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Posts Tagged ‘ random ’

it’s only the end of the world.

Listening to: Panic! At the Disco — Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks

Let me begin with a complaint: my coccyx aches. I just had my weave taken out and my hair wrangled into single braids, so now I’m blonder than ever. Firefox crashed every time I tried to upload this header photo and every time I turn on any sort of media all I hear about is news of death and destruction and even more impending doom. Maybe we set the year 0A.D. too far back and it’s already the Mayans’ 2012, and we’re all going to die (well, we are anyway, eventually, and I don’t actually believe that 2012 is Armageddon because Ragnarok should totally come on a February 31st).

On Saturday I went house shopping with my aunt and cousin and enjoyed petting other people’s cats and debating doors vs. windows as sniper targets (my cousin doesn’t want to live in a house with lots of windows, because “nobody’s ever been shot through a door;” I told her I was going to shoot her through a door just to prove her wrong). I won a silver medal for a double exposure LC-A+ print in the national Scholastic Art Awards, despite my photography teacher’s telling me not to hold my breath waiting to win anything. And I’ve planned an epic photoshoot with Blé for Friday inspired by:

but in suburbia and with cheaper clothes (obviously, since stylist/photographer anwa has a nonexistent clothes budget and all the shmancy vintage dresses she just inherited from her mother are at the cleaner’s). Have I ever mentioned that I love love love Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, possibly definitely even more than I love Annie Leibovitz (okay, definitely definitely more)? But I’m having a crisis of method in deciding whether to shoot this shoot in digital or in film, but I’m kind of leaning towards the film because then I get to use all of my better lenses AND I will take a “behind the scenes” little photo-movie with my new Flip camera to make up for the fact that it’ll take way too long to get the prints developed.

2011: 03/14
CATEGORY: fashion
misc.
news.
photography
4 comments

under the great blogging muumuu.

Listening to: Black Box Recorder — I.C. One Female

Well, actually, I do not in fact own any muumuus. But I’m wearing school-bookstore sweatpants, so there’s my full lazy-blogger outfit for you.

So. Spring break. Would probably be a bit more exciting if there was someone else nearby whom I know who was on break as well. Ah, well. I’ve spent all of today watching the first half of season two of True Blood, eating frozen Frango chocolates (which actually aren’t as appetizing as they sound, mind you), trying to write, and listening to Black Box Recorder. I’m kind of on a BBR riff right now. I dunno why. The song “Brutality” is stuck in my head, and it’s annoying because I don’t even know all of the lyrics yet.

No interesting/ new photos at the moment, since I’m waiting for my models to have some free time/ Blé to return my stalker calls. But, in other news, I took a “What Do You Taste Like To Cannibals?” quiz last night, and apparently I taste like undercooked fish. I, being a good teenager, posted this news on Facebook, and soon was told by my friends (I say “friends” because most of my friends on that social network are my friends IRL, to use that hip vernacular) that they would be glad to eat me — with sauce — if that meant I tasted like sushi. So, dear blogging readers: should I be touched that my friends think I’m delicious, or should I be creeped out that they’re actively contemplating eating me?

2011: 03/11
CATEGORY: misc.
3 comments

sometimes a lie is the best thing.

Listening to: Evanescence — Lithium

It’s been nearly a week, so you people have got me feeling like I owe you something. (Have you been checking out The Ridiculous Things Store, like I asked? As I said, it’s stocked more often.) This week has been the longest week of my life, no lie, even longer than preseason at the beginning of the school year. The payoff is near, though: Saturday morning I’m getting on a plane to Middle of Nowhere, USA, and getting out of here. I’m already beginning to have flight anxiety: Where am I going to put my cameras? And my lenses? (Did I mention that my dad left with my backpack when he came to visit, so for the past week I’ve been pack-less?) What about flying with unexposed film, for crying out loud?

