c’mere

this past week was pretty awesome. graduated, had a grad party where a bunch of my friends met my parents, released the age sixteen demos which were enjoyed by many people, saw my dudes in pianos off on their tour, and had my show opening. all of the above was pretty sick

right now im just waiting to move out of this house. im tired of this apartment and this area. just looking around this place makes me think of how shitty it is. they just repaint and repaint over everything after people move out. even my sink has been repainted. at our new house, our landlords own the house so they actually care about the upkeep of the house and it’s appearance. i constantly smell smoke coming up from the apartment below me. our kitchen sink leaks and we have to empty out a pan ever couple of days and it seriously smells like the worst shit ever because of stagnant dirty dishwater that just collects at the bottom.

either way, im ready to get out. move out date is in a week and im stoked. i hate the process of moving, but love being in new areas. it actually shouldnt be too bad, i pretty much have all of my stuff packed right now so i’ll be able to move most of my stuff in my car except for a couple of big things. the place will be quiet for a couple of days until scout gets back from her trip. matt is on tour til the 15th so ill be happy to get them both back b/c that will be the best part about living there. 

i havent had my bike together for almost a month now and it’s driving me crazy. i took my wheels off awhile ago after i agreed to sell them to brian. i ordered a new fork last week and dropped my frame off to get powdercoated. either way i am really excited to get this thing back together and to start riding again. there’s another two miles added to my commute so i should be riding roughly around 10 miles per workday. it will be funnn.

either way, all of my friends are gone or busy or sick. sitting around with nothing to do.

what a lazy and uneventful day. it is sort of nice though. i cant really remember the last time that i spent a whole day just sitting around in my room. i will definitely enjoy being able to spend more time in my room. i dont think that i really spend much conscious time in my room as it is. also, the lighting in my room isnt really great so i think that that has some effect on things as well. i cant remember well, but i think that my new room has a fair amount of lighting and a little more space. if definitely has more closet space so hopefully that will help me to keep my life full of clutter.

i am really excited to be moving soon. despite my original unwantingness to live with roommates again, lauren and matt have revived my interest in living with people. they are both really great to hang around and i think that i could learn much from living with them. matt is a couple years older than i am and he’s gone through some really trying life experiences not to mention he is studying philosophy at american university right now. lauren and i are practically the same age, but living with a girl will be a new experience. i dont think it will be that different since lauren is much like a dude and we wont be sharing the same personal space, but it will be interesting nontheless. it will be nice to have someone around who isnt doing school b/c i feel like matt will be very preoccupied with that most of the time. it will be nice living in a house again. though i do enjoy the low upkeep of an apartment, things begin to get cluttered and feel claustrophobic very quickly. i think the lack separation of rooms really gets to me too. kind of tired of living on the fourth floor and having to share a communal space with the other building inhabitants…i dunno, really picky small things.

it will be nice living in the house during the summer though. i have a good feeling about this summer. last summer was full of new things and new people, but overall i wasnt really excited with it. not much was really accomplished and i dont really think that it did much for my character. the fall was nice though. a really good semester for me and full of hanging out with really good people. winter was unbearable. ive never felt so cold and alone or been so effected by the weather. but now it’s summer again and im feeling real good about things. i hope to take a couple of trips, work on present relationships and hopefully start new ones. im pretty optimistic about it.

though im not going to be pursuing any work in the professional world whole-heartedly this first year after graduating, im pretty much up for anything. a big goal of mine will be self-motivation. motivating myself to continue to work on my portfolio and other personal projects along with taking side jobs and doing as much assisting as possible. it’s all about the networking and i need to start ASAP. as far as my own work goes, i plan on continuing my current water tower project in hopes of exhibiting it in a fuller volume later this summer at the charm city art space. i think exhibiting my work will be good for me. just getting my name and images out in the public will be good.

