humidity

i miss bugs.

it sounds weird, i know--who misses bugs? with their creepy-crawleriness and tendency to show up in undesirable places. truth be told, it's not their physical presence i miss nearly as much as their sound. katydid, cicada, grasshopper, whatever it is that "sings" at night (especially the frogs, who can be deafening in arkansas at this time of year) are eerily absent in the city. even lightning bugs are hard to come by.

humidity has really set in over the last few days, and i am feeling like there should be afternoon bugs to go along with it. the air is just too quiet. i am starting to miss arkansas.

the concept of time

i hope i can write as much as i want to soon. there are many words stuck in my fingers, so keep coming back.

i discovered during the weekends and summer months while still in high school that the hour between three and four in the afternoon move faster than all the other hours in the day. i think it has something to do with the difference between the feeling of, "oh, i have plenty of time, it's only three" and "oh, wow, it's four, dinner's going on soon, i'd better get going with this!"

as i've gone through college and experienced more late-nights (and all-nighters) than i'd probably like to admit, i've discovered that the same feeling is true of three and four am. the sun begins to rise around four or five, depending on the season and the hemisphere--at any rate, the birds start to sing. what used to be the very dark, quiet, work-intensive "night" starts to show signs of becoming "morning," and nothing can be done to keep three-thirty where it is. it goes by fast.

and now, as my twentieth year on the planet comes to a close, i've noticed that july is one of those months that sneaks, much like the four-o'clock hour. may and june pass by with all the brightness and spark of late spring, but by the time july sets in and by the time it is noticed, is already half-gone. i just looked up, and here is july, already in its waning days. "back to school" suppllies have slithered into grocery and clothing stores, the fourth of july gear is on sale for half-price. people are packing up and going home for the last time before school begins anew, and i'm left confused, wondering why it is not june anymore.

i already miss summer.

the darkroom: love it, hate it, or spend the rest of your natural life in it.

on our first day of photo class, we were informed that we would be lucky and moving right along if we got one print done per hour. "haha!" we all scoffed, "we've learned how to use the enlarger and do a test strip for density and make a good looking print! in fact, we got four prints done in an hour. what could be so difficult?" enter filters. filters are the magic ingredient to making photography a guessing game rather than an equation. what was science becomes art with the entrance of filters.

i won't bore you with the explanation of what filters do. in order to do that properly, i'd have to tell you everything i've learned in my photo class--you don't want that. i have to salvage the readers i have. all that you need to know, i suppose, is that i've seen (and have been) someone staring at two very similar photograph prints on a white board, hand to mouth in concentration, trying to decide which is superior. this could take thirty seconds or five minutes and a second or third opinion.

it takes ages.

the kicker is, most of that time is spent waiting. waiting for the enlarger to stop putting light onto your hard-earned image (10-30 seconds). waiting for the image to develop (2 minutes). waiting for the image to stop developing (30 seconds). waiting for the image to be impervious to contact with future light (1:30). waiting for the majority of the chemicals to wash off so it can play nicely with skin (1 minute). all that to take the print to correct light, look at it for three minutes, decide what improvements need to be made, and go do it again.

it. takes. ages.

hooray for finals week!

101: minister moody

the older black man called me when our eyes met. “God said he’d help me. i think you’re it.” he introduced himself as minister moody, like the Bible college. his teeth were worse than his wandering eye, and he smelled faintly of time. he needed sixty dollars for medication--he had a family. i hesitated, strangely sympathetic. i had one bill: not enough. i bought him orange juice and a sandwich at a convenience store instead. i walked home wondering if i’d done the right thing.
i passed him again a few weeks later, he needed a ticket for the el.

censorship, blogroll, 101/55 a-day

(and now, let the navel-gazing begin: blog style!)

there are things that do not end up posted here, mostly trying to put together a "public face" for readers i know and readers i do not. i consider that tactic "safe."

but look around. posting is infrequent, impersonal, and i end up worrying about whether or not the person i'm portraying through my own writing appears to "have it together" or not. i like to think that most of the time i do, but i'm human and there are days when i decidedly don't. it's not that i want to push myself to blog on these days because, more often than not, it turns into a pity party-- i'm just saying it couldn't hurt to be a little more open here.

also, you might have noticed the "blogroll" feature i just put up. these are some folks i know (as alyssa k. puts on her blog: "firends i like and strangers i stalk") who write things i like to read. i feel as though i should introduce them. considering i can't tell who visits (if i have readers, they don't comment, the chances of you as a reader already knowing or being an author of one of them are fairly high). all i'll say is have a little fun. it don't hurt to visit someone else's site, and you never know: you might make a friend.
also--several of these are committed to 55 or 101-word-a-day posts. this makes for some interesting, albeit esoteric, fiction. i hope to join in soon.

blessings.

happy (belated) fourth!

i woke up the morning with a little back pain. search me! sitting around waiting for it to subside gives me a good excuse to post some fireworks pictures i took!

it's been a sort of standard couple of weeks around here: nothing too crazy going on. class, homework, running errands and trying to get some sleep! this weekend, of course, was the fourth of july!

school was closed on the third for the holiday. why? dunno, but i'm not one to complain! thanks to that nice day off, i bummed around the apartment updating my sketchbook, then went to see the fireworks downtown. yep--chicago does fireworks on the third of july? again, search me. i didn't have a great spot, but here are a few shots:





on the fourth i met a few friends of a friend and visited the taste of chicago, and then went with them to their place in the suburbs for a cookout and playing. it was a sweet evening and i met so many friendly faces! i wish i had a proper chance to say goodbye to everyone, as after the fireworks we had to race to get to my train on time. such is life! we had a great view of fireworks that night, and i came away with some (i think) really cool shots. they even warranted titles!

fan dancer


snap, crackle, pop


mother and daughter


helix


galaxy


flowers


palm trees



as much as i love fireworks, something about the tradition leaves me with a strange flavor in my mouth. i am thankful for what it symbolizes, but man, could the ceremony itself be more unnerving? whenever i find myself amidst of the kind of crowd that shows up for community firework displays, i can't help but think of every disaster movie i've seen or some kind of revolutionary coup where everyone leaves their home and takes to the streets out of fear or revolt. the moving crowd took over the street in the city on the third--and it becomes all the more clear how much power a crowd has and how much one person is at their mercy. groupthink, as it were. but then, in some abstracted way, that's what democracy is: when mob rule puts on a suit.

this week: really and truly getting into gear for my finals. it's hard to believe they're coming so quickly, but i'm excited for what they'll turn out to be!

breakthrough ministries

last saturday i found myself serving at breakthrough ministries , as they celebrated opening a new, and may i say, amazing men's shelter. they threw a giant block party with entertainment, free food, games, and people. even the jesse white tumbling team came out!
there were tons of volunteers, kids, adults, and lots and lots of food. i got put in a food tent assembling and serving hamburgers and hot dogs and was at it for nearly five hours. i made some friends at my tent and with some folks from willow, the church i've started going to. i had a great time.

i've also had the pleasure of seeing my friends perform at iO a few times in the past few weeks, which is great fun in and of itself, not mentioning the el rides to and from wrigleyville. (cub games nights are the most frustrating, but somehow the most assuring).

classes are going just fine: we're starting the home stretch in both drawing and photo: discussing and getting the gears turning on final projects. woohoo! i'm definitely looking forward to getting these things done and i'm just as curious as anybody as to what form my projects will will take.

speaking of, these are from my sketchbook-



drawing cloth is still a hard thing for me, but i think i'm getting the hang of it. i really like the way the umbrella turned out!

i miss being with you all.