we're gonna have a tv party tonight

or we were, but we forgot to register it on this new kick of making senior house look appealing to the authorities. examplary? i think you could do better.

I'm drinking the last UFO down in my studio which is covered in recursive paintings of an empty fishbowl and piles of dirty dishes. The fridge is covered in beer cap magnets, and since i'm out of magnets maybe i'll just start gluing them. The freshmen bought all the party alcohol from the girl who bought it for the party and then they disappeared behind closed doors. Pot is soon to be decriminalized in this state in this dorm on this floor across the hall and it stinks pretty strong.

And Proposition 8 passed?

I kind of want my phone to ring to give me some way to waste time without actually seeing anyone face to face. As Shaunalynn said it would be terrible to have to have any human interaction. She was being sarcastic though, or at least I think.

Sometimes I forget I had a life before college. Brooke asked me the three defining moments of my life and I couldn't think of anything before senior year of high school. I keep stumbling upon bits of information or things I wrote about situations I no longer remember having been in. It's terrifying to not remember so many little things. But so many little things are happening all the time I don't know why I would or should or if i could remember them at all.

and more summer

life drawing yeah

Simon and Garfunkel and the kids

Dorm life is getting to me and all i can do is turn up the volume and play songs that remind me of other places, like simon and garfunkel who remind me of home, or chumbawumba and lfo who remind me of carpooling in third grade, or octopus project who are loud enough that i can't even think about where i am anyway.

and i am at desk, after being in a classroom after being in studio after being in MY studio after cleaning the fridge and sneezing 10 times from all the crud that was in the bottom drawer after running into helene on the t after leaving the grocery store after getting to the grocery store after taking the train to starbucks after waking up to a phone call three hours past my alarm.

September 11, 2008

Holley my chiropractor put a heat wrap on my neck and said very cheerfully: "So, what were YOU doing seven years ago today?"

Catching some sun

Humidity is lowering itself down on Cambridge right now.  

When I look through my windows (clerestory style) from 

my bed below them I can only see sky.  This morning it 

was bright whitish-grey.  I told Dodd I always assumed 

Grey had an "e" in it, but I don't know the general 

consensus on that.

I've officially had one of every class.  They are as follows:

1. Thermal Fluids I, a stereotypically difficult, boring, and 

depressing class combining what in other majors is three 

classes, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, and Heat 

Transfer.

  

2. Design and Manufacturing II, and awesome class taught 

by my favorite professor, in which we learn about manu-

facturing and get to make yoyos, and tour the Solo cup factory.

3. Experiencing Architecture Studio, hands on, half Wellesley 

girls, and the teacher has a lisp.

4. Art Since 1940, Modern art history taught by Caroline 

Jones, who can cram a paragraph of information into every 

sentence if you can only catch her references.

5. Computational Design I: Theory and Practice, I am the only 

student out of 21 who is not an architecture major, and I am 

one of two undergraduates. Looks to be interesting, if intimidating.

6. Paul Farmer and the Politics of Global Healthcare, taught 

by puppeteer John Bell and Cracked member Mia Shandell, 

this class teaches us about the work of Paul Farmer and about 

different puppet performance techniques in order to plan a 

Dramashop performance on Paul Farmer in the Spring.

Upcoming projects:

1. painting the 3rd HNC lounge

2. planning the Cracked show

3. printing new tshirts

4. applying to craft fairs

5. studying

Nothing to Form a Title From

347 is our studio.  It is equipped with a 43" tall table the size of a full mattress, a shorter 4'x3' light table, a fridge, 3 lamps, some shelves, a closet, all of my art supplies, a desktop computer and mini speakers.  All it needs now are some artists.  Brooke gets home at midnight tonight, and after a whole summer without her, it's going to feel so great to start working together again.  Cracked has an art show opening at the Weisner Student Gallery on September 18 (4-6 or thereabouts), and there is as of yet no content!  

It's also frat rush all week.  I walked down Beacon St last night and scoped it out.  There are sidewalk barbeques on every block, hang outs, free red bulls, frisbee games, and so much animosity from pedestrians.  If you watch peoples' faces as they pass they always sort of scowl at the frats, until they get to the one they were invited to, of course.  It's as if one frat barbeque is infinitely inferior to another's, just because the letters on their shirts are different.  It's hilarious.  

I started going to a chiropractor who waives the insurance copay for students.  She works out of this chic office on Newbury St.  The waiting room has vibration chairs and free granola bars and the receptionist is an asian dude with a mohawk who wears black v-neck tees.  The chiropractor looks like she teases her bleached hair and clomps around in boots and a jean jacket, while putting heating pads on your back and cracking your neck more times than I knew it could crack.  Awesome.

School starts in 3 days, I switched my major to 2A, mech-E with a concentration in Product Design.  I'm psyched, taking a bunch of classes, I hope I just stay afloat

General Rant, at your service!

At our house meeting tonight we were told that it would greatly benefit the reputation of the house to have a hobby as it were.  East Campus went from "that dorm that makes drugs" to "the dorm that builds things."  Henry Jenkins, our housemaster, suggests we take on a similar persona, saying that while of course "the dorm that builds things" is an easy thing to remember, we are welcome to make a slightly more complicated name for ourselves.  

Fanny suggested that the obvious choice was "the art dorm," which, as she pointed out, we sort of already are.  Most bands in the four east dorms practice in our music room, we have people in dance troupe, we have cracked and murals and all that stuff.  As soon as this was pointed out I thought about our towers meeting, when it was decided that in an effort to keep the lounge of our suite a public hang-out spot, we can't leave anything out except for bottles and ash trays.  This charming development was geared towards bicycles, but it was primarily to keep stray art projects from taking over the lounge in an effort to spare towers the reputation of "the arts and crafts suite."

From a girl who is off to Burning Man, not to drink or do drugs but to BUILD ART PROJECTS, I am thoroughly disappointed, if not at all surprised.

And this is the current state of things in my awesome dormitory lifestyle.  Scot is back, which means there will be more dumpster dives.  Luwen is almost back, so there will be a social monolith, which will help me stay sane amongst strong art-nazi personalities (keep it contained to the sixth floor, or, better yet, let's keep you out of towers all together.).  My computer screen is flashing in odd ways.  I think it is time for repairs.  Shoot.

BUR_DFW_LOG

Taking off is a very different experience when you are seated next to a jet engine. The sound is like what someone once described to me as what happens to you when you inhale homemade ether (a kind of wom wom WOM WOM around your head). The irregular clicks and groans it produces resemble the sound of the rickety wooden roller coaster in Coney Island. It also appears always to be just about to fall off the side of the aircraft.

Landing is also different with extreme turbulence. You never realize how fast you're really moving until the plane starts jumping back and forth on the angry wind patterns, it's an out-of-control racecar kind of feeling, hurdling. Enthralling, let me tell you.

Also, don't fly American. Although if you do, you might get the funny flight attendant who made all of the following announcements:

Please keep your seat backs in their upright and most uncomfortable positions.

It is highly likely that you will starve to death on American Airlines, but we will keep you hydrated.

American Airlines has many wonderful professionally trained staff members, unfortunately none of them are on this flight.

Thank you for flying with an airline that hasn't yet filed for bankruptcy.

opinions des art

Damien Hirst created a piece entitled:

Beautiful, cataclysmic pink minty shifting horizon exploding star with ghostly
presence, wide, broad painting (2004)

It looks something like this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/80000/images/_81491_damien_hirst_spin.jpg
and it spins on an electric motor.

Jenny Holzer, who made a beautiful light projection of assorted poetry
(http://sarahwilson.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/jenny-holzer.jpg) carved ten
stone benches with phrases such as:

No one sees you walking with a tick tick in your dick.

or

Aroused ones lock into every position that streams potential woofo.

I don't ever want to lose noticing. Jeff Koons put three basketballs into a
half-tank of water so that the submerged half of the balls looked magnified and
refracted. My grandmother asked me if I had seen what he'd done, and how did he
figure out how to make the top and bottoms of the balls not match up. For being
a small fraction of her age I feel like I've paid attention very hard, or at
least I've noticed that a straw looks funny when it is halfway under a drink.

I've noticed that from a certain angle the taxidermy crow in Robert
Rauschenberg's painting Canyon doesn't look so bad, and that Elsworth Kelly's
black and white canvases are slightly different around the edges when they are
supposed to line up. I looked for the weights moving up and down in the
elevator but I couldn't find them and I read the fire department sign on the
fence before we got a parking ticket.

And I thought about how unproductive I've been for so long. I could cry. There
is so much I used to know that I remember knowing from time to time, but only at
museums, by myself, looking at art I never liked.

misc. on san francisc.

airports are very pleasant places for people who are complete assholes,
but not for me. i had the pleasure of arriving at JFK 150 minutes
early for my flight, which means i got a relaxing seat on the floor of the
miniature jetBlue terminal, keeping my legs crossed so no one tripped
over me while trying to beat the other arriving passengers to baggage
claim. A family of small religious jewish children and their mother sat
near me and produced a giant bag of hard boiled eggs, which they
peeled and ate. a good portion of the egg crumbs (both colors, as some
of the kids only ate the yolks) ended up on the floor, and the rest were
ground into the mother's skirt, although she yelled at one of her sons
who actually peeled his egg and put the shell right on her dress instead
of in the plastic bag on her lap. maybe it was to spite her because when
he said he didn't want to eat an egg she said he had to.

I flew to long beach and waited for a transfer flight to oakland, and i
avoided this family, who was on the same transfer flight. it was much
nicer in long beach.

the temperature difference between long beach and san francisco is
drastic. i've worn a long sleeved shirt and a sweatshirt and boots the
entire time i've been here. it's cold and sunny which means you have to
wear a sweatshirt but it makes you sweat. but despite the chills the
weather is charming. it beats boston summers any day (i've heard that
it's cooled off since i left). i walked around the yerba buena gardens with
ally on my first night here, we sat by a fountain until my face was too cold
even though i was wearing my hood. we took the bart to emeryville to pick
up rachel's car. in emeryville there is a bus called the emery-go-round.
there are also shootings.

i stayed at ally's last night. when i woke up she was watching Dark Passage
with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Lauren Bacall is so pretty, we
couldn't figure out why she was so attracted to Humphrey Bogart, and the
movie didn't exactly develop that point either. it was a good movie though
for only seeing the second half. we walked through berkeley's campus
when the movie was over. ally pointed out that people in berkeley all have
really nice legs. they do. if only boston were all hills too.

that's the end of the important things to say. i walked around san francisco
more, had a tea leaf salad and a beer at a burmese restaurant, john and the
media lab team won a game in the D-league softball playoffs, and thai iced
coffee is really delicious.

my mother is a tart

Today is my mom's birthday, and to celebrate we hosted a tart party on her lovely front porch. What is a tart party, you may ask. Well, a tart party is a party at which you both eat tarts and dress up as a tart, or, more simply put, you are what you eat. However, tart in slang is defined by wiktionary as any of the following:

1. a sort of fruit pie
2. any woman with loose sexual morals
3. To dress garishly or ostentatiously

At this tart party there were three fruit tarts, 8 women dressed as tarts, and one male spectator who sat on the porch drinking a beer and smoking his pipe until the end of the party. None of the tart-women had brought their husbands (although all the husbands were invited) and one woman even said she was so excited her daughter and husband had gone to town for the day so she wouldn't be bothered at the party.

I must admit I enjoyed listening to the conversations of all the large-breasted middle-aged women, all of whom talked about their kids, who are my age, and their frequent and idiotic run-ins with the cops.

My mom lives in High Falls, which is an area of "upstate New York" to those who live in New York City, and a part of the city to those who actually live upstate. Everyone in this town used to live in NYC and moved here to get away. The town is upstate-paced, and the houses have upstate-paint jobs, and the co-op sells upstate food, but not so deep down everyone is a city kid. Maybe it's just the vogue.

skipping the next bus to albany

i'm going to albany on the 5 oclock greyhound from south station. some guy got stabbed, decapitated and disemboweled on a greyhound bus in canada two days ago. i hope that doesn't become a trend.

i rearranged the furniture a little and set up this new computer which is awesome. i left everything i own in the lounge overnight and threw it all back onto my floor this morning so i could pack up. i'm going to my mom's place from albany, then to jfk to fly to san francisco with my sister to see my aunt and uncle, ally, tj and jamie and sarah from wtp. then i'm flying to la for a few days and home just in time to miss my desk shift (and maybe the last t home).

i guess i have nothing to say. wtp is officially over, although my meal card still worked for breakfast today. there's room to walk on my floor which is a first. i'm really excited to see my mom and sister in new york. i haven't been there since xmas. also it's my mom's birthday tomorrow, and i forgot about it. maybe dwoira and i will make a cake, or something.

i'll scan some drawings when the trip is over, but hopefully i'll have a good stock of them

laytuh

what's with today today?

coffee is running through my body and i can feel it in my stomach.  it's almost one o'clock and still no one has come into work yet. i got here at 10:03.  my eyes are starting to cross from looking at this screen for so long, dawn tells me for every 10 minutes you look at a computer screen you should look at something far away for a minute.  i might start doing that but that's so many minutes...

yesterday i silkscreened some shirts for supa dupa the band, they were little sucking candies with supa dupa written across in bubbly letters.  they came out pretty poorly but it was so good to get my inks out again, they had been hidden at the front desk since may.  i had to snoop around for them because someone stashed them behind a box of sport death hoodies.  i got out my lacquer thinner too and while barry was cleaning a screen i grabbed a new screen and stuck on some stencils.  it's taken me two years to start up again.  two years.  i have stencils i cut in high school that i never put on screens.  they're all stuck up with push pins on the empty walls in my room as a subtle reminder.  too bad i don't actually live there yet to take the hint.  but three stencils are on for a three color print of 8 forties in a row.  maybe i'll print some tonight for kicks.  

i have to move out of mccormick tonight.  that's so much more stuff i have to pack into my room.  maybe i'll build myself some furniture.  all the 2x4s i carried over from lobby 13 at the start of the summer have been swiped by the janitors, and i have no nails although i can grab some from my lab while no one is watching, which they won't be, as no one is even here yet.  

the Cantab

the Cantab is a small club at the edge of the heart of Central Square in which a particular poetry slam team practices performs and picks on the audience when it isn't clapping loud enough

the Cantab poetry slam team is going to nationals next week. did you know there were poetry slam nationals? did you know there were poetry slams? now i do, i can go to them every wednesday. i'll bet i can even order drinks if i wanted to. the first hour and a half is an open mic, populated by locals who all seem to know each others' poems word for word and cheer and make jokes about each other into the microphone that everyone got but i didn't get. there's a lot of you poems and some me poems and them poems too, and then there is a very loooooonnnnnnggggg cigarette break before the team moves in for the kill until just past 11 pm.

the team was an unsuspecting mix of a pretty white girl, an older and sophisticated looking bald black man with a well-kept goatee, a skinny white dude in a v-neck tee shirt, a huge black guy decked out in the finest street garb, and a small, quiet, powerful looking gal who spoke softly but yelled when it mattered. their poems didn't all hit home but for the most part they were great. i shivered, i laughed, i felt out of place, i watched the kids in the corner as they mouthed to words to every poem the skinny dude performed.

some memorable lines, or some semblance of them:

tonight, stupid people are making love.

i want you to lick your lips so you can taste where i came, and went.

(during this poem one of the open mic poets in the back started shouting "AAHHHHHHHHH" and when it was over she announced loudly "i feel GROOOSSSS!")

for anyone who has ever shampooed their hair...

the flattened pennies of your nipples are staring at me!

the singing beach

the sand in manchester squeaks when you drag your feet across it.  it sounds like wet sneakers on a tile floor but it feels great.  the grains of sand are really large (i mean for grains of sand) as if they never got tumbled enough to become fine.  when you walk across the wet sand you sort of sink into it, especially when the waves roll in.  and there are waves! 

i sat on a rock with john for a while watching the little waves crash and waiting for them to get high enough to reach us, which they did.  i heard a little kid a ways off shout: "now this is freedom...AMERICAAAA!" 

john and i went to beta when we got back. we didn't eat dinner until we were too hungry to even look at each other, and we agreed not to talk until we had food in us.  but that did not last, john kept banging the jar of pasta sauce on the metal countertop and in my face and the hungrier i got the sadder i felt about my girls leaving, until the only things on my mind were food and wtp.  we poured some drinks and had a toast to my girls and i lost it.  i bawled.  i never bawl.  it was awful, i kept seeing ingrid's face get all scrunched up and teary, and i kept going over in my mind the note rae had written to me in my little book, and thinking about not saying goodbye to andrea and lacey, and seeing ingrid's face again, and every time i stopped crying john would ask me about my girls and i'd cry some more.  but i don't think this was the only thing on my mind anymore, perhaps the jar-banging and hunger and alcohol sent me past the edge, but the edge was resting on so much stress and frustration at not making much of my summer...

it's a few hours later now.  i spent today patching up john pants and then patching up mine.   i turned leggings into patches and the rest of the leggings into shorts.  played some scategories with the other tutors and lounged around.  i feel better.  i have two pairs of pants more than i did before.  spoke to brooke, made some plans for next semester.  i really hope everything works out with the studio setup we talked about.  i'm starting to get excited and scared for my classes, i don't even know what i'm taking anymore.  john said he can't wait till school starts, brooke said she can.  i just can't wait for it to end.

alas

everyone is gone!!!!

all 20 of the girls left, one by two by four from 5 am until now, and it's just us again, with a lot of garbage and leftover food.  cakey and sarah bodyslammed me in bed at 5 when they had to leave, and madeline and renata came by too, but andrea and margaret and lacey never came by.  it's so sad that the floor is so empty. ingrid cried and cried, and made everyone else cry, and rae's parents were so adorable, and charlotte's mom speaks in the same funny way as she does.  morgan's little sister looks older than her and liz's mom has a nice accent, and shelby's boy came by to surprise her, and vanessa's little brother volunteered to carry her tennis racket for her.  claire said i'll see you soon when she left, and rosa took her foam crane with her, dana had a body-bag shaped duffel and christie left so quietly...

and now it's almost the end, the 2.671 lab looks like kristina's bedroom, and she has been living out of her suitcase since wtp began.  we have to catalog and organize and read surveys and spend the rest of the money on our meal cards, and clean up all the garbage and leftover food and such, but i'm sad, and i'm glad and i can't wait to get back to normal, and ride my bike, and go to manchester, which i'm doing in an hour....  

the rain in spain falls mainly on me

thunderstorm so big two of the girls ran outside in two-piece suits

and jumped into the moat with six of the girls who were fully clothed.

john said lightning was hitting the houses where he lived and rain was

coming through the roof.  my only bra is soaked through and i rang 

out my shirt for ten minutes.  kristina left puddles wherever she walked

and cakey sat under the roof of the kresge theater to get drenched with

roof-water.  then the sun came out.

i passed up a trip to coney island for the siren festival to help my girls

with a kinetic sculpture project.  they don't understand anything except

the requirements and the fact that they are being criticized from high up.

i feel like i've wasted my time, and that when they have an embarrassing 

amount of work to show tomorrow, i will be embarrassed too.  it's been

hard to keep my cool when i know that nothing is being absorbed and 

it's all floating away into the atmosphere, i put a lot into it too.  

i went to the sandcastle contest at revere beach yesterday, and i finally

drew something i was fond of.  it's been a while.  i spoke to brooke last 

night and she said the more she draws the more she hates drawing, 

which is true for both of us unfortunately.  i switched to my old sketchbook

which is nice, although the only difference is that i can flip to the end 

instead of just the beginning.  i brought some sand back from the beach,

it's on my futon.

dabbling in dubious dedication

wtp is well underway and my eyelids are drooping.  the last things i drew were gears, and before that they were mess-ups.  i haven't finished (or started) the thought and memory cover (bilumi) and the more i draw poor-looking thumbnails for it, the more i've been screwing up my other drawings.  i've been more and more antsy about people noticing that i'm drawing them, or about people looking at my messed-up pages and less and less ready to draw whatever is there to see.  my eyes are tired.

there is a dance party above my head in 609.  it happened last night as well.  4 of my girls forgot to check in tonight. i booked my flight to san francisco but not back.  i bought a lollipop with taurine, guarana, ginseng and b-vitamins because it's so funny.  i walked to the museum of science and back, they have live monkeys there i'd never known about. 

birth of a nation

there are 30 boats parked in the charles just outside my window 

from mccormick.  they are surrounding the barge on which the 

boston pops will be performing, off of which the fireworks will 

be shooting, etc.  there are barbeques everywhere, and the liquor

stores are open even though every other store is closed.  the 

american guy won the hot dog eating contest again this year, 

apparently it had to go into overtime with a sudden death 5 

hot dog challenge.  

two of the wtp girls are wearing matching red white and blue, and 

i've seen a ton of flag tshirts on my way from boston to central 

square.  all in all it looks okay, it drizzled for a while this morning 

and the sky is a pretty reliable grey, but the fireworks should be 

awesome.  i can't wait to get to the senior house roof to see them.  

so i scanned in some drawings, i haven't been drawing too often 

since wtp started sadly, but here are a few.  

sitting in matlab class

i never would have thought i'd be teaching matlab.  and i'm not, really, but i will be helping 20 girls do their matlab homework.  this is a big deal for me, having scraped a C in my only programming class and hating it the whole way.  turns out, the girl who is teaching me right now dropped that same class when she took it, and now she's flying.  just goes to show, classes suck.

last night all the girls except one played scategories over dinner.  at one point i said praline, with an ahhhhh sound.  one of the girls commented on my pronunciation and then said "i know all these WEIRD people who say prahhhline instead of prayyyline"

we all cried we were laughing so hard.  and then she said saulmon instead of saaalmon, and i felt better.

some tidbits of information:

-tj is back from japan and is driving to san francisco on thursday or friday

-the wtp girls come on saturday

-i found the key to my (brooke's) bicycle

-a black squirrel was eating food from my room on the balcony but didn't break the window screen but did knock over the instant soup bowls

-fanny found a raccoon on the roof

-christine moran's car door is rusted shut

-hanna wants to get a tattoo on her crotch

-gabe will take his dad's painting soon

etc

etc

etc

love sadie

today today

today i woke up and did not do too much

but yesterday, yesterday i went to a music fest in Harvard square to celebrate the summer solstice and ran into barry and bennett and some old beta i didn't know and sungyun, and all in all it was fun but not amazing

but the day before that, well i moved some stuff from senior house to mccormick so i could start living there and then i went grocery shopping, and by the time i wanted to go out my back was hurting so i played scategories in my room with the other girls i'm living with, and i guess that wasn't so great either.

but thursday i went to the fablab again.  i cut a stencil of this old drawing:

just for fun.  and then the vinyl cutter went crazy! it started eating up my film, which was the last bit of film i owned! it was so sad! so i asked alec if something was going wrong, and he said probably not, but that he'd be happy to tell the fablab to buy more film, which is completely awesome.  so i can keep cutting my stencils, and my screens arrived too! i have 14 now.  plenty plenty plenty.  and i have an empty suite where i can print too!

i somehow ended up at beta splitting a Colt 45 with john and watching blazing saddles.  it's funny that john an i have trouble finishing a 40 when we split it, while his roommate downs three a night.  the poor kid's liver.  he said it's unfortunate that he doesn't have two livers like he has two kidneys.  i said if he did he would just be drinking more.

i found my bicycle key under a cushion and took it for a ride today down memorial drive to river st and then to central, back up mass ave and over to beta for dinner.  by the time i got there my legs were all gelatinous and my hands hurt from leaning on the handlebars.  but it was totally worth it.  bmx bikes are really not that great.  the waitress at dinner was really cute and kept saying "escuse me, escuse me!" when she filled up water cups, and she said things like "bloccoli" and "led bean." the food was good too.

i'm back in gabe's room which is still a disaster. it's not going to be fun to have to move out of here, if i do.  i used my light table today for the first time.  of course i had to move some boxes off of it first, but it's a great addition to the studio, storage and all.  tj is keeping all of his electronics underneath it right now until he gets back from japan and drives to san francisco with his girlfriend and his sugar gliders.  again, i will scan things later.  really i'm falling quite behind on drawing.  i've got something, but it's nothing to be excited about, unfortunately.  i drew a nice older lady in harvard square yesterday while listening to the tokyo tramps, an older chinese man and woman and what looked like their 20-something year old son who played the tambourine.  the woman had a thick chinese accent but sang country music, and the guy had ling sideburns and wore a cowboy hat and a harmonica stand on his neck.  the woman i was drawing stood up when i had half of her drawn, so i'll have to improvise a little.  she was cute though.  

tech+Knowlogy

three things:

1) the fab lab

2) the broad institute

3) wtp

FIRST

the fab lab is a fabulous laboratory called the fabrication laboratory in the back bay area with some high class computer controlled (cnc) equipment including vinyl cutters, which is the subject of this section of the post.  vinyl cutters can be used for a lot of really cool things, like cutting vinyl...but also for cutting mylar, which can be adhered to a silkscreen to print tshirts.  for those of you reading this who don't know me, i had a silkscreening business when i was in high school (soSadieBUG).  There should be ten stretched screens in a ups truck driving from Arkansas as we speak, and with a few more vinyl cutting runs to the fablab, it should be time to start printing again!  

SECOND

the broad institute is roughly a block and a half away from where I live and i've been inside once for an art lecture.  needless to say, the building has nothing to do with art, but instead houses millions of dollars of chem and bio engineering equipment.  almost all of the labs are bl2 biohazardous and full of people laughing over pipettes and one-million-dollar slide scanners and stuff.  on the seventh floor is the information storage room with ventilation in the floor and a water-evaporation cooling system on the roof above it.  as we (jason who works there who i ran into who decided to give me a tour) ogled through the little window in the door and remarked on how much storage there might be in there, an older guy with a name tag stopped and said there were probably 1.6-1.8 petabytes, which is more than some countries!!  Then he unlocked the door and let us look inside.  it was remarkably well cooled, and the pretty giant room was packed floor to ceiling and all the way back with hard drives.  there were over a dozen large boxes containing sever hard drives each unopened in the corner.  the older guy remarked: "we buy storage like it's going out of style!"

Jason and i went to the cafeteria where he gave me free coffee (coffee was the reason i had left senior house, and as i was talking to jedediah by kendall jason walked by, and so was the chance tour of the broad) and we talked about taking time off (he took three years off right before he graduated, got a job and went back to finish his degree when he wanted a research job instead) and about picking a major, and applying yourself.  it was great advice because it sounded like he had been through everything i talked about.  my lesson: never pass up what people offer you, especially when it's a tour of an unfamiliar hazardous lab building.

THIRD

wtp or the women's technology program is a summer program for high school girls going into their senior year to help expose them to mechanical or electrical engineering.  i'm working for the mech-e half.  started today, it was wonderful.  my lovely boss barbara hughey told us (there are seven undergrads working for her) that she does not like to micromanage, so she had whiteboards all around the lab telling us what jobs need to be finished in the next two weeks.  the jobs ranged from assembling a cabinet (done) to writing a lesson plan (in progress) to killing the large bug that keeps flying around (not done).  It's totally loose.  we took a lunch trip to fire and ice in harvard square where dr. hughey bought us all-you-can-eat lunches which were delicious, and we walked back afterwards, all on the clock mind you.  sarah cole spent the day putting together wind-up turtles and foxes, and i sent a billion emails to people about rube goldberg machines.  it was great.  on top of it all i got my id card today with food money on it.  i can now eat anything i can buy on techcash non-stop until august first (gross!).

summer is looking up.  unfortunately gabe's room is looking like a jungle, or a storage closet.  i had to climb through boxes to find a pair of socks this morning. it's ridiculous, but all of my stuff is in it (less one box, one lamp, and my mattress topper).  it should take another ten hours or so to get it all arranged nicely.  woe is me.  also i got some books from the library by the guy who wrote emotional design, as well as a comic book and a dvd copy of blazing saddles, which i've been meaning to watch for ages!

the sun is setting beautifully and the tree in the courtyard of senior house is so nicely lit and yellow-green.  it's not raining anymore, i could buy myself ten dinners tonight if i wanted, and it'll be a great day at work tomorrow.  mmmmmmmm summer.

new (york) post

just got back from nyc. four of us drove down in a two-door toyota 

with shaggy fur seat covers. I sat in the back both ways, it was hard 

to walk when i first got out of the car. we listened to pretty droney 

music like the smiths and the decemberists, or sugar-high music 

like atom and his package, or vampire weekend on repeat. needless 

to say it's great to be listening to my own music right now. and 

speaking of music, there was a free concert at summerstage in 

central park this weekend, vampire weekend, born ruffians and 

kid sister. we showed up around 2:30 or 3 (it started at 4) and the 

line was about a mile long. usman, our in, had already gotten into 

the concert, so we missed our line-cutting shot. (on the way uptown 

we passed the farmers market at union square where i saw one of 

the guys i used to sell apples with)

while we waited, i saw two gals i went to high school with, one in 

a white shirt and one in a white dress (it poured during the concert). 

then john and i ditched. we walked a bunch and got up to the Met, 

which is where i wanted to be instead of waiting in the sun for two 

hours and the rain for three (when we saw barry connie and usman 

for dinner, they were comparing pruney fingers and toes.). there 

was a superhero costume exhibit, complete with the iron man outfit 

from the movie, which was neat.

on the train ride downtown we were talking about new york being 

dutch when two kids in the seat in front of us asked us if we were 

from mit and flashed their brass rats. turns out one of them is in 

phi sig, a block away from where john lives. it's really cool to be 

recognized by your ring. went to whole foods when we got down 

to union square where i saw another friend from high school who 

has an inexcusably weak handshake according to john.

we met the three wet concert-goers for dinner and as we decided 

where to go, it started pouring like nothing else. we decided go to 

s'mac, a mac and cheese restaurant 6 blocks away. we made a little 

fortress with three umbrellas and 5 people, which meant we were 

all exactly half wet when we got there. it was quite squishy. and 

i've never eaten so much mac and cheese in my life, it was huge! 

it was served up in a cast-iron pan, which was a lot bigger than it 

looked considering it's solid cheese. the only people to finish were 

connie and usman, because connie got a small and we all liked

usman's. gross

connie and i broke and went to see fuerzabruta, finally! we split a beer 

at the bar that didn't card me and went in to see the show which was 

in a large smoke-filled room where everyone stood in a circle. the 

show was a mix of treadmills, moving furniture, falling people, 

gunshots, sideways walking women hanging from the ceiling by 

their waists, flying walls, water, women sliding in water above 

our heads, boys kissing their girlfriends between acts, boys taking 

photos of women in water above them with their iphones and cat-

calling them, dancing, moving around in the dark, holding connie's 

hand, and confetti. it was great. maybe not $80 great, but great.

john and i went home that night and when we left in the morning to 

go to my dad's for breakfast we ran into one of my old-time friends 

and her dad and sister. it was great. turns put she's going to china to 

teach playwriting in english this summer. we only got to talk for one 

stop though, so i don't know what else she's been up to. it was a good 

way to end the circle of running into people i didn't know very well.

we ate breakfast at dad's where he told us he is at war with his caribbean 

housemate, and their way of getting to each other is by leaving the 

bathroom door open while the other one is in the kitchen and saying 

hilarious rude comments to the wall or the air and never directly to 

the other person. the woman left the bathroom door ajar while we 

were making eggs, it was great. dad spoke to the door as he went and 

closed it.

then we left and met barry and connie in queens to drive home, 

slept in the car listening to bad music, and got home and slept until 

noon. feels good. i wish i were still in new york. i move to mccormick 

today, start working tomorrow. a full day of ice breakers and scenarios 

to learn about, and lunch at fire and ice! should be great. i'm going to 

grab some coffee. will scan some drawings when i finish them. falling 

a little behind. happy monday!

john williams

chessman

Certainly Can Cancan

yesterday was very hot.  very very hot.  in fact i stayed inside all 

day except for getting a cup of coffee at 7:30am, and trying to get 

an espresso machine from reuse around 5.  there was no espresso 

machine when i got there but i did get a large cutting mat, and on 

the way back i scoped out the SH dumpsters and found a bicycle!  

Ken had thrown a few out that were parked in front of an emer-

gency exit.  i have a bike now, single speed, with a flashlight duct 

taped to the back of the seat for night riding.  it's a road bike and 

it has brakes, and i pumped up the tires with my new bicycle pump 

from rachel.  john said it was fast, i have yet to ride it.

i started painting in gabe's room yesterday, over the koi.  brooke 

you are in the painting, and i might be in it too if i decide to be,

there's a space for me. and my mom is teaching us how to chop 

fish (koi) and telling us not to feel too bad about it.  so that's the 

homage to the koi i'm painting over.  

i drew some chess players in harvard square the other day.  it's 

funny to watch them play and watch them pour 40s into abp paper 

cups at the side of their tables, and hear them click their timers as 

they make moves.  they're pretty ferocious looking.  i'm reading 

the yiddish policeman's union by michael chabon. it's all about yids 

who play chess, and this one who's father was the master of it, and 

tried to teach him but ended up just slaughtering him every time, so 

he writes a letter to his father telling him he loathes the game and 2 

days later his father kills himself (incidentally before the letter had 

even arrived).  but the detailing on the characters is great, and trans-

lates pretty well to watching the grumpy old harvard square chess 

players.

the final episode of top chef is tonight, and the final mexican summer 

camp party in 462, and i'm working desk until 10 when they both 

start anyway... 

i have a few little basil plants growing on the windowsill.  they smell 

good but they're also covered in fruit flies or they were yesterday.  

i've killed several bugs this morning on the carpet, an one on my 

drawing pad, and i'm trying to assemble the light table i got but of 

course i cannot lift it by myself so it'll have to wait.  also i have no 

idea where to put it.  the room right now has two library-style book-

shelves in the middle of the room while i try to paint the walls.  in 

fact all i have in this room is furniture.

i think i'm done here, will scan drawings in later.

