some days are like today, when you want to be by yourself. some days are like today, when you want make the right lists. some days are like today, when you want to forget your age.

christmas sucks

just some more thinking about myself

I've never dropped out of school. When I graduated highschool, I felt as if I had ripped the possibility of true rebellion from my sense of self. I didn't feel the same way about college, not really.

I've always thought of myself as sentimental. I like movies where people fall in love. I like books where the protagonist has a charming way of looking at the world. I love a ballad.

I know that I'm a bit of an idiot sometimes, that I get shy, that conflict totally freaks me out. I know that I like having fun in my way, that I like spending time by myself.


These are some things that feel really important this morning. They are things that don't feel very solid right now, truths that I'm calling into question, pieces of my identity that feel shiftier than normal.

New York on friday, thank god. I'm exhausted and my eyes and hips ache, but not in a sexy way, in a rickety old age sort of way.

my birthday

Years are a funny thing-- they throw up such scraggly fences in your memory. Everything bleeds together anyway, but I don't know how it all slips away like this. Nothing that I remember seems so long ago, and I have no fucking idea how I've lived on the west coast for so long. Someone get me home!!

On my birthday, which was yesterday, I danced a little bit, I talked a lot of shit, I drank some drinks and I rolled my eyes. Doesn't seem that different, but it also really does.

i am reading at the iprc on friday.

i forgot how much i love reading!

after a night of complaining about graduate school and overeating, i lost my cell phone somewhere in between the house and the road, along an unlit driveway. le bummer! I am now forced to spend the time lounging on the couch, reading Donald Worster's Dust Bowl.  Very stoked. The morning was spend emailing out articles to people who probably are not all that interested in reading them, but I'm trying to incubate that facet of my personality, so beware. If this works out, I will be a third generation article-sender, following in the tradition of great uncle ken and my mother.

I have been trying to think of personality in spacial terms. I like the way it feels. For instance, I think of my different spheres of interest-- American history, social justice, home furnishings, cooking, sneakers, nail polish, punk and underground music--in terms of space. Some people I know share some of that space, but I don't really know anyone who shares it all, and I'm pretty sure I would blindly hate them if they were out there. BUT, it's kind of comforting to think of all those interests as living in different places.

no more procrastination! onwards!

i turned a weird new corner last week

the subletter at my house told me that she thought i'd meet my dreamdate if i went to the scam zine release/ black flag sing along...


so i stayed home on purpose.

Eating Chips and Contemplating Reality: The lure of free food and the experience of the contemporary graduate student.

working title for my thesis

dear diary,

grad school is difficult and i feel stupid and crazy.

but i DID just organize all of my zotero citations, so at least I'm a neat and nerdy little idiot?

fall has hit, thank GAWD. I want to wear sweaters. and fuck, there aren't enough hours in the day to do anything.

love, hannah

bluegrass clog dancing

i've loved this video on and off for years-- every time i watch it, i wish i knew how to join in.

oh my gawd, i've turned into a legit wingnut and i totally love it! trying to structure my research proposal and delving into some weirdo shit.


more to follow once i've sussed it out a little more...

i made a 'my favorite guided by voices songs' mix

i want to find some fashion and design blogs/tumblr/pinterest/svpply that don't rely exclusively on photos of thin white femme women. any suggestions? seems like those sites are seriously saturated with  gender-role-supporting/long-blonde-hair/rosey cheeks/ country house pictures...

i'm in olympia....for ten magical days!

i'm here for Queer Rock Camp, and it is SO AWESOME!!! i'm fucking exhausted from the long day, but it is so exciting to be around so many rad people, and to reconnect with old friends and talk to new folks that i admire. I'm coordinating food for camp.

first installment of loneliness

Of the houses I’ve lived in, the cities and towns I’ve known my way around, the jobs I’ve worked, the habits I’ve formed and broken, there’s a particularly insidious thread that quietly tucks itself away and brushes over its own tiny footprints. Biding its time, it lies unnoticed until a certain shift of the wind and then, all of a sudden, it’s upon me, and i’m utterly smothered by loneliness. It’s only then that I can look back and truly understand that my entire life is nothing more than a swamp of misery, dotted with pathetic tufts of delusional bliss. All else is stripped away and the grim landscape of solitude is laid bare in a way that only the hindsight of the slightly unhinged and depressed can seriously appreciate. In a matter of time, I know, this thread will stitch itself back into the fabric of my normal existence and the bleak fog will roll off to some gloomy perimeter of my brain, to be summoned once a month for my period, or when I’m going through a particularly painful breakup. Until then, I will catalogue the expanses of loneliness that have until now lain dusty and forgotten.

