Tired eyes.


Spit it out, already.

Tiny revelations:

Scene 1:
"Ugh. M always paints herself. It's so annoying."
"I always paint myself. I'm all I've painted this whole semester."
"Yeah, but it's different. I guess I'm all I use, too. Every piece I have up in the sophomore show is a naked picture of me..."

Scene 2:
"She uses so much text, and it's so lame. It's so emo."
"I use a lot of text. My sketchbooks are all text."
"It's not as annoying when you do it. And I like you, so.."


It's all about who you know. Or who knows you, to be more exact.

---

Girl next to me in the computer lab:
"I'm looking at formal pictures.... it's amazing how many of us brought Sig Eps as dates."

Wow, I...... could not possibly care any less about that.

I can sleep when I'm dead - which could be any day, y'all, don't forget.

I can't remember (BIG SURPRISE) the last time someone had to shake me awake. "Hey. You were snoring a lil bit."

Sat on the porch and watched the rain come in. Drank Mickey's and watched Life Aquatic and stayed up until the morning. Now I'm starting my day with a new Bruce Springsteen CD. Pretty perfect.

Oh, yeah, someone said this to me recently:
> I like to think that all the dreams you don't remember are dreams that
> other people are having about you. Like somehow I was drifting through dream
> world and decided to stop by your dream.

get grown

There is a very specific rush to be had from staying up all night, doing something creative (especially when you make something you are pleased with). I fell into bed covered in chalk pastel, black hands, listening to the birds start to come out. I am now awake only a few hours later. It's going to be a whirlwind, these last few days.

---

It's unfortunate, sure, but one of the soundtracks to these years will be listening to my suite mates make themselves vomit in the bathroom.

---

I'm supposed to do a salt water flush this morning. I am terrified. If you want to vomit like my suitemates, you can look at the photo gallery. That is terrifying. I will probably buy it because I like to torture myself.

---

"Looking for j/o buddy. No gay shit."

A gold heart necklace with "bless this mess" engraved into to -- possibly the best birthday present I have ever received.


I wish I was responsible for thinking this up:
"Okay, so it's a party called Andre 3000. We'd buy 3,000 bottles of Andre champagne, and no one could leave until they are all finished. Also 'Hey Ya' will play on a continuous loop."


In art school, you get a lot of projects about suicide and childhood. I learned from a creative writing student that their version of this is stories about kids going back home to Lancaster, PA.

I was big doubter of Neosporin + Pain Relief, but I have been suffering from a lacerated septum and someone loaned it to me, and wow, guys. Maybe it's just because I'm putting it directly into my nose, but the instant numbness feeling made me think of doing a line, which is coincidental because the inside of my nose looks like Stevie Nicks' in the 80s.

--

Art reviews were today. I am always asked: 'Do they actually kick people out?' And I always answer: 'Not often enough.'
I ran into my friend leaving hers. Starving, shaking, exhausted, her boyfriend and I literally wiped tears off her face as she told us about it. He got the right cheek, I got the left.

My advice was go home, drink a glass of wine, and take a nap.

--

Things are looking up. Things are always looking up, but sometimes I don't realize it.

Perfect pair. Realized.

Things I need to quit:
- contributing to the internet whilst intoxicated.
- eating. I'm detoxing again. I'm going to end this semester off the way it started. Cycles, and shit.

Plus, I almost forgot the best thing I witnessed yesterday. Imagine this sounding like two high schoolers reading a script, 'cause that's exactly how it sounded:

[SCENE: A BOY and GIRL have just arrived at the entrance to a dormitory; the BOY has walked her home.]

GIRL: [hand resting on door handle] Hey... Thanks.

BOY: For what?

GIRL: I dunno, just.. listening.

BOY: [backing away slowly, maintaining drawn out eye contact] Anytime.

END SCENE.

It was SO Dawson's Creek.

Also: you know you're gonna look back on this time in your life and completely romanticize it. I have done this with Thailand. I have done this with high school. I have done this with Austin. I will do it with my time here.

17 more days. If I can make it without dying or failing a grade, I'll be fine. And that will be easy to do! Think big picture.

1. The first house I spent time at when I was in Austin had a stuffed deer head mounted on the wall and a BB Gun. The second house did too.

2. Okay, I do this thing where I tell stories that are too personal or too awkward so they fall very flat when sharing them with someone. I just like to give things away, and I love stories, and I think everything is worth talking about. I blame this on the fact that I am surrounded by 95% women in Pittsburgh. I blame a lot of things on that.