in addition to this, i hope to keep myself busy with different projects. my band age sixteen is slowly gaining speed despite minor setbacks. we just finished recording our demo and hope to continue writing and playing some shows soon. im really excited about the music we’re making. it constantly amazes me that the rest of the dudes know music so well. im completely comfortable letting them come up with the music and just worrying about the words. im pretty proud of the songs that ive written so far. probably the most honest that ive been in the public eye which is both scary and comforting.

things are looking good, just trying to stay dry.

i got wind today that a large sum of money has come into my possession so i must proceed with spending it. depending on how much uncle sam gave back to me, i have some pretty big plans on what to do with the money-i mean we’re supposed to stimulate the economy right?

either way, im going to try and attempt to do a bunch of crap tomorrow in order to work on spending that money. i need to buy more film for my senior thesis: i might as well just buy a whole pack of 5 rolls b/c im sure i’ll end up using it. i’ll also need to order my cap and gown or atleast attempt to do so: i really hope this works or else i may be disappointing my parents. im going to go and try to get an estimate for the damage done to my car: i’m hoping it’ll be no more than $150 to get it fixed-so lame that i have to spend any money on this, but whatever. hopefully it can be done over the weekend when i dont really use my car anyway. i’ll also be trying to schedule my appointment to get my next tattoo! im pretty stoked about it. i’ve been wanting another one since i got my first. im pretty firm on the design and now the text “man shall not live by bread alone.” i dont really know what font yet, but not something to scripty. i called my brother today and he really wants to come with me, so that will be a nice bonding experience for us. im going to try and use some of the money to pay off some bills-mostly just tickets that i have laying around. a good chunk of it will go towards the security deposit for the house lauren, matt, and i are moving into. im hoping to use some of it to finish up the mods that i want to do to my bike (new fork and a powdercoat). so yes…im hoping to stretch this money pretty far, but we’ll see how it goes.

i have so much more work to do these next coming weeks, but hopefully a couple of purchases this weekend will take my mind off of all of it.

im looking forward to hanging out with my brother this weekend (granted i can get an appointment on saturday). we dont get many bonding experiences, so this will be a nice one. the fact that he knows about this tattoo is also giving me a little more leverage with my parents. im still a little worried with how they will react to it, but at the same time im really excited and proud about it so that is outweighing most of my fears.

i’m a pretty bitter person. if i were to join another band, it’d definitely be a hardcore one, then i could be the biggest a-hole and have a reason for it.

better days are on the horizon though. i’m keeping my head up.

ive decided that no genre of music has moved me more than hardcore. i really didnt get into listening to hardcore until about a year or two ago. there’s just something so honest and upfront that really drew me to it. it’s like “hey this is the shit that wrong in my life, no b/s” or “fuck you” and hey my friends all want to say “fuck you” too. i dunno it just rules. i really get tired of listening to music that is full of metaphors and things that you have to read into, sometimes it’s just nice to hear it straight up.

either way, our music is going well. we are still looking for a drummer, but we have two songs done with lyrics and drums (played by jus). we had three other songs, but decided to scrap them so we started on a new song 3 yesterday. it sounds pretty awesome, really complicated. im really glad that im not playing an instrument b/c i would probably never remember most of it. im still working out vocals and how to say what when and how, but it’s all really fun. we just need a freaking drummer!!! i really hope/think that we’ll find one soon. we also need to settle on a name.

the weather is staying warm. my mood is already so much better compared to what it was when it was cold. however, right now many things are going on. i have less than a month away for graduation and deadlines are coming up everywhere. im trying to find a place for lauren, matt, and i to live in. it will most likely rule with all of us living there. outside of that things are what they are. just hanging around…i dunno. things are things.

haha, very cryptic i guess. i feel like im only completely honest when im writing. the fact that im going to share my most honest thoughts with whoever wants to hear it is kind of crazy to me. but also a bit exciting.

the world is too small sometimes.

i am so sleep deprived right now. i took a two hour nap before class after being up the whole night and had the weirdest dream. i dreamt that i was in class so therefore when i woke up for my actual class i was completely confused. and i keep having the weirdest run-ins with people today. what a weird day.