I’m really twitchy right now. Might be from drinking diner coffee this morning, might be burgeoning spring fever. All I know is, I’ve been trying to find NyQuil all week and all I’ve found so far is 1) potheads who tell me drugs are bad 2) generic-brand Advil 3) stronger drugs that I value my health/(semblance of) sanity/scholarship too much to accept. Not to mention, shit’s expensive (or so I’ve heard). But turtles don’t do drugs, my dear readers: hugs, not drugs. (But you must understand the boundaries of “personal space” and the definition of “bad touch”.)

As you can probably tell by my excess of parentheses, I’m kind of lacking the focus to write a blog post at the moment. I also have a really annoying crick/warm spot in the center of my back, so if anyone knows how to make it go away, it would be muchly appreciated.

2011: 03/03
CATEGORY: misc.
4 comments

my soundtrack is white noise.

Listening to: Animal Collective — Brother Sport

I get the most random spam comments. But not really, if you think about it. Lots of Russian spammers. I felt my existence validated when someone named “nigeria” left me an unspecific comment. (If you’re a real person, I’m sorry, but every Nigerian knows not to trust nigeria_people2007@yahoo.com.) My mother’s trust in Nigerians was renewed when Pop’Africana sent me an address confirmation email, after I’d almost forgotten that I’d ordered the magazine.

My spam email, for that matter, is slightly more interesting. I get lots of spam from JG Wentworth and AT&T, but more interesting are those from Christian dating websites, US healthcare, Bosley — fight your hair loss! — and “depression help” centers. I don’t recall stating anywhere on the interwebs that I was a balding Christian American without healthcare, but I’m almost certain that any depression would worsen if one’s credit card number were stolen. Once I received a series of spam emails from a supposed lawyer, informing me of the details of a lawsuit I was sure I’d never started. But I’m gullible and paranoid and they kept me up at night for a while, making me wonder if I were really suing someone for the rights to my artwork and had forgotten all about it.

On Friday I lived in a dream-world and ate black-raspberry ice cream at 10pm in an ice-cream parlor with my dance team. Yesterday I watched Little Shop of Horrors and marveled at the stage lighting and harbored a deep resentment against everyone, especially my roommate and her/our loud friends who prevented me from watching Skins in my room. Late at night I ate Lucky Charms and some of the several pounds of dark chocolate chips I received in the mail, but today I am tired and worn-out and have only my spam to remind me of who and where I am not.

2011: 02/20
CATEGORY: misc.
5 comments

interest in colors, I discover myself.

Listening to: Asa — So Beautiful

Early in the morning, especially on Sundays, sunlight streams through my window and makes everything light. I am unable to rearrange my room because I need my head by the light when I sleep; I need to be able to peer out out the window as I work; and I need my window perfectly unobstructed. I hate artificial lighting. As long as there is sunlight it is bright enough to read, to write, to type. But I also hate dusk. I hate when it’s too dark to go on without additional light but still too light out to close the window; I hate when the glass in my window goes from clear to glossy reflective black and the walls of my room go from white to an ugly, florescent-induced yellow.

Tonight I’m sending out the first chapter of my novel. It’s kind of nerve-wracking, especially because I can’t help but think about inevitable rejection. The more I write and edit, the more wrong I find, but I can’t stop editing because what if I miss something then. My social life has, for the most part, withered away over the past week, and every time I try and restart it I feel uncomfortable and go back to my room to lie on my bed, bask in the sunlight, and pretend I live in a different written world.

2011: 01/23
CATEGORY: misc.
news.
writings.
3 comments

the new adventures of your favorite mostly-incompetent cat.

Listening to: Santigold — Shove It

This here is an example of anwa + webcam + gimp2 – creativity. Lulz, does anyone remember when filters were cool?

For one, happy MLK Day. Today has been full of awesomely epic winning fail, as paradoxical as that sounds. Every year, for lunch on MLK Day, my school’s dining service attempts “Martin Luther King Jr.’s last/favorite meal and/or what was on the menu of the first African-American owned restaurant in the South,” but what they end up with is… not-so-great cringeworthy/laughable stereotypical black people food. I actually have a photo of it (that my friend took), but it’s on my cell phone. On the bright side, they had coconut M&Ms at the school bookstore — FTW.

