photographs of our urban perspective

This will be a short post. It's eleven. I'm tired. My mind is dull.

I felt like shit this weekend. Almost depressed, really. I think I have been kind of mentally pinched by things I have to do that, at the moment, I am not doing so well. I got a job for this summer teaching a class for the high school outreach program at U.C. Berkeley. I'm supposed to plan a whole reverse engineering class, complete with hands-on curriculum, lesson plans, and a reader, but they hired me late and I have only had about two weeks to do it.

And I haven't really done it! It's just really hard to get started organizing something that big . And I haven't had enough time so I'm worried about getting it all done.

So anyways, that's what I tried to do yesterday. I didn't get a whole lot done. I felt like I was back at lab: useless and unhappy about it. It's just been in the back of my mind all weekend and I think it's causing some stress.

Ok, so enough of that.

I had a great day at the studio on Friday. No need to talk too much about it, but it was the first day I've had there where I really got into a groove and couldn't wait to come back. It's what I have been waiting for.

Saturday was one of those days that seemed empty even though quite a bit actually happened. Again: probably my mood. In the morning, we got Carly a bike off Craigslist. She's said she wanted one and I myself have really wanted her to get one so we can go on some evening rides (thank you, daylight savings), but now I don't know how I feel about it. I mean, I just hope she actually uses it. I hope I didn't push that issue too hard, you know?

OK thats it.

After I made $80 tutoring tonight, I spent $60 at Amoeba:
- Eno: Songs for Airports (loved the first Eno record I got a while ag0)
- Fall Out Boy: From Under The Cork Tree (gushing review on Aquarius and it sounds my speed; I have recently really enjoyed Greenday's "Idiot America")
- Dizzee Rascal: Showtime (A long time coming)
-Angels of Light: ...sing "Other People" (gushing review from ben...a nice addition to my recent experimental interest?)
- Neko Case (for Carly)

Its better up here!

The Thursdays of May 2005 have been epic (and rendered all the more racking due to the biking). Today was especially long day. This is what I put myself through today:

7:00-8:00 AM Tennis with Jill in Lafayette Park (avenged my lost last time by destroying her 6-2, thanks very much)
9:00 AM -1:30 PM Work @ Exploratorium. 2000+ kids today and a super crowded eyeball demo.
1:30-3:00 Get to Berkeley
3:00-4:00 Councelling with Amy
4:00-5:00 Get to SF
500-6:30 Tutoring session in a North Beach alley
6:30-7:00 Get some food and somehow Bike to SoMa
7:00-10:00 Documentary workshop in SoMa
10:00-10:30 Bike home

And maybe it was all the biking but, shit, I ate a lot today. Here's the causalty list:
-1/2 cup pre-tennis coffee
-Poppy Seed Bagel w/ cream cheese and a cup of post- tennis coffee
-two donut halves at the museum before work
-a large cup of soup, some crackers, and some walnuts during lunch break
-14 ounces of generic chinese food buffet between lunch and dinner
-In and Out burger with fries (it was there!)
-A big handful of kettle chips at Film Arts

i don't know, that seems like a lot to me. and i'm still fucking hungry. so i'm gonna go now and get some food.

Learn several dye techniques

so i finally made it to one of the other Taquera Can-Cuns! I was biking to art studio in the mission from a useless SAT class at Leadership High school in Balboa Park. So I stopped at the upper Mission street Can-Cun, on 29th or so. It's designed exactly like the original at 19th, from the party decorations hanging from wal right to the Alambres on the menu. I got a veggie burrito with no sour cream; i received a veggie burrito with extra sour cream. Probably on purpose.

it's rough being white.

afterwards, my piss caused the urinal at Starbucks to overflow and i was very very frustrated by my acrylic paints. Impossible to get anything done with those fuckers- they dry in a matter of seconds.

Here is a picture of my studio.