The first week or so of college, at the end of the summer when I was 17, was the first time I remember feeling loneliness as a real ACHE. I remember feeling a rising panic of loneliness, like the itchiness that  compels me up out of bed in the morning, this inescapable sensation of unease and discomfort. I wonder if everyone feels it that way. Probably not, as I've known plenty of people (for example: every single person i've ever dated) who can bask amidst the covers for hours, slipping in and out of lazy slumber like a fucking cat in the dusty sun. I wonder if that's what loneliness is to some--a pleasant warmth and comfort to, at worst, snuggle your head into the pillow to escape from.

At 17, towards end of august, I made a deliberate switch from casual smoker to the kind of desperate nicotine junkie as is so gracefully depicted by Janeane Garofalo in "Romy and Michelle's Highschool Reunion". It was not, in any way, a gradual shift. Living with two other girls in one big room, smoking was the only excuse I could think of to give myself some change of scenery, to escape the dorm room, and to look like i had something to do. I would walk outside, tracing the quad and school grounds with my cell phone-- cruelly blinking zero bars of service. so, sorry mom and dad, but that's how I started smoking a pack a day.¹ 

In Poughkeepsie, NY, I felt an immense rift from my life of months before. I was acutely homesick-- for the freedom of the Chinatown bus to Boston; getting fucked up with friends at the Fens, hanging out on the slab in front of Little Stevies; Ariel and Cara and our matching haircuts and mean jokes; smoking out my bedroom window in the middle of the night, terrified of being discovered, surprised and toppling out onto the street below². The most mundane moments and passing annoyances dripped with glorious significance, saturated in cloying nostalgia: the tiles of the christopher st. subway station, The garbled delay announcements on the F train³, the graffiti on the mail box half way up 11th street, the hot air from the subway vents, the grime that coats your flip flopped feet, the stench of rotting ginkgo fruit.

------------------------------------------------------

1In full disclosure, i also used my fake ID to buy cigarettes at the discount tobacco store at the end of Raymond ave. The lady that worked there consistantly turned a blind eye to  my "legal non government issued ID" that made me 23 and visiting from Massachusetts. So did every guy working at the liquor stores in lower manhattan, who slid bottles of bacardi limon under the bullet proof plexiglass to me and amanda or paola, or the guys that sold me 40s of country club on the lower east side at the bodega off of st. marks when i was 16. did you know me at 16? i barely even passed for my actual age. 

2 I Often wondered what people walking down 11th street at 3am would have thought at a teenager wedged out a 3rd story window, neck craned to ensure that no smoke blew back inside. I would also wonder if people were dying in the hospital across the street, and if they were watching me change my clothes.

3 Always at that desperate teenage hour when the decision must be made: wait for the train, or try to run home to make it back before curfew. I blame this double bind (you’re always late, no matter which you pick) for my disinterest in gambling.

budget lifestyle

today i wrote out a whole fucking BUDGET for my life for the time i'm in grad school. still needs some revising, but i already know that i'm being grossly unrealistic in regards to the fucking fortune i spend on 1) groceries 2)tchotchkes 3)bottles of wine. I am being realistic in the knowledge that I never take the bus or buy new clothes.

on another note, i've been thinking about patriotism, the 4th of july and how we perform celebration around that all. all of the blogs i read had a little thing recognizing the day, mostly just old timey photos, or cute little red/white/blue things....but what would it mean for us to actually go deeper and challenge ourselves to do more than indulge in the celebratory aspect of this holiday. like, yeah it's fucking fun to dress up and light off fireworks, but what does it MEAN for us to get decked out in flag print everything? are we isolating people who live in this country but don't have access to citizenship? are we voicing support for systems that oppress and deceive us? are we creating an atmosphere that stifles dissent? are we really getting whipped up into a patriotic fervor, and where is the line between irony and reality?

i want to hang out and barbeque and set off fireworks and maybe even go swimming. i would LOVE to do that on any day that isn't the 4th of july. and i don't wanna express patriotism, ironically or otherwise. i enjoy vast amounts of privilege as a white, upper middle class american citizen. i feel irresponsible when i drop into that privilege and celebrate it at the expense of others. it also makes me feel sad and lonely to be surrounded by people freaking the fuck out on america.

seriously? Al Burian is writing for VICE????? major bummer! this is going down as the first time in history that i am going to refuse to read anything he's ever written:(

midnight soul spilling

today ruled. went on a run, dug a new garden bed and then sat on the porch reading ariel schrag 'cause i thought i was gunna feel too stupid trying to power on through the trillion page spivak book. lisa called, so i went and sat at the coffee shop next to the drum shop and waited for her to finish teaching. i think the hardest part of the spivak book is the introduction, or else, the first chapter feels way more accessible, thank god. the introduction left me feeling so defeated.

kevin and i hung out yesterday and went and saw 'being john malcovich' at the academy theater. it felt really good to bike out to 82nd. It's nice to see the neighborhoods shift. I like the area around 52nd a lot. nice houses. Kevin was talking about moving away, which I would fucking do if I hadn't just moved here, but still made me sad 'cause i was stoked to hang out with him in portland, but i didn't say anything. (it's ok to talk about real people in a blog, right? 'cause barely anyone reads this?)


allie told me she thinks i've got my shit together, which is the second time someones said that and i've been shocked. maybe my standards are fucked, or maybe i keep it together more than i think i do, but i am completely at a loss for what the fuck i'm doing. when kevin asked what i was going to study yesterday i started talking, and then couldn't stop, even though i wasn't making sense....it was seriously straight out of junior high, where you hope to god that if you just bullshit enough something will make sense. except i was trying to talk about something i care about, and just listened to complete nonsense spewing out of my face.


i also started writing my loneliness zine, which i think will be offered in installments.

thurston moore brushes a cat

i am getting a little better at making animated GIFs. 

kendra and i have a food blog now!!!

Kendra and I started a new tumblr. ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out!

CYBER-SCULLERY TUMBLR

whoever's out there...

leave a comment? leave your address? i'll send you a letter.

my favorite portland places...

these are from TITLE WAVE, the Multnomah County Library System's used book store.

This is what Title Wave looks like

Stuff from SCRAP...difficult to see but important to notice are the bottles of gold enamel and olive green ink for $.25/ea.

heroic brains

by nele broenner 

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, oh my god, she's WONDERFUL!!!!

Loretta Ross, she's so amazing!!!!

Statement of Solidarity with African American Women

We who trust women stand in solidarity with and support of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, SisterLove, Planned Parenthood of Georgia, and Feminist Women's Health Center to affirm our belief that every woman has the human right to decide if and when she will have a baby, and the right to parent the children she already has with the social supports necessary. In our struggle for reproductive justice, African American women have a unique history that we must remember in order to ensure bodily sovereignty, dignity, and collective uplift of our community. The choices that women of color make are based on their lived experiences in this country and reflect multiple oppressions, including race, class, and gender, and their efforts to resist them. It is unacceptable to speak to the needs of any woman, or her children without taking into consideration the realities that exist in her home and local community.

We affirm that an African American woman's ability to determine if and when she will have children demands that she control the conditions under which she will give birth and have the power to decide the spacing of her children. These freedoms speak to the power and necessity of the preventive care of women before they become pregnant and the importance of comprehensive sex education for all of our children to understand their human right to sexuality in an empowering and responsible way. It means fully funding public education, protecting the environment in all communities, and eliminating sexual violence for all women.

We affirm that an African American woman's ability to determine if and when she does not have children must include a full range of options including the right to have an abortion. For women of color the privilege to exercise this right all too often hinges on other factors in her home and community. Abortion must be approached in the context of the individual woman and the circumstances surrounding her, such as poverty, sexual abuse, or the lack of health care. To extract a woman from the context of her life dishonors her lived experiences and the plight of a broader community of people.

We affirm that African American women have the human right to parent the children they already have. To ensure the full enjoyment of this right, they must also have access to the social supports necessary to raise their children in safe environments and healthy communities, without fear of violence from individuals or intervention by the government. A continuum of care is essential to protect the lives of women and children. And we must prioritize the needs of children after birth. This includes funding education, investing in health care reform for all, ensuring food security and prioritizing the unification of our families through the provision of social supports to protect the most vulnerable.

Protecting women and children requires a commitment to these principles. It is a matter of reproductive health, reproductive rights, and ultimately Reproductive Justice.

February 2010

Tim Wise

ohmygawd, i just pledged to my first kickstarter!


not having a job has really opened up my mind to the potential of limitless spending...

i climbed a mountain, nbd

yesterday, I went with Drummer and her friend Mariah to Dog Mountain. It was very sweet of them to invite me. This makes the second mountain that I have stupidly climbed in my Vans sk8his. My legs fucking HURT today. We took the easier trail, but the first .7 mile and the last mile were iinnnttteennnseee. The view from the summit was pretty serious, and I got to have a Heidi moment as we traipsed through all of the wild flowers. I would never have gone if I'd known how steep it would be, so I'm glad that no one told me. Now i've got a lovely sunburn and aching hamstrings, so it seems like summer's started. I also ate springrolls on top of a mountain (first time!!!) and found this perfect combination of outdoorsy spirit/internet appreciation carved into a tree:

oh! there was also this amazing aspect to the experience: So there's strawberries growing up there, and the sun hits the strawberries and pine needles, releasing the most heavenly smell i've ever experienced. Seriously, and sorry for gushing, but it blew my fucking mind. 

the heidi fantasy

it was higher than it looks!

The hike was 3.1 miles (?) each way, but it took forever, because we had to pause at the top and talk about facebook at the top....and also because it was difficult (though apparently not for the gads of senior citizens bouncing up the trail like mountain goats. i'm not sure if that's what i want for myself at 80, but i'm glad they've got it). We stopped at Multnomah falls on the way back, which was also nice, but I was exhausted and wanted to shower.

too tired right now to write in any kind of interesting day, goodnight!

i'm feeling really disheartened about aligning my political beliefs with my aesthetics in an academic realm. #thisiswhytheyinventedtwitter

homesick for new england

i just wanna stick my feet in the atlantic and climb up on some granite and be in gloucester.

to kendra, the only person that i know for certain is out there and has the skills for this...

i'm trying to find articles or books that relate to the intersection of art theory and critical race theory....anything that looks at art, art production, art theory, museum studies, galleries, art movements, etc through a lens that considers the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and other aspects of a person's identity. i'm having a really difficult time finding any single thing! i know it's out there :(

Whatcha sippin on?

i'm in olympia RIGHT NOW

So I deleted my facebook account in favor of this:




I haven't written in it yet, because I'm in olympia and i'm fucking holed up in Colleen's apartment using her computer like a serious fiend (hi Colleen!). I've been reading sneaker blogs 'cause Keds x playcloths are coming out with cameo keds that i wanna get. (like I need another pair of sneakers, even?!)

 I moved to Portland and am not feeling as lonely as I was before, though I am avoiding the part where I check my bank account balance and freak out because I don't have a job. I'm in Olympia right now, helping Sarah Adams and Ryan McClain fix up their apartment. It feels seriously weird to not actually live here and walk around hanging out.

Drummer, Allie and I went to the Japanther vs. Nightshade shadow puppet show at Disjecta and it looked so rad. I'd biked through the torrential rain to get there, though, so I felt super distracted and spazzed out.

Damn, it feels so good to not be able to be on facebook right now, that shit makes me feel so sad and panicky. I felt like all I was ever doing was stirring my anxiety around: imagining how much fun everyone else is having and getting weird and stressy about whether anyone cared about me in some fucked up, twisted passive way 'cause who the fuck uses facebook as their primary way of showing friendship or affection or whatever? Whatever. It was feeding my loneliness, and at least now I can write in my facebook journal, go windowshopping on the internet and watch the olympia pride parade. and I can fucking do that all by my fucking self and be fucking ecstatic.


oh shit! the hair zine 2 is gunna be a featured local zine at red and black!

http://thepermanentwave.tumblr.com/post/24073651714/submit-a-panel-workshop-for-the-permanent-wave-fest

I wanna go to this!!!

Just painting pictures of foucault and listening to the clash, nbd

"the middle class is beginning to disappear. Abject poverty (previously, decorously hidden away like a demented maiden aunt in a nineteenth-century new england attic) has emerged as a major reality of life." -victor papanek

Ohmygod, I forgot how awful it feels to be so hopelessly LONELY. It's in my fucking bones!

how i waste my time

i took a break from window shopping on svpply to go one bracket deeper into my procrastination and make this handsome little number on a filthy old work shirt.

yo, what's up with dating?!?!

like how instead of asking people out, i ask them to do weird favors like driving me around and helping me move and helping me paint my room?

 oooooh shit, i gotta get OUTSIDE 'cause i am getting into some serious wormhole brain right now.

some days you just have a day when you worry that no one will miss you when you move out of town, and then you write about it in your blog.

I just pulled 90 records out to sell and ive got so much fucking stuff!

$endin mail!

Gotta get rid of all my stationary before I move

I'd been planning on moving to Portland for graduate school on August 1st, but everything happened really quickly and now I'm moving in three weeks, on June 1st. Nadia and Drummer were looking for a roommate, and the rent is $400, so that's that.

It felt odd to make that decision these last few days. Adam died earlier this week and it really shook me up in a lot of ways. It brought up a lot of stuff about my mom and about Annie, but beyond all that, it really shook me to the core that he's gone. Trying to focus on other things has felt really trivial and silly, and I haven't really wanted to hang out with anyone...not that that is particularly unusual for me, but it's felt very clear this week. Perhaps that clarity helped me make up my mind easier? Whatever it was, i just want to be out of here already, even if it's just to come back and visit and have fun.

I'm working at Psychic Sister all afternoon, watching the sun out the window, listening to soul and country and drinking tea. Went for a longish run this morning and realized that i've gotten really out of shape.

Nothing too exciting here, except that I'm gunna have a yardsale sometime and also a going away party...and hopefully a welcoming party? maybe just a party of one, but whatevs.

I want to watch a movie but i'm too messy to find my glasses and too lazy to plug in the tv...

my brother's dog is a bad dog

favorite dancing scenes

fucking shoes:(

damn, i want these shoes so bad, but all the sneakerheads on ebay are bidding hundreds of dollars.

ooooh, i like these ones too!

today i worked at the pizzeria and it was so busy. i hung out with jean in the morning and he gave me his purple sweatshirt with the neon air jordan logos embroidered on it. I am so happy, as I've admired that sweatshirt for years! I am so tired. so grumpy. so disappointed in myself for being so tired and grumpy instead of fun and young and carefree. tomorrow is the first day that i will be fun and young and carefree because i am going to skip work if i feel like skipping work, and if i feel that way, i am going to make coffee and breakfast at home and do a fucking crossword puzzle!


and while i'm feeling grumpy, fuck the internet for wasting all my time when i could have been doing some really meaningful shit. i did make a watercolor of lisa simpson, so i guess the whole day's not a total bust.

i think i look pretty in this photo, so here it is.

"master tom"

nothing new!!!!!

I got my new email address for graduate school yesterday! immediately emailed nadia, the only person i know at PNCA. absolutely immediately.

So yeah, I've  been spending too much time dreaming about portland apartments and freaking out about how much money it'll cost to live there--probably need to gag on a chill pill and quit thinking so hard about it, cause I'm planning on taking out student loans so I don't have to work while I'm in school... and hopefully take this certificate program at the IPRC. Maximize my debt-time.