Today at English class we were reciting poems. I recited Atwood’s “They are hostile nations” to glowing review, thank you very much, but that was outside of the classroom. Inside the classroom, everyone was all snappity and trying to move as not to be called on to read next. While our teacher was outside, someone set the clock on her computer forward so that we got let out of class almost fifteen minutes early. Ahh, immaturity.

Right after English, I went to my dorm and brought my laundry up to my room. And then I realized that I’d taken the dirty laundry back, and by the time I got back downstairs, the truck had already come to pick up/drop off the laundry. So, much to the amusement of everyone coming back from classes, I sprinted after the laundry truck in the snow, without a jacket, in stocking feet, leggings, and an oversized pajama shirt, clutching my dirty laundry for dear life. I caught the truck, amazingly (well, it’d stopped, but that’s besides the point), but the incident made me very happy that certain people had since moved to the other side of campus.

Yes, my life is very interesting. I should have my own television programme.

2011: 01/17
CATEGORY: misc.
1 comment

’cause that’s my fun-day.

Listening to: Vampire Weekend — Horchata

It’s Sunday again! Which means procrastination today and school (read: more procrastination) tomorrow. Last night I forced myself to crawl out of my room and went to the boys varsity basketball game; we won 70-something to 40-something, which was nice and kind of exciting. Then we had s’mores outside, and later while I was reading in my room, I realized that half a graham cracker had lodged itself in the folds of my scarf. What was more strange about that was that I’d eaten every graham cracker I’d taken out of the box. Also last night I spent about half an hour on babynamesworld.com, looking at hundreds upon hundreds of terrible French boy-names. I finally had to relieve one of its last syllable to come up with “Calix”, which I think is a suitably badass name for the character it now describes, even though it starts with Blé’s least favorite letter. (But really? “Kalix”?…Ohwaitnevermind.)

Just under an hour ago, my independent study adviser took me and my neighbor to the bookstore in town, and my neighbor was awesomely kind enough to lend me $17 so that I could buy Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, which I can’t wait to start reading, but The Elegance of the Hedgehog is just too good to put down right now. And I just vacuumed my first time in a month or so (I know, ewww), so now I’m feeling all clean and zen and ready to go and do yoga.

2011: 01/16
CATEGORY: misc.
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no-one should call you a dreamer.

Listening to: Peter Björn and John — The Chills

ARGH.

No, that was not a pirate noise. That was me expressing my frustration at this dismal cesspool that is life. I am in an angry emo mood right now (and, appropriately wearing my “and that’s when I snapped” shirt). On the other side of the connecting door, my roommate and our mutual friends are giggling over something that probably has to do with Facebook, but I am sitting alone and sulking because 1. they are all nice people 2. I have difficulty connecting with girls in my grade at my school, so even though they are nice and mostly-welcoming I feel uncomfortable around them and thus feel forced to lock myself in my half of our rooms. Last night they all went out to see the hypnotist who came to campus and locked them in the theater, but I stayed behind in my dorm, watching Catch Me If You Can and eating my detention-bound older-and-guy friends’ takeout before going to bed at ten and sleeping for 12 hours. And I have been incredibly unproductive and unable to do write and do anything really other than reading The Dante Club for the past several hours. Yesterday I was so frustrated because I 1) butchered the map of Europe and 2) didn’t exercise at all and 3) was forced into an incredibly stressful lab partnership with the one person whose presence stresses me out the most, and we didn’t have a spectrometer and he was being sarcastically demanding and I was afraid that I was going to set my hair on fire. And my laptop battery is five inches from death and I’m running out of toothpaste and chewing gum and all I want to do is go home and take a billion rolls of 800-speed film and drink Starbucks and drool over notebooks with the people I love most.

And it has stopped snowing where Ash lives, so I will oblige her previous request of some pictures of snow. Voilà.

2011: 01/09
CATEGORY: misc.
photography
4 comments

donnez-moi ta main; nous volerons ensemble.