Grazie

ok lets try this again. stupid piece of shit macintosh; i half expect it to crash every time i use it. and let me tell you, it doesn't disappoint. anyways, i think i was talking about feeling unrelaxed. its a common thing these days. there's just so much effort that goes into personal administration that there aren't many opportunities to cut off and let things loose. it boils down to the fact that there is a lot of shit that i want to accomplish that requires an extraordinary amount of personal discipline. sometimes i have it, sometimes i try to have it. it's just hard to shut off though. like tonight, i really should be at art studio. but i'm not.

fuck.

oh well, i'll go tomorrow.

tonight i went to a real swank Italian place in the Marina, Emprio Rulli, for the Exploratorium volunteer appreciation dinner. even though i'm no longer a volunteer. it was cool: free food and drinks all around and i actually got a little buzz and had a pretty good time. where would i be without drugs? the lady who runs the volunteers is pretty impressive. i don't know how people get to her ridiculous level of positive thinking but, like i said, its impressive.

there was all kinds of people there. i talked to a guy who has been living in SF for god knows how long --he was telling me about Seal Stadium in the thirties-- as well as a dude in berkeley's engineering program and a girl who got her PhD in neuroscience and then became a middle school teacher. when i can manage to shut the fuck up long enough to listen to anyone else, it's cool to get other people's perspective on things.

i was really anxious today though. i don't kno... it was just impossible to get anything going. its tru that i had a tutoring appointment right in the middle of the day preventing me from doing anything really out there (i would have like to go to MoMa again), but before that i had a good chunk of day that i could barely process.

carly and i got bagels and coffee first thing (she's off for finals week) and then we stopped at some hardware stores to get some supplies for a project that i will likely never finish. after that, though, i felt paralyzed for quite a bit of time. i essentially ended up wasting an hour fussing over $12, trying to clear up some bullshit about a Circuit City rebate. i don't know... there was just so much i wanted to do and i didn't know where to start. on my list of things was: take a walk, go to MoMa, read, start my Reverse Engineering curriculum for the class i'm teaching this summer, a million emails, a million phonecalls, a million projects....

usually when i feel like that, i just need to take some time out and sort it all out--to the extent that all that shit will sort out--but it just didn't happen. i had that worthless tutoring appointment in san mateo and then the volunteer event.

that's about all i can write right now. again, i'm drained before anything has even happened. i need to clear my slate.

wilco is good but not great.


biked up to coit tower during sunset

can of lime juice

Thursdays are intense. 5:45 AM to whenever I finish this entry. I am shooting for 11 PM.

Today was 'bike to work day' and it's the first day since i got my bike that i have not biked to work. Fuck that, it was raining and I already got soaked yesterday. A brother can only tolerate the sniffles for so long, know what i mean?

I felt like shit today, like i was washed-out from the moment i woke up. Somehow, though, i got up to go down to Royal Ground and read the paper for an hour or two before work. I didn't absorb shit though. All I remember is that SF bike messengers are in decline and Michael Jackson's cousin testified on his behalf yesterday. The Onion just started an SF edition and I was a lot more into that.

We had a monster day of 3000+ kids at the museum cause the floor has been closed to school groups for the last two days. I didn't feel like doing shit or really even talking to anyone. Besides an orientation for a disturbingly reckless kindergarten and an utterly humorless cow eye dissection, i spent the rest of the day trying to avoid people. If anything I was looking for some misbehaving kids to yell at to help me focus my vague anger [not hard on a slammed day]. I know, i am a terrible, terrible educator. I found a kid whacking around our resonator bars, snuck up next to him, and said "why are you doing that." He didn't really have an answer. That showed him.

After work another explainer, Giancarlo, came over to my place. He's a poet that teaches at SF State and he wanted to try reading some of his work over my guitar playing. He got into a political argument with a guy on the bus and, maybe its just me, but almost any political discussion i hear is useless and makes me want to puke. Fuck everyone. I'm not interested in hearing about Saddam's murderous dictatorship any more than i am in hearing vague insinuations regarding how much the world trade center was insured for. Giancarlo told me he actually believes the whole thing was a conspiracy. No, it's not impossible, but in light of no convincing evidence, what has led a perfectly normal, intelligent dude to choose to believe that such a insanely complicated series of events makes more sense than the simple explanation?

Lets just all radicalize until we can't even remember why we want to be alive anymore.

