Messenger BAgs

Well here are some of them...

r.e. load bags
This is a classic top loader, back packer style.

freitag
For the Europeans, popular amongst architecture students.

freight baggage
hand made in Berkeley.

lemolobags

ortlieb

crumpler

bbp

Grass Valley Is the Funnest place in the world

Jack London Sq. Train station.

Traveling by train, is really and truly one of the most cinematic experience ever.

Between Davis and Sacramento.

At the tip where the two roof planes merge is where Amanda lives. She lives on the second floor, in an attic space. There is a hot tub around the corner towards the back.

Compared to Amanda's room mine is pretty stoic. Most of the walls are kept bare, and the colors are simple. Comparing the two rooms, we seem like very different people. Someone may even say that we could be opposites. However, hanging out with her, I saw so many similarities in our personalities, it was reaffirming to be with her. Things that I wanted to change about my own personality, I saw in hers as strengths. We are both very intuitive people, and feelers. We know from our instincts what works, what are right and what are wrong. Some people are not, they are more skeptical.

My room.
Amanda's room.

We've decided that being hairy is a great thing. So we put fake hair under our arms, under our nose, and posed for pictures. This picture is very hairy, but it doesn't have our prosthetics.

We took some dead pictures. We posed as dead girls. Some pictures were too gross, too silly, too blah, too something else to really expose without any monetary gain, so I'm censoring them. I don't know what we're going to do with these pictures, really.

This was accidental.
So dreamy.

There is an uncanny imagery of Divine in all of my pictures. I look into pictures of my face, and I see her shadow. Maybe it's because I am from Baltimore, and she is one of the icons of the city. Maybe it's because of costuming. Maybe it's because I can identify with a transvestite: We dress up to look more like a woman, and we look fake. In some of the pictures, I see my dad's face within mine.

One of my special powers, like the TV show, 'HERO', is the ability to see truths in people's faces. Maybe this isn't a special power, and maybe other people can do this too, but there had been times when I can look into someone's face, and I see their truths. I can see a child behind their faces. The child expresses their true emotions.

Plastic Bottles

The shadows that these things create are interesting. They can track the path of the sun.

To keep the shape of the bottle or not.

Thinking of longevity... What would happen to it over time? Will it get cruddy and brown? What about options for exchanging the bottles? So to make a container for a container.

COWS in a Little Farm

There's something about these entities... They're massive.

Feeding the crazy sheep.

*********
I went to a job interview today. I'm starting to realize that I need to acknowledge my own aberrant nature, and to embrace it. I feel like I'm always apologizing to these typical architecture firms. I don't feel like I'm an architect.

Cloud and Daisy

A trellis is a sun shade device. In a way, a cloud is just that. It creates just the right amount of shade from the sun. So what about a trellis that is cloud like in form, and refracts the sunlight.

Plastic Bottles as material is potentially very exciting. The problem is to not make the structure too messy, or trashlike. Here are some examples of plastic bottle structure that I found on google.

A Cloud and Daisy

Daisy Daisy Daisy

Daisy preschool. It's really a strange place. I too often use Burning man as a reference, but in this case, I think it's really apt. The preschool is a hodge podge of so many different ideas and constructions... it's pretty crazy, crazy like an art camp in the middle of a desert in Nevada. What is cool is that most of the structures are well built. They just don't really tallk or relate to each other.. so it's a bit too chaotic.

I guess this is my first project. Woohoo! When I talked to Eva, it seems like there's a lot of things that she wants to have done. I'm just going to focus on the shade structure. It's nice because she is totally open to it.

Given: chaos... I'm just going to go with it.

Materials: Plastic bottles: can be a rain catching device... It can be very beautiful.
Bamboo: make a basket in the sky.
Wood: boooooooring!
Trees, on wheels!

Floor: recycled rubber. Its going to be expensive...
wood chip. is always fun.
Drainage system needs to be figured out for the floor.

The kids are going to be painting with maybe 6 or so easils. Parents can have functions afterwards.. a party of sorts. That would be fun too. So the shade structure should be something light, and something sturdy instead of temporary.

Lie and Manipulate

So I flipped through 5 different kinds of office politics books today at the book store. This is what I got out of it... and it's what I need to become an expert at in order to survive in this place.

Lie and Manipulate... and stop being an asshole when I get stressed out.

The asshole thing is pretty crazy.... When I get overwhelmed, all of the sudden everyone around me become dumb bricks... Immobile, useless, and needy. I end up attacking the nicest people... people who I really really like. That's really not cool. So I need to chill out and stop feeling like I have to do it all.... My mom told me that when it gets that bad, I should just give-it-up.

I think that my boss is dumb when she's freaking out. It's hard for me to do what she tells me to do when she's freaking out and being irrational. I just look at her like, 'You're dumb and freaked out.' This is why I get fired from jobs.

lie and manipulate.... Hrm. I think what that means is that I can get better at predicting, or thinking about what the other person wants. People who are dense, and can't realize what the other person want, is definately dumb to me.

Stretch Yourself More

What Eliza said is ringing to me over and over again. It is an advice that her financial counselor of sorts had given her when Eliza and Ian were trying to buy a house. I can only imagine the weight of the committment.

I admire them, because they seem to be moving forward, just fine. They are facing their tough challenges in life, and truking forward, so good for them.

I've been thinking a lot, lately about when I used to be a teenager. High school was an isolating and lonely existance. My best friend, My Linh and I would talk a lot on the phone, much like right now. My mother prohibited me from going out at night, and even to go see movies or goto the mall, or even to have a job. It really was a grim existance. Just me and my homework. It's not like it was bad. It's not like I knew anything else, any other way of being.

That's why college was a lot of fun. Doing everything that I wouldn't have done before. Stretcing beyond my elements. After college was definately my funnest time.

Right now, it's not the funnest time of my life.

Just go forward.


******
Man, last night's show was shocking.... Shockingly bad. I'm sorry Sila, but you were cute 3 years ago, and you're just a bit sad now. His songs were sad. I never thought Afro beat could be depressing.

It was a site of a man who was too tired. Who couldn't put in any more effort. When the will is lost, it seems like that's what happens. I wish I could just slap him into cognition, it seemed like he wanted help. So endearing.

One good thing about the show was this guy who was dancing in the front. A man who can dance is a good site. The moves that he had were really inspiring. He was definately a drummer. His body moved with every beat instead of swaying with the rhythm. It's really too bad that he's into waspy girls. Seeing him, makes me wish I was a man. I bet I can do what he can, with a lot of fun.

But oh well... I guess I'm a woman. A thick woman.