What I did and why I did it

                                                          (Art by Jeff Johnson)

Recently, I was lucky enough to get a spot on the 2-day Raw Meet #5 Fest thing explosion in Boston. Two days' worth of some devastating and harsh shit from all along the Eastern seaboard. A really, really great weekend with some of the sweetest and enthusiastic people on earth.

For my "set," I took all the audio from the movie "Willow" with Val Kilmer and Warwick Davis (and don't forget Kevin Pollak, hello!), and tried to cut it up into tiny bits and then make it into something rhythmic and fun to listen to. I also made an outfit out of an old gross coat from Goodwill, and a shirt that Janine made for me. Finally, I built a prop that looked like a mixer, but if it had come from the forest.

There were a few reasons why I did it. One, I love "Willow." Two, I love building and collaging, even if it's with sound files. Three, after going to so many shows and watching all of these wonderful people twisting knobs, pushing buttons, and fiddling with wires and things, to me it always looked like magic. MAGIC. I don't understand how it all works. I don't understand what the devices do. I don't know how they make all those sounds with just a box with buttons on it!! It's like a MAGIC SHOW and I don't know how they do the tricks! So, my "performance" was like an ode to their witchery. I treated my prop mixer like a holy talisman, an amulet that made the sounds happen!! WITH LIGHTS!!

That was my one and only "show" for that project. The next project will have a different name based on whatever movie I pick next. I have no idea if or when I'll get to perform it for people, but it'd be really fun if I did. 

Here's where it lives on SoundCloud. 

RAW MEET 5 DAIKINI BABY FINAL 4 21 2012

Feel free to share it and laugh. Thanks very much to Elise, Janine, and Morgan for help with construction. 

(Hey, it's a little side boob. Get over it.)

I was a girl scout

Yes. I was a Girl Scout. Hello. However, my memories on the specifics about my experiences are generally fuzzy. Here are some images I remember:

• Learning the American Sign Language alphabet, then sitting cross-legged with the rest of my troop, and signing my first name to a woman who was deaf. She had come to our meeting as a guest, and I remember my heart pounding and my fingers going all wiggly because I was so nervous. Signing my name in front of everyone. I think I did OK, though.
  
• Standing in the hallway of the community center where we would meet, with hot tears welling up in my eyes because I couldn't do the hand motions to "Edelweiss" perfectly after trying for only 20 minutes. I remember the hallway was really dim, because no one else used the building on Saturdays, so not all the lights were on.
  
• Going to Camp Welaka for "Girl Scout camp," but all I remember was waking up in the middle of night, scratching myself raw because I was covered in head-to-toe mosquito bites (we were all eaten alive). I may have woken up with a swollen eye. I think I also had the coolest flashlight known to man: it had three different lights on it, one of which may have strobed.
  
• Looking through my badge book, searching for badges that didn't involve talking to strangers/anyone at all. 

I was a "brownie" and then graduated to "junior." I did help sell cookies. But as I recall, I hated standing outside of Crafts & Stuff and seeing the look in people's eyes. 

"Oh, god please don't ta--" 

"Hi, would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" the other girls would whine as sweetly as possible.

Then it was the adults' turn: stammering, excuses, or the pursed-lip-with-a-head-shake. 

I was even more shy and stranger-phobic than I am now, so you can imagine the back of my E.T.-length neck burning, my cheeks on fire, and all I wanted to do was go home and watch T.V. under the covers. Or build prototypes for fake inventions. Or read my "Goosebumps" books.

Oh, boy. That went somewhere I didn't expect it to.

I don't give a shit about celery

I can cook now! This is so exciting!

Eighteen months ago, I worked mostly with AllRecipes.com, but as the months have progressed and I've gone pretty full-on vegetarian and lazily vegan, I've been lurking all manner of personal and personal-gone-professional food blogs. Then when I got a slow cooker for Christmas, I had a whole new pre-occupation.

Beans, beans, onions and tomatoes, cloves and cloves of garlic and a whole bottle of ginger powder later, I've become way more confident "in the kitchen." I made vegan corn chowder last night, people! This is serious! And with my willing and hungry partner in the kitchen (Thank you, Chris), I am virtually unstoppable.

But what's next? Well, everything. I'm looking into alternative forms of flour and looking at baking things. Things that don't contain mostly heavy cream, butter, and sugar. And making our own breads sounds like fun/terror.

When I'm looking for recipes, I try to stick to similar realms of ingredients, but so many recipes call for celery and I'm just like, no. I remember as a child enjoying a lovely egg salad sandwich, minding my own sandwich-business, and then CRUNCH. My mind would suddenly race as I desperately tried to figure out "What is this is this onion? What is this is this RED ONION? What is this is this EGGSHELL? No, no, no it's celery. Ugh." And then when I'd see it in soups, it may as well have been a saturated cotton ball or a green carrot. Utterly useless and tasteless.

