:::

:::Forget Me:::

Discarded Dreams, it's a mattress competition.
http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/mattress

:::Remember Me::::

The Gift Project

Experiments.... Soooo Goooooood!

Spinach, black eyed peas, tomatoes, corn, red onion, red pepper, lime, black pepper.

Red cabbage, pinto beans, tofu, hard boiled egg, miso, sugar, vineagar, olive oil.

Eggplant, carrots, peanuts, lemongrass, coconut and basil, and some other spices.. Fennel seeds. yum!

Choco chip cookie recipe from Nestle choco chip bag. Add cinnamon and curry. It's just so yummy. (It's not like the cayenne pepper choco chip cookie from last year... )

Raunchy apple pie. All the applie pies that I make are always raunchy... Apple pies are supposed to look cute, delicate, or really country... Mine looks like a play dough experiment. But they're still yummy. I got my recipe from recipe.com for flaky apple pies. I didn't have a pie dish or a baking sheet, but I did have cupcake pan. So I cut circles out of a bowl, and made mini apple pies.

Open Studios

This is going to be the cover of my cook book... The Ugly Food Cook Book.

Hi Jeeti! She makes these personal paintings of all of her girl friends... Female sexuality. Yay!

Represent Baltimore! +1

Silly girls! Amanda and Laura.

Hi Steve Baker. We are so alike, we constantly steel each other's ideas.... Haha. He's an abstract colorist painter. I'm a black and white figuretive drafter. I found out on the day that this picture was taken that he's gay.. and he had to repeat himself several times, because I just didn't register what he was talking about... How can I be so obtuse? I look like his long lost adopted daughter in this picture.

And thanks Dan Packman for coming! :) Sure made the show more fun.

I should have taken more pictures.....

O~ Superman~

Laurie Anderson's here in Berkeley tonight and tomorrow night, 10.24.2008. She's amazing... I want to see her, but I'd really rather see her performance art... the one where she had skated in the middle of the street on winter night in Manhattan.



"Let it flow! Let yourself go! Slow and Low. That is the tempo!"

Tree

I was walking around East Lake Merritt today, on the way home from OUSD. I passed by this tree on the side walk that had a million birds in it that chirped away. Bizarro. I looked to the ground and found a million bird poop. I looked at the tree again, and looked for berries, or something. Nothing. Nothing special about this tree. It looked like any other tree that was on the same block. Bizzarro. What was more bizzare was that I kept hearing the birds, but the leaves hid them.

Art Making

So I sold a few things this weekend... Mostly my receipt series, and a cow drawing. People really loved the big receipt drawing... I'm surprised. I can't imagine it going into anybody's living room.

I might have a couple of commissions for the piece. I'll see how it goes.

So this means that people like things that are more 'interesting' (I guess as opposed to the cows). So that's liberating... I can potentially make things that I am personally more interested in, and still be able to sell it.

One cow drawing got sold... and another one is in limbo. The person who is considering purchasing it is soul searching. She absolutely loves it and wants to see if she can possibly live without it. I'm glad that she said that about my favorite cow drawing, and not my least favorite cow drawing (which was the one that got sold....)

I'm not done with the cows yet...

I want to do a very large cow piece that involved fabric and graphite. And the drawings... it can be better. Design. Composition, creativity.

I hate signing artwork

'Dear Sir or Madame,'

'Please dismiss my citation # 755083663 given to me on 10/20/2008 by officer J.M. I had been

The American Dream

Post colonial theory states that the 'third world' is actually within the American cities. When I go on these excursions, and find myself in these places, I am amazed at the poverty that is so close to my home. They are simple things that you notice that is aparent to anyone. The condition of the roads, the smelly alleys, the number of homeless people on the streets, the condition of the houses.

When you travel to the midwest, it is also shocking, with their over-consumption that you can see in their yards as things just seem to pile up and out of their houses. The number of obese pale kids and teenagers that hang out in Taco Bell. Then you goto public facilities like planned parenthood, and you see all these teenage girls trying to get abortion. A room full of Black girls sulking. Then you work at small firms, who are desperately trying to 'make-it', and have been trying to 'make-it' for years and years, and some just stay at their size or worse, downsize. I'm realizing that this American dream thing really isn't working. My life isn't working.

My mother said that at least in America, there is a chance to achieve success, to become wealthy or famous. I think, in Japan, things are more prescriptive. And you'd have to work like a dog just to be. I will be in a worse disposition being 30, and single. I don't really see a lot of homeless people on the streets in Japan, it's relatively clean. My father went to Japan so that he can get healthcare, because here in America, you're left on your own to take care of yourself.