on the other hand, i am working on a project right now that i am really excited about. however, i just realized that it is very similar to a project that this famous husband/wife photography team did. the funny/ironic thing is that their son and his wife are also a photography team and just had work exhibited here this semester. thankfully i think (i hope) that my project is a little bit different. if you havent already (if im even talking to anyone right now) check it out on my flickr. also, check out both couples of photographers, the bechers.

one month til glorious, glorious freedom

(i cant find a decent link to either of the bechers, but you could probably find them in a google search)

this past weekend ruled. i saw all my favorite people in one place (minus aug), listened to good music, jumped around, got wrecked, ate chipotle and coldstone, rode my bike, gave high fives, hugs, handshakes, saw a friend’s art exhibit, took some photos and a bunch of other crap.

despite some setbacks, the show on saturday was awesome. it ruled to know pretty much everyone who was playing. watching friends do what they love is always great. made me really feel great about being in a band with jus and mike. justin is so talented and it showed sat. between his (ha) five bands he pretty much brings a different musical style to each. none of his bands are really the same and i think that says a lot since he is the main writer in all but one of them. that show did make me just want to play even more. i remember when that show was booked and thinking about our band playing it. it really should have been our first show…but i guess it will come. just need to find a drummer…ugh…the worst position to fill. but we’ll work it out. as soon as things get less busy for everyone we will begin the recordings and hopefully that will help with making the band complete again. until then if we keep up with the practices that will hold me over for now.

i love the writing process, but have found it really hard to articulate feelings and thoughts into words that would be worth hearing. it’s very strange to be compiling all of your most personal thoughts into songs that anyone will be able to listen and interpret. im really self conscious about my lyrics and vocals, but we’ll be interested to see what people will think of it. it seems like there are some people who are interested in hearing it, which is very motivating.

in bigger news, i decided to stay in baltimore. i had a talk to a few people, weighed my pros and cons, and gave it some thought and decided to stick around and see some things through. i almost feel like if i leave now with everything around me the way that it is, i’ll come back to completely different people. im not really ready to give up certain people i guess. i dont know what im going to do, im going to try and find a photo related job, but if that fails i will continue to shoot on my own and hopefully work on exhibiting. it turns out that getting artist grants are pretty easy to come by and ill just need to apply myself towards it. i got an offer to exhibit at charm city art space, possibly the daily grind, and somewhere else i cant think of so i may try to hit that up and just keep building a portfolio and resume. right now lauren and i are looking to find a place together. im really excited about it and i think that she is too which makes me even more excited. im interested in seeing how weird/not weird living with a girl will be. i think past a serious relationship this will be one of the only times that ill get this experience so it’s definitely a much easier way.

im itching to get my tattoo. several others around me have gotten work done recently so i cant wait. right now i just waiting to get my tax return check. im going to save half and spend half on things that ive been wanting to do for awhile now (tattoo, get my car door fixed, finish my bike). i was going to pay off a credit card, but i dunno. it seems like a waste. i know that im just wasting money on interest, but i figure that im just getting ready for a whole life of paying off pointless bills. cant wait for the real world!

either way i have a month or so left of school. i havent done much work this whole semester, but i know that ill have a lot of work to do finishing up all of my classes, getting my portfolio together, and getting something together for the senior exhibit. i work better when i have close deadlines though so im actually looking forward to it.

i didnt expect this to be this long. i need sleep. i have circa survive stuck in my head.

im in this unproductive rut right now, it seems like in pretty much every portion of my life: school, work, music, photography, friendships. ive been so much more aware of how weather effects moods along with colors. these rainy, desaturated, gloomy, blah days are really getting to me and appears to be getting to others around me as well.

the promise of summer and south park are the only things getting me through these days now.

if i miss certain people around me while im here and ill miss them when i leave…what’s keeping me here?