One day I'm sure I'll get over it and just have celery around, but. No. Not right now.

Tentacled performance beast

A few months ago, I teamed up with this creature:
And this precious gem:

As well as some other fanciful monsters to "make work" essentially. As I was not able to snap pics of the remaining 3 other group members, here is an artist's rendering of the rest of our crew:
In a nutshell, I was able to perform in front of people in a way in which I couldn't merely hide behind a character and wardrobe. And as an ensemble, which is also my most favoritest. (i.e., ensemble movies of the '80s and '90s). We wanted to parody, comment on, affectionately mock, and pay tribute to some of the music scenes that we frequent most often, and in a way that played with gender and the "other." Fellow teammates, feel free to elaborate more better in the comments section. This was a collaborative effort, so I WANT TO HEAR YOUR LUSCIOUS VOICES.

We did 4 shows in 6 days, in Brooklyn, then in Northampton, Mass., as well as different houses in the Boston area. It was incredible, and it made me so happy to be working as a team, flowing as a group, and listening to each other. Each performance was structured differently, but had general "tracks" that would be shuffled, but the energy was always strong and throbbing. It was so delicious to wake up in the morning, sore from the performance the night before. Hopefully, a video will be posted soon; you'll see it.

While performing at these houses, I was so fascinated by everyone's living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens. I loved them all. I wanted to take as many pictures, try to build a piece of furniture they had, or decorate my apartment with something in particular. Here's one of them:
The group plans to do more shows. MANY MANY more shows. Providence, Baltimore, Toronto -- WE WANT THEM ALL.

Lazy (Every)day

You're right. I did spend most of my weekend watching RuPaul's Drag Race, X-Files, and eating half-priced Valentine's Day chocolate.

It's been a rough couple of weeks, so this past weekend, I just decided to stay in, set up camp in my bedsheets, and refuse the sunlight a little more than usual.

A few things, though:
* Other people's long hair keeps getting stuck on me.

* When both the sink and the tub have poor drainage, the last thing I should be doing is plunging both till futility in a wifebeater and my Jeffrey Dahmer glasses. When it was clear that nothing was going to budge, I continued to do it out of sheer scientific fascination. I should have just called our generous and wonderful maintenance men the first time. Sorry, Chris. For insisting on showerlessness for up to 3 days. I'm sorry.

* I can't eat eggs anymore? Long story. Doesn't matter. I can eat things with eggs in them, though. Cakes be damned, I will continue to devour them whole.

I had a Guinness milkshake, and it was as glorious as I'd dreamed. Subtle, friendly, delicious.

Here's a video with a musical group singing at a bear in a zoo.

I need to learn to say no

All right, a list again. I find it focuses my thoughts the best. Also, my Google calendar helps me remember. This doesn't say much for my quickly-fading memory at the decrepit age of 26. Weh.

I got sick twice in one month.
Yes, it happened. I had a full-on, stay-at-home and eat everything "cold." And then I felt great for 2 weeks. And then what was a dehydration-related post-drinking gross Sunday turned into a sick sequel. I'm going to stop trying to understand it and refuse to give it anymore power by refusing to believe that it's real. Deal wit it.

I was a guinea pig for NYU.
I got $25 for helping with an audio experiment at NYU. Pretty straightforward, and pretty fun. One of these things is not like the others. It was one of those days where you should just stay inside, and I was more than happy to escape the cold.

Ate some great food.
I think this is a given every week. And yes, I'm a brunch person. Moreso, I'm a lazy breakfast person. I love pancakes. It has the word "cake" in it; what's not to love? I had a waffle with bananas, apricots, chocolate and something else, but the waffle was a wrap, like a falafel sandwich. Those people are on to something!

Got a fourth job.
Are you even surprised? You shouldn't be. I do plan on bringing it down to 3, and keeping it at 3. These are all "They're very part time, and they could dry up at any moment," so I keep them all around. I accumulate them. Just in case.

I remember when I was first moved here and it was dry like the Gobi, and I always saw that "Now Hiring" sign at United Colors of Benetton down the street from my apartment. I kept thinking, "Well, if after Christmas I don't land anything, I'll go in." And I probably wouldn't have been hired, because I don't have any sales experience. Having an anxiety about people in general will make you less appealing in sales.

I still need to get my shit together.
I'm working on this new project, which will cull all of my hobbies together into one performance in mid-April at a 2-day festival in Boston. I'm telling you this, because it's important that I finish it. The project. It's important that I finish this project and show it to people.

I'm also almost finished with my 4-piece set of portraits that I started so many months ago. It's mostly been art as therapy, keeping my hands busy, and making some special ladies in my life look like Zoobilee Zoo vampire people. It's totally working and it's awesome and fun. I'm thinking I might do another series of friend-related "portraits" and call it Frankenfriend. Just, you know, shit. In my brain. That I'm thinking.

OK, back to your work. Talk to you guys later.