Listening to: Coldplay — Fix You

“…your heart is a strange little orange to peel” — St. Vincent, “Human Racing”

You might know the feeling. When you have something you want to say but pretend you’ve forgotten it when someone asks. When, later, you come up with entire speeches when there’s nobody around to hear them. I’m not quite sure why I bothered starting this post, to be honest.

I’m somewhat upset that I’m not jetlagged. I’ve traveled several thousand miles in the past few days, and tomorrow I’m getting on a plane and flying again — not even to somewhere to which, at the moment, I particularly wish to go. Is it paradoxical for me to think that if I changed time zones at least, maybe I wouldn’t feel so drained? Sometimes I would like to sleep forever, but I have too much stuff to get done.

2010: 11/28
CATEGORY: misc.
3 comments

anwa goes shopping and displays the innards of her bag, or this might’ve been a trend once.

Listening to: Mates of State — My Only Offer

It’s depressing to think that Sunday is almost over already, even though the day is technically one hour longer thanks to daylight savings time. This Friday I went to see a play when I probably should’ve been doing homework for Saturday classes; today I went to town and decided to share the fruits of that labor with you in this haul photo/ “what’s in my purse” post.

So, exactly what is in my purse/ what did I buy? Well, let me tell you:

1. Vintage vest.

My shopping buddy and I went thrift-whoring at the local thrift-and-vintage store, and I managed to snag this sweet vintage vest for less that twenty bucks. In case you were wondering, it does not fit in my purse, but somehow it magically fit over my bust.

2. My cellphone.

Which I almost lost about three times in the two hours I was out. I’m pretty sure I almost accidentally used it to pay at the art store.

3. My pencil.

I, honest to goodness, own only one pencil (well, only one mechanical pencil). And I’m always almost losing it. The other day I stuck it on the rim of my knee-high boots and spent the next period and a half looking for it until I remembered where it was.

4. Bigelow Co. Mocha Mint Lipstick.

I usually have a tube of lipstick on my person. Either it’s this one, my brown Burt’s Bees, or my dark red Revlon.

5. My Moleskine.

Otherwise known as my baby. ‘Nuff said.

6. My iPod.

Whose earphones I’ve replaced about three times this year. First they were white, then they were from the McGill bookstore, then they were blue, and now they’re green. One day I hope to upgrade them to an epic pair of Skullcandy Aviators.

7. 0.5mm Sakura Micron pen.

I bought this today on my second trip to the art store, because I was dumb and left all of my Faber Castell pens at home. Since I’ve given up on journaling, I’m going to try and go back to drawing.

8. White Galaxy Marker paint marker.

Also bought on my second trip to the art store, once I realized that I had enough money to buy two pens. As before, I left my white marker (which really didn’t work that well, anyway) back home.

9. Doublemint gum.

My bread and butter. I have about eight packs of these sitting in my desk drawer at the moment.

10. My new sketchbook.

I’d really wanted to find one of those limited edition Moleskine Pac-man notebooks on my first trip to the art store, but a) I did not have $30 to spend on a sketchbook, and b) they didn’t have them, anyway, and the only other Moleskine sketchbooks they carried had pages far too big for my poor procrastinate-y self to ever ink and color in. So I snagged this one instead, for under $10.

11. The CBOQO.

For those of you who don’t remember, that stands for the Communist Bag Of Questionable Origin. I bought four new buttons for it at the thrift store today; the first one says “Sarcasm: Now served daily,” the second says, “I ♥ Cats. It’s people I can’t stand,” the third says, “Patience is such a waste of time,” and the last says, “Does it bother you that I’m always right?” I buy way too many buttons.

Not pictured here: my Nikon D3000 and it’s lens cap, which I was using to photograph the rest of this crap. Also, the delicious mocha almond ice cream + espresso beverage I consumed at the local creamery. And I can’t wait to wear that vest tomorrow, even though I might need to disinfect it first.

2010: 11/07
CATEGORY: misc.
1 comment

yeah, we went there.