3. But on the flip side, pretty much all of my friends in Austin (the ones in town, anyway) are boys. They all have dogs. Watching them all talk about their dogs, and cheer them on as they watched them play fight with each other, set up play dates for them, and wake up multiple times in the night to take care of the sick one (and clean up vomit with not one negative word) --- it was so obvious to me. They are practicing to be daddies, and they don't even know it. My internal clock pretty much sang.

4. I'm too scatterbrained to say anything else at the moment: I've returned to my actual life where I have to do stuff. It is insanely hectic. Maybe more than I've ever been, ever.... but that's being a whiney-baby.

5. This is so Texas to me: within an hour of getting into town, I found myself having to drive someone else's car by myself (unexpectedly) after I had a liquid lunch. I know the streets by feel, but I couldn't draw you a map, and I ended up sitting on a porch with friends, drinking beer at 1:30 pm, watching them shoot a BB gun at some cans. "Yeah, you just totally hit that car right there." "Well, that's what you get for parking like an dumbass... on trash day, no less."

"It got hot on 24th so I cracked one open."

And I reminisced with Amanda about all those shaky night drives back home on Travis St., and how we couldn't remember the gate code to Jamie's old apartment building anymore.

Letter from Lisa:
"When you feel really rotten, lay down."

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh shouldn't let me leave. i never in back when i should

I forgot to post yesterday. I was running around the city - no computer and a dead phone.

Everything is different here: it sounds different, it smells different, the sky looks different. And everyone is so attractive!


"How did I get here, why am I naked, and where are my clothes?"
"All the best questions."

Fuck

Fuck i tried to write this three times already. in texas. happy.

The most triumphant feeling: taking off your jacket because it is too hot outside to wear one.

The most annoying pain: having a (pretty big) cut inside your nostril. It is excruciating.




I return to Austin tomorrow. I never like to stay in one place too long - I'm always getting away for little bits. This semester I've already been to Toronto and L.A., and I want to go to NYC if possible. Returning to Texas is like being a small-time celebrity: everyone wants to see you because you're rarely around, and they know who you are, but not quite, anymore.

Maybe I'm just nervous they're gonna discuss if I got fat or not. That's why the celebrity metaphor makes sense to me.

Two off-handedly insightful comments about art that took place today:

1.
"Everyone hates my work. Me included."
"Its art school. Everyone hated my work. Everyone hates everyone's work. Unless they wanna fuck you. Then they like it. A lot."

2.
"I swear, If I see another 'seven deadly sins' project, I am gonna puke."

Yeah, I hate myself.
But just a little!

--

Last night I ran into someone I did a project for awhile ago (and hadn't seen/talked to in months) at a schmoozy-boozey event. "Oh, hi!" I said.

"Hey! Did you come here to see me?"

"Uh... no."

Watching those words come out of his mouth, it was obvious that 1) he was being serious, 2) realized how vain/unlikely this was, and 3) also realized how bad it made him seem, all at the millisecond after he finished saying it. Gold.

obligatory drunk text post:

omg. i just drunkenly danced with swoon. omg. everyone drunk dancing like we did in fifth grade. yeah i wish i had my camera, this is amazing.

---

yup....... it's 4:10 am. The birds are starting to sing outside. I'm pretty impressed I made it this far without passing out. Way to go, me. Goodnight.

You know, this is exactly what I need to be doing, with exactly the people I need to be doing it with.

Recent inspirations:
- silhouettes on everything, for a million different things
- drawing bodies on bodies
- accidents: scraped knees, bruises, bad portraits (crying)
- thinkin' 'bout: there is a level of comfort with my Texas friends I cannot reproduce with new people - we share a history, and are imprinted into each other.They can never leave me, and vice versa. Comforting/suffocating.
- surrounding myself with artistic people solely - rough sometimes, but they're my people. They know it's us vs. the norms, whereas norms don't even know they are norms.

---

"Taylor, remember: you hate them!"

Another thing I always forget: "once a crazy always a crazy."
Another thing I always think: "How did I get myself into this."

Yup, definitely e-mailed my boss at 2 am this morning IN MY SLEEP.

Facilities: n/s/ np housing plans to speak of.

Residents: Please comment on observations you have made of your residents, unique
situations that you have encountered and other insights you have about your
residents from the past week. Are there people and situations we should be reviewing
together

...as fsr as I can tell, this was a pretty amicable deal. i can handle this.




I have no clue.

---

When Eric used to get drunk, he'd give his phone to Walker so he wouldn't call his ex-girlfriend. If I could find someone who could disable my internet connection for me, that would be great, thanks.