Anyways, the creative experimenting with him was pretty cool for what it was. There were a few moments when the music and the words combined to create some real mood. Artistically, we are working in totally different paradigms and i can't say i totally understand his. He's good at creating interesting phrases and rhythyms, but I can't really see too much more into it right now. I think he kind of writes first and asks questions later under the premise that anything his brain produces means something on some level. Its an interesting idea and i guess the mind can find poignancy in just about anything if you think about it long enough to think up some connections. I don't think I'm quite in that zone myself. Or maybe just not today. Not that I couldn't benefit from its influence.

Tutored Lucy, the girl with the messiest room ever. Up to Carly's 2002 apartment standards, just about.

And then Documentary workshop. We messed around with some nice video cameras and then watched a few pieces. We saw a 6 minute 16mm film our instructor made a few years ago called 'on the farm,' about...being on a farm, pretty much. He shot the whole thing on a wind up Bolex, hand processed all the stock himself, and edited the entire film with an optical printer. He even did the crossfading in-camera and the whole thing was pretty cool. When you are working like that you are filmaking on a whole different level and six minutes of farm footage becomes a lot more interesting. I mean, if you care.

Fuck, it's 11:30. I don't think I give a shit about this blog. No one is going to read it. There was no point in me wasting 45 mins of sleep for this. Oh well. Mom comes in tomorrow.

Always get my man

Got my top job choice for the summer! "Reverse Engineering" instructor at the U.C. Berkeley Academic Outreach program. I love it: graduate from engineering school in december, teach engineering in june. Should be a cool program too. I was getting excited writing my fake lesson plan for the job. Can't get into any more details at this hour. Except the logistics: $6200 for 5.5 weeks, three days a week across the bay. Next best thing was $4200 for 7 weeks in San Jose, 5 days a week for comparable work! What more could I ask for?

Now I just have to confirm the salary and break the bad news to San Jose. Oh well, all's fair.

Mondays got a little bit more on track today, though I was still inside too much:
-Read the Chronicle
-Did a seemingly endless amount of personal administration
-Went to Lafayette Park for some large-format brainstorming on 18 x 24
-Rode out to the ocean with Jill (and had my first experience with the MUNI bike rack)
-Cooked new groceries with Carly
-Watched an episode of POTUS.

President Of The United States.

POTUS is a great great acronym.

such a lovely place

karaoke was cool! i sang half of "hotel california" and all of "gonna be 500 miles" or whatever the fuck it's called. for me, that's a camp song from ninth grade. anyways, we were there forever and it was a great time. kaaroke is really entertaining. it was weird- didn't feel like san francisco at all. felt way more like pittsburgh. that's karaoke for you, i guess. to top it all off, we shared a pizza pino slice afterwards.

even california pizza is good at 2 am.

Stage Fright?

Ten minute entry:

About to go karaoke down on California St. with Louise from Ivy West. At the last "appreciation event," she mention she goes there every once in a while and I told her to call me next time she does. So she did.

It's been a while since I've been on stage. I'm thinking about singing "Wind Beneath my Wings," if they have it available. In a karaoke situation, I'm definitely more of a crooner- it's just easier to work that way with an unpredictable octave. Cause what's worse then getting all excited about doing a song only to find that its way out of your range?

Anyways... Five minutes left!

Spent most of the day being an artist. It was pretty productive. I've been working on some phototransfers for a mixed media project as well as charcoal drawing, both with mixed results. But whatever. I can't get bogged down with that stuff, just gotta do art! At some point, I'm gonna start a relief print project. That's still in the works though. Gotta buy more shit, of course.

And finally: enjoying my new, free Giant Cypress LE bike. I actually made it up Washington street to our place from Polk! I amazed myself. And i was *that* close to taking the bus. Yesterday, the east face of Nob Hill totally kicked my ass. Today I took a different approach. I went as soft as possible, slowing my pace when I started going too fast and keeping my eyes only on the road directly in front of me. The west face is admittedly easier going, but i was happy cause I was starting to think that I would never be able to make it home on my new bike. Biking's cool, you notice shit that you don't notice when you drive, a lot like how you notice shit when you walk. Like, even though I've been up and down it hundreds of times, I never realized how bad Washington Street's surface is between Hyde and Larkin.

Fascinating shit, I know.

Got my exploratorium ID: