i've been working on findbella for the past four hours and it's still defunct, i can't even remember how we used to moderate it last time, xl, i think we should abandon it. it's quite obsolete. for anyone who hasn't heard from xl yet, him and cher are working on a new one so til then keep posting here if you need to find out anything and keep yourself posted.

exhausted down to the bone.
the initial shock is past and i think we've recovered some of the rhythm of five years back; it just seems imperative to keep the momentum going. it's been too long since i/we've had something to latch onto and now i've sunk my teeth deep in and i'm hanging on for dear life. if xl hasn't given it to you yet, my Pitt cell is 412-623-9689. take heart everyone, we're getting close this time.

Dings, i can't get through to your Cali land line, i left a message at your frat main desk but i'm not sure if you got it. i've started talking to Bebe and Val about plans for mid-term break already. if i settle my lecture schedule/if my airline points are valid i'll work something out with xl to fly down to SoCal with him to meet you guys. please don't trouble your mum about the flight arrangements, we'll work something out. chin up and much love, call me.

keep the faith
xxx, Shu

as with so many of the days i've been here, today i found myself humbled in several ways. good, good ways.
it's not one of those days i can vocalize how, though - words fail me today, there is a mulling, brooding vacuum that encapsulates. it's a mixture of the impact of the Maya Lin documentary about the Vietnam War Memorial, i suspect, and of the complete chance mention of a subject that surfaced from years, years of disappearance. that sent chills down my spine.

XL, Drew, Thad, Dan, Doug, listen, this is important. i would have called, but i'm not confident of reaching you all over the phone at the same time, and it needs to be said. somehow, to all of you at once. do you remember a girl named Bella? that was a rhetorical; it doesn't require an answer. i know you remember as well as i do.

do you remember a girl named Bella?

retrace; the year 2002
without a trace.

XL/Shu Ming/Andrew/Thaddeus/Douglas/Daniel/Lydia/Kristalle/Mae Yan/Haw Yi/Fahmy/Chermaine/Valerie/Shaun/Elizabeth/Gan Yang/Amos/Nigel/Calvin/Huron/Abel/Zhi Loong/Zach/Bryan/Jerome/Beatrice:

Who I Want To Meet: a long lost friend called Bella. contact us if you see this.

i'm shivering when i'm typing this. in a courtyard of students, i heard the name Halim and Indonesian scandal mentioned in lowered tones. i'm saying, i think i have news of B. i've re-activated the old site, please refer, all i've gathered and pieced together is there. please post when you have read.

whispers of a trail from Australia to DC, after years of silence. i have chills, and i won't write more for now.

xxx, Shu

to the kindest, karma isn't kind. seems to me like friends of mine who have had karma bite them in the behind one too many times have long since finished paying their dues...and it just keeps coming.

recycled, for V



espressos are premium when they're double shots
banana splits are best in single servings (with two spoons)


for the double grins your antics always crack on both our faces
for the double beds we regularly tested at ikea
for the double strength you showed whenever i crumpled
for the double lows you're going through now,
this is a reminder that i'm still only a Milo Peng away.

we can go night walking.

xoxo, Mood Moderator On Call

(your time will come)

mmkay, this calls for a shout, just because you're all fruity Lifesavers in different flavours
Hello Hamsum Homies (pictured above in Chateau le Kwok courtesy of Stan the man), here's to rollin' good times coming up - and "to infinity, and beyond!"
cracks me up when i say that. it's been too long, eh, Dave.

and, just because the evening lent itself to frivolity, let's pay a tribute to the color spectrums of the season



















Neon isn't a colour palette - it's an attitude.
put on your highlighter hues and metallics, girls and boys; 'cause pastels are such a washout - and a turn off.

here in Pitt, temperatures are dropping outside; over in Sunny Singers nattie has just got hot fuschia curtains, in So-Cal, bert has fluorescent car de-cals and way over in LV, mr dave kwok wears his Neon Green AA Tee to calculus class. i'm so glad my friends are not prosaic. the Lite Brite revolution signals a shift in state of mind - neon, you are a free wild child, you wear your confidence boldly just as you wear your shocking hues. 'cause reticence is the ultimate unattractive quality; as is hesitance, cowering, tentativity.

say Highlighter Homies

i jumped right out of bed and bopped for a good three minutes by myself this morning when this song came up. old favourites are the best. this one reminds me of Beat! nights at Home Club, May&i indie finger poking on the dancefloor, candied smoke and the best, best music in town. "fam, fam."


I got a gnome in the backyard
I put him right on the X mark
He’s supposed to show me where the money is
Hey won't you show me where the money is

Oh Mandy, Oh Mandy
Oh Mandy, Oh Mandy
So Dreamy, Oh Mandy
So Killing, Oh Mandy

pull out every stop sign
this moment is golden

and so was today. Dave sent me a mystery package from Vegas; just seeing his crooked slapdash handwriting that purposely spelt my name with two u's was incredibly heartwarming. thank you, d-man, you're still keeping my marbles in place, from miles away. and then, miracle of all miracles, Nat caught me in the pocket of time between her Mad Med lectures and we crammed in a half hour and a bit more of love. to put the cherry on the cake, i caught the other Nat on webcam for a good hour and a half - and she met Alina and Wiley (he's here! charming Abercrombie model, that boy, we were all prepared to hate him because Sky and i had to scrub out the bathroom for him but no one could hate that set of pearly whites and southern twang. he scored brownie points, too, when he brought us each cowgirl hats and ate our Rock Hard brownies without complaint) over webcam. she said it was a "little piece of Pitt, delivered straight to her bedroom". in that second when we were all crowded into that small patch of virtual screen just laughing at each other and everyone talking at once, i got a flash of family.

Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough

true crime,
it goes underground

i don't think i've ever aspired towards something/lusted after an aspiration so badly
if it's even remotely possible in this/any alternate universe i'm going to bend over backwards just to graduate with flying fucking colours and elbow/claw my way into Commune it's practically a modern world truth that 99 out of 100 times people don't land up exactly where they want to in the career cubby-hole wall when they're particularly fixated on a specific position but fuck that i'm going to be the next Alonso/Shamshiri just effing watch me

late night (early morning) check-in, because i'm presently on auto-pilot mode. geared my system up for an all-nighter to finish my Interp and Arg. essay when i got a call from Caleb at 2AM to check whether i'd finished, quote, my "rough essay outline for class tomorrow". apparently, the essay's not due tomorrow. typically, i pumped myself up on caffeine and wrote two pages before i discovered this.

so, onto the mundane recap of the day. bear with me, i'll ramble til a bit of the caffeine edge wears off. sent my mum a few emails (yay, i still defiantly spell it 'mum' versus the colloqial american 'mom') in reply to her frantic torrent of questioning regarding whether i've called the airline to confirm my thanksgiving flight to NY/printed my e-ticket/bought a coat yet. all's well, dave's not joining us in new york as planned though. he's staying in LV and bert's planning to drag him down to USC for thanksgiving parties. trust bert to live it up in The Party College. so that's one less for the NY reunion - but it's still shaping up to be a blast. jess and i both agreed (non-mushily, though, because we're, er, us) that we never realised how close we were til she went to Northwestern/i came here and we both started missing our no-nonsense heart-to-hearts like KABABOOM badly.

joe was delighted to find out i'm gay/discuss the delightful implications of it. his sister back home is a 23 year old, full-blown Latino lesbian. before you start thinking about Carmen in the L Word, sorry, she's no Carmen - a full-out tomboy. i was suitably tickled when he told me how, when he found out at eleven that dear ol' sis was gay/butch, he told her he was "cool with it man, as long as you don't, like, start wearing my clothes and hitting it up with my girls and shit like that". so, er, complex, the workings of the average American (or any nationality, for that matter) boy's mind.

i left my phone in my room this morning in another of my spectacular 500m dashes to make it for Crit. Thinking class. i have to remember to get a lanyard and hang it around my neck. anyhow, it worked out pretty well til dinner, up til then i was with yanco and tiff so i just used theirs. was stranded when they both wanted to stay late at Morewood to cram for chemistry and they refused to let me walk home alone. get this, they actually forced me to call the Safewalk hotline and get someone to walk me home. note: Safewalk = system set up by the ever-caring CMU student council whereby there are a couple of students on 24 hour patrol and will come anywhere on campus to walk you back to your dorm late at night if you don't want to go alone. suffices to say that it's not really a hotline i would use, so i felt like a dork when yanco insisted. but it all turned out in hilarity - chance would have it that Kim's on Safewalk duty; turns up, a prompt seven or eight minutes later, outside Morewood E-Tower where i'm waiting in grumpy protest. it was a Classic moment. even funnier, i was supposed to meet her earlier for dinner but having left my phone behind/not set a time or place, i just figured i'd re-schedule tomorrow. so everything came to a funny, serendipitous end. i was subject to continuous teasing all the way back to Roselawn, though, about the dorkiness of actually calling the walk-me-home hotline. i retaliated marvellously with jabs about the equal dorkiness of being a responsible student councillor who actually walks these dorks home. all's even.


a little pain is building in my left temple, i think that's the to-bed signal. i have to be up at the crack of dawn (i.e. 10 AM okay so it's not really The Crack, but for me..you get the picture) and the onus is on me to haul Skylar out of bed once i'm up. it's no mean feat - Alina and i take turns. it's S'mores Night for the intersection tomorrow, and we're planning to decorate the house (under Alina's insistence) for Wiley's grand arrival on friday.

i.e. Need. Sleep. Now.






yanco and i messing around with Photobooth in the Maggie Mo lounge.
attractive fetching youths we are, eh.
(please still be my friend)

Of Paperweights

there is a small solar system of thoughts revolving in my head, pertaining to the presence, and absence, of things on a given surface or plane. a paperweight, for purposes of making this discourse tangible. along the course of time, at some point or other, a paperweight materialises. of burnished gold, an untamed wolf with its neck raised, howling at, say, the moon (again for practical purposes). it fills this space on this surface, its heaviness making its presence real, yet it has a lightness. 'the unbearable lightness of being', so to speak. at another given point, somewhere further down (chronologically), this lightness makes it clear - imperative, even - that while this molten weight, while its inner radiating glow defines and wholifies this particular space, it is not meant to define it indefinitely. that is, the wildness and other-worldliness of the wolf's eyes draws it from this space, magnetically, inevitably, towards the Cosmos. it is not of this world. accordingly, one lifts it from the table - for this gesture is all the small force required - and it is drawn into its rightful orbit, in the milky way.

what of the space? one chooses not to find a replacement of similar aesthetic, or intrinsic, likeness. it would be wholly impossible - and thus, wholly dissatisfactory should one try. at some other (yet another) given point, the undefined nature of the space becomes intensified to the point where one should, for all reasons of responsibility, be given to placing a paperweight to ground it. one does. at this point, it should be noted the details of what form this next paperweight takes, is unclear, though it logically would have had to be, at some point, before (again, chronologically). sufficient to surmise it is clear, of some clear substance, transparent. absorbs, refracts, light - there is none of the afore-present weight, or inner mystique. it would be accurate to conclude, by any measurable standards, the space is re-defined, this purpose has been accordingly resolved.

what of removing it? it is a perfunctory action, driven by external reasons of practicality. one is, out of necessity, required to shift it a given distance from the space it filled. not lifted in the original sense of the original paperweight, merely shifted. one should note, at this point, it occupies another given space - it has, not in the previous sense, evaporated - its original mass is still defined by the laws of matter that govern any given object in this world. the space is, once again, unoccupied -

and at this point, a value judgement presents itself. one is made to turn attention to, in the absence of the second mentioned paperweight, how the space is as undefined as it was before - that is, the chronological pocket of time between the first and second, not the indefinite span before. in a sensory, not logical sense, one's attention is drawn to the inexplicable fact that it is undefined, the clarity of crystal did not serve its capacity of a paperweight in the afore-defined context.

what of re-positioning the crystal paperweight, after the pre-decided span of time is past? with the newly gleaned knowledge of its reduced functionality in this context, it would seem illogical to do so. it would make, in an other-worldly sense, no sense.

what of the displaced matter? matter cannot evaporate, of this we are certain.

what of the undefined space? space of a given volume can be filled by matter of a certain volume, of this we are certain. yet this is in the worldly context - what of the laws (or 'un-laws') of the cosmos, the Fourth Dimension? we seek not to define things in this seemingly hypothetical dimension, yet we are compelled to - for, for some, this dimension is as real as the concretely documented Three.

matter cannot evaporate, of this we are certain.
space of a given volume should not be filled by matter of a certain volume, purely on the impetus of our Newtonian laws that the given matter and given empty space share the same physical volume.

what of a conclusion?

there is none satisfactory.

matter cannot evaporate, of this we are certain.

Loose, footloose
Kick off your Sunday shoes
Please, Louise
Pull me offa my knees
Jack, get back
C'mon before we crack
Loose, footloose
Kick off your Sunday shoes
Oowhee, Marie
Shake it, shake it for me
Whoa, Milo
C'mon, c'mon let go

we cuttin' footloose, old-school style

it's cold as balls outside and i've got no boots! or jacket, for that matter.
one good thing that's come out of losing two sizes is i can skim off Kim's closet til i manage to get a couple of fall things
only thing is, everyone in my Crit. class thinks i'm a true blue hobo because for the past week i've worn her toggle coat Every Single Day
no matter, tomorrow I Will Buy A Jacket And Some Boots, goddamnit

now, for Flashdance! bring out the legwarmers and tights, here we go

another day of classes done,
i'm buried half-body deep in my white, white quilt and white, white sheets propped up with my black, black pillows.
i should get cracking on my World Hist. paper at some point in time. presently i'm indulging in Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart. i remember someone at some point in time telling me that it would be good to read an author's books in chronological order of their publishing. that is, it's been suggested you glean a certain undefinable something from growing along with the author; the maturing of their style of writing, depth of expression, etc. i'd forgotten to do that with Murakami, but it's a bit far along to attempt it, by now. i'm thinking one day, after i've worked my way through all his texts, i'll go back and read them over in the aforementioned 'proper' order.

there's something decadent about nestling in with a book in the middle of the afternoon, with crisp autumn air outside. it's an activity out of place - people are still milling around outside going about their daily grind. you feel like you've found a hidden pocket of time out of time.

do you ever have moments when you imagine the most attention-grabbing, wholly embarassing thing happening to you, a split-second before it..doesn't? i have those existential moments all the time. case in point. i'm sitting on a bench with my coffee perched on the seat next to me and as i pick it up to take a sip, i get a sudden flash of taking a gigantic gulp and the hot liquid travelling down the wrong passage; choking spectacularly, and hot Cafe Americano spewing in all directions out of all possible facial openings in a magnificent fountain, leaving a gentle brown speckle on everyone within a five foot radius; sit, stunned, face flushing as the ironic drip, drip, drip of coffee is the only sound while all eyes turn reproachfully on me. and then, as this wholly amusing mental image plays, i calmly take a sip from my cup and set it down again safely on its previous spot, no damage done. it's hilarious. gives me such a kick - i feel the glee of avoiding disaster, even though in essence i did nothing of the sort. as i get up to walk away, i look at all the unsuspecting people sitting around me, absorbed in themselves, and think ha! you lucky bastards. you should thank your lucky stars, you just escaped the terrible fate of The Human Coffee Fountain. oh ho, if only you knew what just didn't happen.

i think there may be just a couple of screws loose in the general region above my neck.

i confessed this to a bemused Kim earlier over our shared break between lectures, and earned a hearty laugh and a head-tousling. "Weird kiddo."
i suspect i am.

shoot Jake just called. looks like my little stolen reading time is over. i have to rush down to Craig St. with my camera because his camera battery just died out and he has to do some sketchings of pictures of random sculptures at the Craig Carnegie Museum of Art. goddamnit, if only i weren't so helpful. nah, i'm kidding. i'm only going because of the promise of free Starbucks.

have a good one, all

just a case of circumstantial vernacular;

we either call those we don't understand witches or savants or freaks.

is there a difference besides the inclusion of scientific affirmation and social acceptance? what does that even matter? i think we all forget sometimes that science has vast limitations..and social acceptance is perhaps even more circumscribed.

the pounds are still coming off at an alarming rate. i'm past caring, though - besides, i've adjusted spectacularly to salads (only thing my puny appetite can manage) and Wheat Thins. i went to get a pair of size 26s on the weekend, and now they're slightly loose too. goddamnit, i cannot afford to keep buying new clothes. i wish baggy was in.

IT'S REALLY FALL, IT'S REALLY HERE. the unusually long summer's giving out, it's had its run and now it's gently succumbing to the burnt oranges and faded reds of autumn. today we all poured gratefully into the warmth of the classroom before Interp. and Arg. from the biting chill outside. Jake (tres funky design major #1) and i sat stamping our poor freezing haviana-clad feet while listening to a very conflicted Lauren (funky design major #2) complain about how she's not done wearing all her pretty summer dresses yet, but is still psyched about finally being able to use her Ugg boots. trust girls to chart the weather changes by their wardrobe.

today was a gorgeous, un-disappointing fall day to make up for the previous anti-climax of a couple days back. the sophomore OCs are back from their camp; good to have Timi's incessant black-girl (dear, dear, what happened to my political correctness) chatter/cussing back. and the salad/low sodium proponent is back too, we had a nice appallingly low-calorie lunch in the jeep today while she regaled me about the horrors of sharing a tent with Timi for 3 days and having her sleep punctuated with muffled "fuck this shit"s from Timi's sleeping bag.

i seriously have to get a fall coat soon. and rain boots, and a warmer pair too. in denial as i am (because the havaianas Winny and i ordered just came in the mail today), i have to admit that there's only so long i can subject my toes to the cold before i start wishing they were covered. Skylar and Alina shake their head when i come down the stairs in flip flops, and attempt to wrap me in Sklar's endless supply of hippy scarves befpre i head out of the house. bless them.

i had a good long talk with Skylar earlier, about all things Dada and what their anti-art art movement entailed. we both agree that, while it's an over-simplication to say that the likes of Duchamp was just bullshit disguised as art, he was one heck of a theatrical playful bugger. but personally i buy what he was trying to sell. The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery - Francis Bacon. and he did a magnificent job of it - theatrical, and orchestrated, but magnificent nonetheless. Skylar and Graham want me to go sit in at their drama recitation tomorrow to see their presentations on the different art eras - simply because i've spent so much time with them in the living room while they practiced on/bounced ideas off me. Skylar has Dada, and Graham has the Impressionists. it's promising to be an entertaining day.

on a lighter note, knowing how much i love dancing/music in film, and musicals, i got a pleasant surprise when i went to check my packages at the UC this morning and found the documentary That's Dancing! waiting for me, wrapped serenely in brown paper. that's to make up for forcing me to convert to Healthy Eating, i suspect - but it made my day, nonetheless.

it never rains but it pours - having turned in my massive Duchamp paper just today (or rather, yesterday), i'll be holed up in Hunt again tonight churning out my world history paper, due friday. it never stops - and hopefully i'll never stop loving it. i'm feeding off the build-up now, and it feels..amazing.

better get to sleep. aiming to be up by ten, grab my dollar coffee from Entropy and settle down for the Dada vs Impressionist (i.e. Skylar vs Graham hoho) showdown.

leaving you with Mando Diao! always uplifting - i'm tickled by how the lyrics are so malicious and cheeky and lovable all at once.

She was an alcoholic artist
With too much make-up round her eyes
And I never knew her real name
She was a sunbeam wrapped in lies
But I love her and I'm sorry
And that's all there is to say
It's like a fairy from the ancient time
And I hope it, hope it stays that way

And when I woke up on your kitchen floor
With a headache made in hell
And the flowers that I gave you
Smiled at me from the window pane
Then I thought I must be crazy
Cause I'm feeling kind of good
And then when Satan helped me up again
It was then I, it was then I understood

Oh yeah, alright, oh yeah, to be shy

Well I was never meant to be the good boy
I was never meant to go to school
Well it's guys like me who get somewhere
Cause everybody pity a fool
Now it's payback for the rainy days
Now it's no more me and you
Well I got mine you got yours babe
Now it's payback
Now it's me against the world

Babe, it was the last time I forgave you
It was the last time I forgave you
Oh, it was the last time I forgave you
It was the last time I forgave you

my Art Hist. paper is typed out, eight pages double spaced, one inch margins, headers&footers, citation page.
god bless you, Marcel Duchamp.
i am a free girl, for a short while, at least. after the last morose entry i crashed out in bed for four hours or so. jolted awake at 8pm in a panic thinking it was Wednesday morning already, which would make me Royally Fucked. was relieved to see i'd only set myself back a few hours. and it was a lucky mistake - the shut-eye cleaned out the cobwebs in my head. from eight til 2am i sat in the library basement with Dan (smoking spitting Korean classmate) with my fingers glued to the keyboard. and during that span Duchamp went from Mr Elusive to Mr Friendly. he spoke to me, repeatedly, i swear - from that portrait of him in chapter 2 of Skylar's Dadaism book. told me all about what he was thinking when he signed that urinal and hung that snow shovel off the ceiling. i just wrote what he told me to - in between hurried smoke breaks with Dan's Smoking Spitting Korean Friends (apparently it's the norm. here, all the korean boys a) stick together perpetually, b) stand in circles and c) smoke and/or d) spit) and so, thanks to good ol' Marcy (he told me to call him that) and my smoking companions, i'm sitting here happily with my paper printed out and stashed deep inside my file. i am not going to read it through again and make myself dissatisfied.

i've been watching Imagine Me & You for the past hour and a half, for the second time since i bought it from that used DVD shop in Oakland last week. and i'm chomping on Fibre One/yoghurt. disturbingly, i'm beginning to like the taste of it.

which reminds me, we need a TV so we can stop huddling around one person's puny laptop screen to watch movies like flies round our porch light on rainy days. it's rather sad. trouble is, none of us wants to fork out the moolah. note: all of us in this house are probably moving out of Roselawn next year - it's an amazing house/community but the rent is astronomical. staying in the mass dorms or moving off campus is buckets cheaper. Skylar already has plans to move in with her drama senior, and as of last week i've worked out a cosy little off-campus living arrangement already, so there isn't much point in us pumping money into Roselawn. anyhow, Awesome Alina got us signed up for Freecycle - now all that remains is for us to find some stuff to give away, so hopefully we'll get a TV in return, soon. and i think tomorrow we're going to cut little construction paper mobiles to hang on our porch, to rival Logan/Starsha's fancy schmancy Ikea lighting display across the street. Ikea? pfft. we're going old school, take that.

i have a feeling Skylar and i are slightly obsessed with our house. it's unhealthy.

Alex started a debate with me today, over his new unidentifiable stash of smoke-ables, about fulfilment. i've arrived at the point that i'm someone who doesn't particularly concern myself with searching for happiness, does not feel that pleasure and happiness are synonymous, who is strangely fulfilled by knowing that i am unfulfilled and who believes that people waste way too much time thinking about things that will never be within the realm of their control.

stop trying to get a grip, start loosening it. as Shakespeare (incoherent nutter, but he has the occasional stroke of genius) said, Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.

and, that should be enough.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
-Greta Randolph

Crit. Art History paper due in less than 24 hours
Duchamp, why do you elude me. i've been rifling through the same passages over and over again, feverishly poring over excerpts from Skylar's books on Dadaism and still his intentions..escape me. his ready-mades excite me, ignite me, provoke me, and yet i..cannot verbalize how.

the sophomore OCs are away at some leadership retreat -
and chance had it that today's the first day Fall's in the air
i'd been looking forward to shouts and rolls in the autumn leaves, and i get..an odd quiet. i ate my salad alone today.
at least i have the car keys. am going to sit in the jeep and fill it up with Marlboro smoke.

crime and punishment
crime

soundtrack of my late summer

we got caught at Southside today because of the bottleneck on the bridge back to the campus side of town
it started getting dark surprisingly early today, by six twilight was coming down and we could barely see our waffle cones
perhaps it's a sign that this unusually long summer is finally giving in to fall -
or another erratic trick of the weather that keeps pranking us, lately.
we took full advantage of it, anyhow - lay in the back of the pickup with the top down to see the stars

we're not in Cali, but the stars above Philly will do okay


I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I'd like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars
I'd love to feel your hand touching mine
And tell me why I must keep working on
Yes, I'd give my life to lay my head tonight
On a bed of California stars

I'd like to dream my troubles all away
On a bed of California stars
Jump up from my starbed and make another day
Underneath my California stars
They hang like grapes on vines that shine
And warm the lovers glass like friendly wine
So, I'd give this world
Just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars


i usually don't like country, but it was a pleasant mistake when this started playing while i was on my back and too far to reach the soundsystem dial in the front of the car
gorgeously apt, as well.

off to watch Paris, J'etaime in the art house theatre. they're screening it for a dollar! notwithstanding the fact i've watched it four times over. pfft, what's a fifth.

I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic -- in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself. - Anais Nin

among a sea of intoxication, it's always nice to see a familiar (protective) face
thank god for sense and sensibility

Well let's step outside,
Let's go for a ride,
Just for a while

cheers to the refreshing clarity of post-midnight cold air and top down car rides home

of late i haven't been feeding myself all that well, but i've been feeding my ears more than adequately. Rilo Kiley, Nerina Pallot, Camera Obscura, Wilco, The Weepies, Rocky Votolato, they're the leading men/women in my life. Rilo Kiley's Dreamworld still takes the cake, it injects a little bit of neon psychedelico into my hurried morning routine of shower/eyeliner/morning smoke/fill tumbler with tea-to-go for class. and it makes all the nights, alone or in company, a little more lush.

our small Roselawn community is thriving. our 6-house cluster, along with Spirit House and the Maggie Mo/Delta Phi Absilon frat houses, it's quite the Little Bohemia. i'm sitting on the long wooden chaise lounge that someone ingeniously attached rockers to the bottom of, and looking across to Logan and Kat's place. their newest installation, under pressure from Skylar the crazy animal fanatic, is a sizeable bird feeder in Logan's bedroom window. it matches the one perched on our house. that reminds me, today there was quite a commotion on our street. Alex went streaking up and down the drive barefoot in just his boxers, with "Sucks To Authority" written on his undernourished chest in what looked like green magic marker. i kid you not. i should have captured it on film, but we were all too busy standing on our respective porches cheering him on. he did it in celebration of the Roselawn/Maggie Mo/Spirit community getting an official warning from Campus Security Department. apparently, we're not the only ones who have noticed how, er, Bohemian our little cluster has become. past few weeks, everyone's become increasingly comfortable in our small villa, which sparked off an unconscious trend of us leaving our front/back/cellar doors hanging wide open all day long, just to facilitate easy popping in and out of each other's houses or dropping in for impromptu visits. that, and everyone's been shamelessly violating the no-smoking/no open drug use/no open drinking outside rules - morning, noon, and most definitely night, it's a common sight to see a general cloud of assorted smoke from assorted sources on everyone's front porches, complete with animated singing from the voice majors and not-so-sober running commentary. so apparently this all didn't go unnoticed - at 3 in the afternoon all of us in Roselawn/Spirit/Maggie Mo/Delta Phi were issued a mass official email warning that a) we were compromising the collective safety of students and their property by leaving our houses gaping open and unattended, and b) we were breaking every drug/smoking/alcohol regulation in the CMU handbook. hence, the half-naked Alex event. he thought our achievement just within the first two weeks of school was cause for (loud and open) celebration.

god bless that boy.

anyhow, i don't quite know why i'm rambling. disclaimers should probably come before the post, but i suppose it's not too late to stick one in now: leave, if you're not in the mood to read, escape while you can, before my jargon sucks you in.

the adrenaline is probably the cause for my not being able to get to bed now. went for a midnight run with Kim, i must make a mental note to hint (not too subtly) to her that she is taking this Healthy Living thing a little too far for me. for crying out loud, doesn't 'hey let's go for a run' logically entail a moderate 30 minute jog? apparently not. an hour of going up the steepest slopes i have ever encountered in Schenley Park, i felt like pelting her with the cartons of low-fat yogurt she coersed me into buying. what's more, i am now signed up for The Break. i.e. break dancing. just because i said it's cool that she spins on her head, i didn't think she would take it as me wanting to subject my skull to the same torture.

i feel healthier, though. the pounds i've dropped/the paleness were beginning to scare me, but now at least i know i'm still capable of strenuous activity without passing out. right, let's celebrate this with some yummy..er, Wheat Thins.

(mental note: buy some NORMAL UNHEALTHY SNACKS tomorrow)

anyhow, i'm fiddling around with Photobooth on my Mac. managed to achieve a tres creepy disembodied-head-floating effect because it's so dark and only my face is illuminated by the screen.



excuse the late-night ugliness of half-removed eyeliner and half-dry hair.
on a random note, today Brett from my art history class was regaling me with all his favourite art pieces and i was regaling him with my, er, pointless randomness, and he suddenly commented that i reminded him of Matisse's Woman Before An Aquarium.

it's an oddly perfect analogy for my current state of mind. however, i can't quite decide if i'm the woman or the fish in the bowl.

just ran out of steam. til next time the verbal diarrheoa hits, xoxo

Ode to All Things Organic, Low Fat, Low Sodium.

i've got this little slice of time between now and my virtually useless calculus module, so let me tell you about what i'm eating.
case in point: never before have i eaten a portion of food that flies so goddamn low on the calorie radar. just shoot me, shoot me now. one could argue that this is retribution for laziness, in a convoluted twisted sense. yesterday night, i could not stomach the thought of lugging the fruits of what i knew was going to be an over-successful grocery shopping trip back on the bus, so i readily exploited Kind Kim's (haha alliteration) offer to drive. apparently, she had to stock up on food too.

apparently, our definition of the word 'food' is drastically different.

i must rant, i must. has anyone heard of Fibre One? i hope from the bottom of my heart that you have not, because that would make you blessedly normal, i.e. normal like myself. just so you know, it's a glorified version of rabbit food that they pass off as consumable by humans. scratch that. a mix between rabbit and turtle pellets. 5 minutes into wandering the aisles at Giant Eagle, i realised what i had gotten myself into. read: my shopping companion did not allow me to buy anything that

a) contained refined sugar
b) contained refined flour
c) was high in sodium
d) contained a significant amount of preservatives
e) contained more than a teensy bit of trans fats

i.e. she did not allow me to buy anything remotely edible.
by the time we hit the third aisle, you could describe my posture as defeated/deflated. picture: person, person, shopping cart. i did the pushing, she did the drag 'n' drop. never before have i looked so longingly at the chips aisle i.e. The Lost Aisle Of Empty Calories. as a reward for my weak compliance? (in my defence, please remember i am plagued with nasty throat disease and thus am weaker than usual) i now have a cupboard full of Wheat Thins, the abovementioned Fibre One, Dannon "Light Delicious" (fucking liars), Athenos Hummus (okay, in Kim's defence, this is good stuff. but it doesn't count, because i already love hummus), cottage cheese (ditto previous), Mott's Applesauce, Free Trade grapes (delicious when frozen), raspberries&blueberries, LaTortilla Factory wholemeal wrap (oh, god), Manuka Honey, and a delicious fat jumbo-sized..Sept issue of Vogue. i know, made you excited there for a moment, huh. at least she allowed me that one guilty pleasure.

okay i'm missing calc now. i think i'll just do that, and get an excuse note from my lovely friend Madur at Health Services. we have a very good relationship now, in which i provide the constancy and reliability (i turn up there at regular times) and he provides the lozenges/throat spray. because everyone knows that the key component of a lasting relationship is lozenges.

on another note, the academic ambition is still burning strong. go, me. had one of the most engaging, albeit rather heated, discussion on the works of Marcel Duchamp today in Crit Art Hist recitation. do you believe that the value of art lies in the creation process, the exhibiting of a certain level of skill (not reproducable by the common man on the street), or merely in the perception of an object? Duchamp interestingly illustrated the latter; he took the ego out of art, the egotism that would invariably be thrown in the picture in the parameters of great artists and recognised art works, and instead paid homage to "indifference and humility in the face of chance". his Ready-mades, objects of great contention/discussion/controversy amongst art critics and historians alike, both tickled and jolted me into a different way of approaching art. Google his Ready-mades, 1914-64, if you have the time. the most famous is probably his Fountain, but the one i liked best was Paris Air. there is a fine line between art and insanity. i think i've found the material for my first Response Paper - i like this guy. more importantly, i like how he forces us to peel the tint from our invisible lenses and look.

Skylar and Alina just came in and out of the living room like a whirlwind - some guy along the UC walkway apparently was talking about cupcakes going for a dollar apiece at Dozen (amazing hole-in-the-wall cupcake shop in Squirrel Hill that has a cult student following because they offer Calories That Are Fucking Worth It, And Then Some) and Skylar typically overheard and pounced on the poor unsuspecting boy and demanded to know when the promotion ends. today, apparently. i just emptied the coin compartment of my wallet and donated it to feed Skylar. i hope the sight of Vanilla Dream doesn't render her so far gone that she forgets to bring back a little something something for me.

i just realised i've reduced myself to one of those mundane-account-of-the-day bloggers. ah phooey, you want deep reading you come back when i'm feeling, er, deep. activities fair in an hour, Joe is dragging me along to check out flag football (i.e. TOUCH RUGBY WOOHOO IT EXISTS) because, in his words, he "don't have the guts to go up to those football team jocks and sign up". i, um, don't have any qualms/misgivings about approaching jocks, or writing stuff down on paper in front of jocks, so..i'm the pillar of courage/support here. any intimidation that i might have felt went down the drain in the first calc. lecture when Tartans Jersey No. 9 (or 19, i don't quite remember) (note: they WEAR THEIR FOOTBALL JERSEYS TO CLASS) asked how you get from 7/14 to 1/2. not to be mean, but i thought it was a joke until i saw the straight faces of the rest of his football..er, posse. frick, i'm a horrible, mean person.

oh, we found a bat in our basement yesterday afternoon. a real, live, small, brown, creepy bat. and Skylar wants to keep it as a pet. she seems to have clean forgot about her illegal plan to adopt an illegal cat and keep it illegally under our roof and make us illegally lie about it. no, now she wants to keep the bat. earlier on she suggested we name it Count Roselawn.

Dear Lord, deliver us from evil and insane housemates.

i have mono, it's pretty much certain. was swabbed for it at health services down at the UC i.e. some med student unceremoniously shoved a swab down my throat and a while later, voila, the happy verdict. Alina's all guilt stricken, she somehow got it in her head that she passed it to me because we're the only two in the house who drink full cream milk (the other girls do skim, ick) so we share our cartons. in actuality i suppose she might have, but it's of no consequence anyway. i'd already been developing a nasty throat build up over the past week or so without any help from her. from the amount of Reds i've bummed off Alex from next door, and the coffee i've been consuming, i've had it coming. no biggie.

i've reached an all time record. it's nearly seven in the morning, just got home from next door. was out roaming campus, hopping from one too-loud dorm bash to the next, staying as long as we could in each place before the reek of spilled Beer Pong beer suffocated us. bumped into Alex on the way back to Roselawn, walking in zigzag lines back home after his Art Fac party, so i dropped in for awhile. his room reminds me of a scene out of That 70's Show. lava lamps and bongs everywhere, with a dizzying array of interesting substances on every flat substance. had a highly amusing half-lucid conversation with him about the quality of the Art school girls versus the quality of their work (wtf?!) and left him slumped on his harem-like floor cushions (he 'doesn't believe in' the convention of mattresses and pillows) with a bong between his knees. hilarious.

there's a weighing scale newly installed into our bathroom. Gabby moved it in as part of her last stash of belongings from her boyfriend's frat house. it's official, i've lost 7 pounds since i got here. ordinarily i'd be happy, but the odd frail appearance i've begun to take on is not really a cause for celebration. Timmi shakes her head when she sees me around campus, and tries to feed me. i don't think it's that i've visibly lost that much. it's just the combination of becoming a shade fairer (is that even possible?), and, strangely, eyebags. i've never ever had eyebags, even when i pulled all-nighters back home i never had dark circles. now they seem a permanent fixture. yesterday when i was putting on my contacts i was forcibly reminded of that character from the Addams Family, Uncle-Something. the bald sheet-white man with panda eyes. attractive, eh.

i finally found the song, by chance, from which Nat took the line she engraved on the little pendant she gave me. it was on Kim's playlist. Sophia - Nerina Pallot. it belongs in the class of songs that, quite literally, make one's heart ache.


Five o’ clock and a fire escape symphony
Spilling out across the road and the square
And the sky’s the same as your own, do you think of me?
Do the parks and trees and the leaves reach you there?
After the rain, in the lonely hours he haunts me
Calling out, again, and again
Sophia, Sophia, I’m burning, I’m burning
It’s a fire, a fire I cannot put out
Sophia, Sophia, I’m learning that some things
I can’t go without
And one of those is him

i fitted the pendant on a little woven leather band. on one side, 'and the sky's the same as your own'; on the other, 'do you think of me?'. all the time, Nat.

for my Maylin and my Natalie, take heart, take heart.

A Million Tiny Pieces

i find myself in a million tiny pieces, not quite scattered, yet -
just spaced far enough apart for rainwater to seep through, sunshine to leak, emotions to filter past and never get fully caught
i find myself not minding very much that i am in a million tiny pieces -
take a piece, if you please,
i'd like to distribute them, one to each of you
yes, if you like, you could take two
these pieces are too much of a hassle to tote, sling over my shoulder
perhaps if you would safe-keep one each, just as a personal favour,
i could travel light, and find a new whole in this whole new time zone

you could put a piece on the mantle, on the shelf; you could string a few together and make a hanging mobile.
i'm sure they'd chime pretty in the wind
a piece would make a good looking glass too; i apologise, though, if everything reflected is in shades of grey
keep a shard in a back pocket, or a back drawer - one day i may ask for it back, if i ever want to piece them all together again

& if it's not too much trouble, perhaps you could, remember me?




on an irrelevant note,
Rilo Kiley's Dreamworld is practically sex in sheet music. when i listen to it i can picture the notes in neon colour clarity.

it's the weekend. monday is labour day, meaning no classes, and an extra day to re-hash my Noriega critique piece and hand it in to Marcellino. i'm glad. ordinarily i would gripe about having to re-edit because it's practically like doing the assignment a second time. but now i feel oddly driven to nit-pick at my own writing - Marcellino insists that we be the toughest critics of our own writing, and that makes all the sense in the world. weed out the fluff, keep the bare minimum, the essence of what i want to say. read, cut, repeat. go, me.

i had another first today, witnessed the start of my first legit college weekend, per se. watching streams of students pour out of the buildings after class onto the college green chattering about weekend plans, it was quite a sight.

in the morning i'll be up (hopefully, fingers crossed) by 930am, in time to go berry picking with Timmi&co. am looking forward to it. besides being the first saturday in months that i'll be up before 11am by free will, it's almost a given that it'll be a blast. Timmi is quite a character. i suspect she'll stand there, hands on hips, command the branches to bend to her will. there's just something about the attitude attached to black girls..alright now, i'll just leave that sentence hanging, wouldn't want to venture into the murky waters of racially/politically incorrect comments.

i dropped by Kim(illionaire)'s sophomore econ lecture, as she kindly promised, today. it was a pretty smart suggestion of hers that i get a feel of it for myself before i signed up for an econ module - because now i know quite for sure that i'm not geared towards being an econ major. it was interesting but it didn't grab me like some of the courses i'm taking now. we got to talking, and we hit on the topic of arts histories (yes, in the plural) and there was no stopping me from that point on. after an animated dinner during which my food went untouched (my mouth was otherwise occupied) she told me i should look seriously at being an Art Hist. major. i was secretly pretty thrilled, i'd been cautiously turning the idea over in my head but i didn't have the guts to commit to it quite yet because, well, after all is said and done, my mother has brought me up Truly Chinese - "you're going to study art? as a job?", i admit that came to mind. ah, bollocks to Asian Practicality. if my mother were reading this she would be so proud.

but now that i have one vote of confidence, i just..might. the thought processes, and the physical processes behind every art piece fascinate me.

"When I look at things, I always see the space they occupy. I always want the space to reappear, to make a come-back, because it's lost space when there's something in it. If I see a chair in a beautiful space, no matter how beautiful the chair is, it can never be as beautiful to me as the plain space.

My favourite piece of sculpture is a solid wall with a hole in it to frame the space on the other side." - Warhol, on space.

genius man, if a little facetious/pretentious. gratifying to know that the contemporary geniuses of the art world are not quite as absorbed in the triumph of their own work as in their personal views of beauty in aesthetics.

cheers to being unintelligible. cheers to a non-linear life