I just got back from California yesterday. Got to hang out with K-pup for a solid week of fun and sun. Went to a goth club in LA with Lizet and walked out to see a fire hydrant geysering water into the air higher than the surrounding buildings, bought some rad dudes playing cards in San Francisco and played dungeons and dragons with Blair and Jake in Berkeley. Those are just the highlights. I will BLOG my photos eventually. They are mostly of Kendra in front of different things that we saw.

You know how right before people move, they absolutely fall in love with their old home and start having serious doubts about the future? Well, it doesn't seem like that's going on for me. It's been really hard to not feel super checked out and totally done with life here. Maybe it's time to sit around a bonfire or go out to the bar more often or actually make out with someone. put some sizzle back into life. whatever. or just stick it out til I move on to a life of burying my greasy little head in some books and riding my soggy bike through the rain.

i've been pretty stoked on this lady, alice austen. she was a gay jock photographer and total ham who hung out with her girlfriends-- dressing up in drag, playing sports and taking photos in the late 1800s.

I have also been really into this book, mostly for the goofy lions and cool clock towers.

I got a new ring!



(hi ollie and kendra!!!! I think you're the only two people who read this, so I am updating just for you from now on! My dad told me a story about being in San Francisco and a bunch of hippies getting mad at him cause he was nervous about something and was harshing their high.)

things i own that i am so into

a drafting table! (that i bought today!)
a pendleton blanket (that i bought today....for $20!!!!!!!!!!!!)
my simpsons guitar pick
stretch pants

I GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL!!!!

ok. tomorrow i will try harder to not feel crushed out for no reason and look at someones facebook page a ton.

I spent the entire month of february in central america and damn, that ruled. i wrote some letters that i didn't send until i got home, i took some photos, mostly of one basketball game in guatemala and i bought some things and ate a lot of cookies! met some rad people and learned some spanish, was very independent and read books like a maniac. i did not put sunscreen on, quietly hoping for a little tan, and i got one.

i came home and worked speedily to set up psychic sister, the freshest vintage clothing store in olympia, wa. i started running again, except for the day after i got so drunk and smoked so may cigarettes and had difficulty dragging myself out of bed before noon. i stopped working at magic kombucha and started working at psychic sister. i worked on my graduate school application, had some social panic about it and cried a bit by myself, then bought a train ticket to portland to hand it in in person, which is what i did all day yesterday. amtrak is way nicer than greyhound, and now that i'm a boring adult, i can appreciate the pleasures of legroom and a viewing car with big windows more than the pleasures of hanging out with other weirdos on the run.

i didn't clean my room for 2 weeks and my brother's been really sick so i've spent most of my free time worrying about ollie or watching the simpsons.


here's my diary entry from my first day in guatemala. i wrote on everyday.

"Feb 2nd: I've made it! Sitting inbed right now, at Evan and Brightons house after a long day of traveling. Took a red eye last night, landed in Mexico city and the lines were so long through Customs! Thought that i would miss my flight! made it w/a few moments to spare but got confused and had to give up my facewash cause i didnt check my bag. Landed in guatemala city at 8:30am and took a taxi to the bus station, then read in the waiting room for 1 hour, got on the Alamo bus to Xela and 4 hours later, I arrived and Evan picked me up! Thank god for Patti Smith's book! What a page turner! So much better than I thought it would be!
Evan and I walked around and went to the markets...so cool! I'd left my wallet at home, looking forward to going back with it. Really excited to learn Spanish, feeling very embarrassed by not being able to understad what people are saying to me.
It definetly makes such a nice change to stay with friends at the start of a long trip-- feel so welcome and happy to be here. Had the nicest long walk around town and feeling a bit blah, but not as bad as Brighton and Evan, who both have some kind of stomach bug,
We made a blackberry crumble and it was very tart. Looking forward to waking up tomorrow, drinking some coffee, reading and exploring some more. Gunna read myself to sleep now!"


tada! BOOORRRRINNNG!

I am holed up in a hotel room in mexico city, eating pastries, drinking beer and watching the simpsons on my cell phone.

boom boom boom, just like THAT i'm off to central america for a month tomorrow. gunna go to language school, then travel around. got my packing done and my room clean!