1. I consider myself to be a connoisseur of good bad foods (airplane food, gas station foods, things you can eat at a carnival, etc), but this iron stomach has finally met it's match. The frozen burritos sold in my school's convenience store are bad. B - A - D. Nothing redeemable about them. For me to say this about a frozen item of food, especially a tex-mex inspired breakfast item, is unheard of. I don't want to be dramatic but I diiiid feel a little like I was eating puke wrapped in a tortilla.

Does this mean I didn't finish it? No.
Does this mean I won't eat the other one I bought: Probably not.

2. Recent e-mail gems:

- "I think it's pretty important to know when to give a fuck, and more importantly when not to. But that's pretty obvious isn't it?"
- "Every day is a business day when you're popular."
- "Speaking of food, I need to stop eating it immediately."

3. I left one half of a pair of Chanel shoes in L.A., with my dear friend who is also happens to be a hippy-dippy, absentminded, messy boy. I have changed their status from 'rescue' to 'recovery'. R.I.P.

4. It's beautiful outside, and yesterday I finally felt like I 'got it'. It took a girly movie and lots of nightcaps and a few teary phone calls between friends. Yesterday I went to class, and we had a nice, succinct, polite critique - one where I feel like it was actually productive instead of hours of blathering. Afterwards we hung our work in the hall, laughing, being dumb, being happy. I felt happy to be a part of this school. There is a lot here, if you work it right.

The label on the burritos I bought says:

"Trader Joe's Really Expensive Authentic Handcrafted CHICKEN BURRITOS."



Huh.

---

I'm living with my brother this summer.

"So... you're living in Austin.. with Austin."
"Yeah, I can't wait to hear that joke a hundred more times."

When John introduced me to his boss, he said, "This is Bea. She used to blow lines off cassette tapes in the eighties while driving down the One."

Spring means you see parts of bodies you haven't seen in months.

So art school: passed the drawing room today, saw a naked student. Whatever, dude.

Also, I saw the most offensive make-out sesh today.

My favorite artistic vice: crippling self-doubt. There are a slew of runners-up.




"Sorry. Was that offensive?"
"Nawww we're from the South."

Story of my life in two words: embarrassed gratitude. Another: scraped knees.


"Once you hit the ground you just started laughing."



---


Supposed to buy Champagne for Molly.
I don't have my ID.
So I went to the grocery store for nothing.
Then I went to paper mart for nothing.
Then I went home and got my ID.
Back to the grocery store.
Bought Champagne and they did not card me.
So all those detours were for nothing.
AND THEN I realized I had another ID in my pocket the whole time.
So all those detours were doubly for nothing.
When I finally get back to my room, I'm locked out.
I am finally let in.
AND THEN I realize I had my key on me the whole time.
So that was for nothing, too.

God. Get it together, girl.

I'm a hot mess: eye make-up from the night before, dirty matted hair, dirty clothes. It's two o'clock, my room is a mess, and I'm beginning to start all the work I meant to start Thursday.

Laughing in beds with my friends, wasting the morning away, wiggly toes touching - I feel like this is what I will remember most fondly about my time here. My hair smells like someone else's sheets. I love that.

"Oh, I fell asleep with my bracelet on. Oops."
"Yeah it was jingling all night. Fuckin' sharing a bed with the Ghost of Christmas Past here..."


---

"Goddamn stayin' healthy is hard as a motherfucker." - Z-ro.

"Taylor,

This is a thinly disguised attempt to ask you to do some art pour moi, on commission of course.

But first, the thin disguise:

How have you been? Life? Love? School? You know, details. When you are coming to Gtown???

Ok, so [...]"




Honest business.

Yesterday, playing outside, eating hotdogs, talking -- those are the moments where I realize how great everything is. Jon hugged me in hallway 'cause that's what I said I needed.

"But see, you're laughing and smiling when you're talking about it now, so it must not have been so horrible." - AJ1J

What can you ever do except keep moving forward? I am very excited about the things I am going to create - and I feel like I've finally come to grips with the fact that my only option is to completely dedicate myself and throw myself into it and basically beat myself up over it. Now I'm looking forward to that, though.

How's this for a reminder of time passed. An excerpt from my first conversation on AIM in years:

Me: I don't even talk to anyone on my buddy list. I haven't seen any of them in years.
Me: And one of them is dead.




I thought it was kind of funny. Given the circumstances.

As soon as my life becomes more fun and reassuring than my dreams, I will happily get out of bed in the morning. Until then, I prefer sleeping to waking.

"I like the three great escapes: drinking, smoking, and going to bed."
- Dolce Vita





[edit: although, to be fair, I did find myself climbing out of a small window onto the roof of the art building at 10 am this morning, followed by my teacher. Just because. "Well, this is a Peter Pan moment," he said.]