match
  • Thank you for participating in additional testing to confirm if you are the best marrow match for the patient. The results of your testing indicate you and the patient are a suitable match; however, the patient is not ready for a transplant at this time.
3/12/14: I was called today and requested to donate stem cells via PBSC in April. Currently trying to work out of it would be possible to postpone by a few weeks and do this after graduation.
  • PBSC donation  is a non-surgical procedure. For 5 days leading up to donation, you will be given injections of filgrastim. Filgrastim is a medication that increases the number of blood-forming cells in your bloodstream. On the day of donation, blood is removed through a needle on one arm and passed through a machine that separates out the blood-forming cells. The remaining blood is returned to you through the other arm.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

spring breaker

was supposed to get up at 8 to do work, which became 9, which became 9:30, which became 10. but i'm up now and it's supposed to be warm (50s) today and tomorrow it's spring break

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Diagon

My new thing is sleeping intentionally on a complete diagonal because I guess I can and nobody cares

Saturday, March 8, 2014

How many feelings do I feel in one day?

city mouse

I had some good things happen to me today but now I feel so much sad feelings and anxiety about the ambiguity of my not-so-distant-future career, its geolocation, and its effect on interpersonal relations with loved ones.

Here's my lullaby:

valerie

here's a crazy video i made of myself

Friday, March 7, 2014

toto africa

I saw a guy in the subway playing guitar and singing Africa by Toto and his singing was so good that it was one of the best subway performances I've ever seen.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

window display in progress

got home at 4:45am. not bad. getting up in in 3.5 hours and getting back to work - 

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

i've lost my planner and i don't know who i am anymore

on bed rest

my lower back hurts and i can't tell if it's because i slept on a couch that gave me crazy dreams or if it's because i walked twenty million million miles today

pony i know

tonight i learned that one of my schoolmates is the voice of one of the ponies on My Little Pony (the show that's currently on air, not the one we grew up with. though apparently the theme song has not changed.)

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Sleepover

It's past 3:30am. I'm on rothys couch because it's too late to walk home, much less with a bad of PVC pipes to carry. We coded from 10p until now and yesterday we coded into 1:30am and the night before that we coded until I can't remember and two nights before that we coded until midnight by the way the code isn't working yet. My contacts are in a teacup of water on an ikea shelf

Monday, March 3, 2014

Saturday, March 1, 2014

speakeasies

Blind pigs and blind tiger

The term "blind pig" (or "blind tiger") originated in the United States in the nineteenth century; it was applied to lower-class establishments that sold alcoholic beverages illegally. The operator of an establishment (such as a saloon or bar) would charge customers to see an attraction (such as an animal) and then serve a "complimentary" alcoholic beverage, thus circumventing the law.
In desperate cases it has to betake itself to the exhibition of Greenland pigs and other curious animals, charging 25 cents for a sight of the pig and throwing in a gin cocktail gratuitously.
[They] are in a mysterious place called a blind tiger, drinking the very bad whiskey for which Prohibition is indirectly responsible.

Aftermath

The poor quality bootleg liquor sold in speakeasies was responsible for a shift away from 19th century 'classic' cocktails, that celebrated the raw taste of the liquor (such as the Gin Cocktail, made with Genever (sweet) gin), to new cocktails aimed at masking the taste of rough moonshine. These masking drinks were termed 'pansies' at the time