So looking at the presidential campaign, both candidates nestle their arguments within the framework of an American Dream. Obama is trying to empower indendence and the individual, by allowing them to decide on their own healthcare. McCain is trying to empower the small business, because it's true, small businesses aren't 'making it'.

My worst fear is the widening of the economic gap between the classes. It just feels like it's all related to the economy. It's not so much that the education system doesn't work, it's the poor schools with poverty struck kids and neighborhoods that doen't work. For sure, if McCain gets elected the economic gap would widen. Eeeeek.

Biking: Bay Fair

I went biking today down by the bay, along the bay trail towards the Oakland Airport and into urban suburbia. Destination was Hayward, and the Bay trail.

I was dodging rail road tracks, and glass, lots of glass on the road. Of course, I missed a patch of glass, rode over it, and after a few miles, I had a flat. I ended up in no where land, or, aka, Lewilling Blvd, Bay Fair. Where the fuck is Bay Fair? There was a Korean grocery store on the road with nothing else around except a run down gas station on the corner that was fenced off. People there looked very strange, not like the people that I see here or in San Francisco. Lots of indegenous descent and Koreans. It felt like another state, like Nevada or Utah.

I felt a bit like McGuiver, trying to figure out a way to make my bike work... I bought a patch kit, and a pump, and right outside the store, I patched up my tube. The thing still didn't work. Defeated. I walked to BART, and went home. Next time, I'm going to skip the glass on the road, and start from Bay Fair. I really wanted to see sunset in a grassy hill by the Bay. Next time with a bottle of red, and with a good friend or a brother.

I like going on these mini excursions. It reminded me of the time that I spent with my brothers, Daisuke and Kentaro. Daisuke and I roller skated a bunch while we lived in Japan. We'd go everywhere in the neighrborhood, and cascaded the streets. In Houston, Texas, us three went on our bikes, or on foot on adventures. We'll find little bugs in puddles after a rain, cat fish in rivers, get our feet stuck in mud or injure our selves on nail stuck on planks of wood in construction sites. I don't think that Kentaro had ever gotten his foot stuck on nail before. He was always the smarter one, the oldest, the more shy one, and uncomfortably the leader with responsibilities. Daisuke was the sweet one, thoughtful and kind. And I was always the special one, for better or for worse.
I'm sure if you'd ask either of them, they'd probably say differently.

I'm being a bit nostalgic right now, for some reason. Maybe it's because it's Sunday, bloody fucking Sunday. I always feel like, remembering these things lets me figure somethings out in the future. I'm figuring out my goals, the things that I have to do, the person that I want to become. If you know what I mean.

My friendships havn't been going so well these past few weeks. Some good, some need tlc.
I need to do the things that I say I'm going to do.
I need to party.
Eeeek, tomorrow's the day for you know what.

David Byrne at SF Symphony Hall

Monday and Tuesday.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=119709231

And John Waters at the Castro Theatre on Monday!
http://www.frameline.org/events/detail.aspx?FID=43

Thanks for Reading

my blog...

McDonald's Number 5 Special

Autonomy of Identity within a Close Relationship

That's what I want.

Same thing that every body wants... I want to be loved, and at the same time have fun and be free. I insist on freedom. Love on the other hand, seems kind of painful. Not sure if I'm ready for that yet.

Kelley said that I need to work on humility. I think that means being more respectful of other people.

What am I scared of? I'm scared of being disapointed again. I'm scared that people are going to leave me again.

Why is respect such a challenge?

Because it seemed like, no matter how much I respected people, other people just didn't care. Because I was scared. Because he was supposed to protect me, and I'm all alone and poor, and miserable, and not special at all. And I feel like a little pebble that is so meaningless sometimes... And I guess it feels good to be meaningless sometimes. Less burden.

But what I have to do is... let other people know that they are special too.

Success

How to become successful...

Us humans, we come into this world under very different circumstances, and different genetic base. We acquire different skill sets based on circumstances and also based on our natural abilities. The most successful of us have a good combination of the circumstance and natural ability.

So I'm trying to figure out how to make things work. Things are just really merky, and my tendency is to push too much. There's no belief in destiny here.

I think the key to getting what you want, or to become successful is looking at your situation, looking at yourself, and then to problem solve. Find a solution that you are most comfortable with. Comfort seems to be key.

So in a way, I'm trying to say that we all know. We know what to do, why, what not to do, etc.

Is a Master of Lowering Expectations

It's kind of a way to deal with shit, life, in particular, parents, especially. Lowering Expectations.

I am a...

Japanese speaking Graphic Designer
Substitute Teacher
Tutor
Art Teacher
Organzer
Jr. Architect
Waitress
Administrative Assistant
Drafter
Barista
Baby sitter
Customer Service Specialist