Probation and the end of Probation

the 24 hours

John and I decided not to have any contact with each other for 24 hours. 

At first I tried drawing, and went to Toscanini's, where they had honey

 thyme ice cream, which I tried and which was delicious!  But I drank a 

lemonade, met Bill McKenna to give him back the hat and book he left 

in Gabe's room, and drew an older lady sitting near me until she left.  I 

only had her nose drawn, so I improvised most of it, and sat there 

crosshatching for a while, until a little girl and her mom asked me if I 

did that for a living.  It was pretty cute, the little girl said she liked to 

draw, and her dad did watercolors. The woman had spent the rest of her 

time there fawning over the breakfast menu, especially the warm bread 

pudding, which made me think of Brooke.

After that I went home and had a pretty great time, relatively unprod-

uctively, Gabe threw a party on Friday night, which I went to, drank at, 

and got thoroughly nauseous as the lounge got messed up and the guests 

got beat up by Matt Garcia.  By two or three, or four, I was ready to puke, 

but didn't and tried to sleep it off.  

part 2

Woke up still queasy.  It took me a record amount of time to walk down to

the shower, and walking outside in the blazing sun was a little more than I

could handle.  I went to get breakfast hoping to settle my stomach, but the

sweet smell of abp made me want to ralph, and I spat out the first bit of my

sandwich for the same reason.  After a few hours I would only get dizzy 

after running up the stairs or leaning over, and by 6 pm, I was ready to start 

my day.

Riders up

6 pm was also the beginning of the Belmont Stakes, where Big Brown was 

the surefire winner, and potential winner of the Triple Crown, which 

apparently hasn't been won in 4 decades.  Big Brown looked fine, and held

a steady 3rd place until a few furlongs short of the finish, but then he 

dropped back and back and back, finishing last, at a trot.  Apparently he 

couldn't take the weather.  But hey, it's pretty unbearable here too.

So I went to JP Licks to cool off and draw, I got this mojito sorbet with 

seltzer thing, but the girl had never made one before so I had a whole 

pint of sorbet in mine, totally overkill, but great.  I sat outside and 

listened to some guys chatting about hitting on girls and going dancing, 

and behind me was a motorcycle gang and a bunch of the biker-women 

eating ice cream in belly shirts.  The gang all got on their bikes (with

 their respective (maybe) women) during a red light and sat their revving 

for about 45 seconds.  Meanwhile, I drew a lovely old lady sitting inside 

Starbuck's, watching her through the window.

post 24

I went out to dinner with John, because the probation was over, and too hung over all day to drink, spent my night on the Annex roof watching people drink and play music and talking about growing cucumbers in a city.  Terrence, who is the only other person from my high school to go here, was there, and was starting to grow vegetables on the roof in a fishtank with no drainage.  John went off about acid rain, Terrence went off about New York City, John went off about starting an off-season cucumber delivery service, I recommended he outsource to Oregon, but I think there was someone there with a barn in Oregon so that might have made sense.  When I went to sleep, John stayed up researching submarines that can jump like dolphins .

Today we went to Barnes and Noble to draw and read magazines, which 

was ordinary, and then pegged home to hang out in the air conditioning.  

Gave John a drawing lesson, and colored in some of my drawing.  It's 

not finished yet, I want his shirt to match the wallpaper.

home

I'm taking care of Hayley for the week for 

Gabe, who is in Vermont finishing his 

thesis book.  His room is full of those flying 

ants again, I think I've killed ten of them 

already, and john  killed one that was at least 

4 times the size of the ones in here that was 

crawling around the kitchen,  I'm all itchy, 

and every few minutes I hear this wing 

buzzing from a corner of the room.  Hayley's 

looked ready to pounce a bunch of times, 

but she just sits there and watched until 

she gets bored and leaves.  I'll be sleeping 

in my old room for a while.

The Laborious Walk to Central Square and the Chance T Ride Back

Last night John stayed over and we couldn't sleep. The air conditioner was
not on in the house and he kept tossing about, I guess until we woke up
because I don't remember falling asleep. But I woke up to a chill breeze in
my little wind tunnel (the windows in my room are perpendicular). I walked
to Central Square in order to draw and get some coffee, but when I sat down
to draw I sort of waited a while until I had something to draw. That's never
good, so I drank my coffee and sat, and drew a bit, resulting in the following
page:




Upon leaving the coffee shop I dawdled around the few blocks to the T, and
stopped by the co-op to buy some milk and ran into Annatina from VAP. She
was with her mom who was not speaking English but was very cute asking
her about sugar. Also her mom had bought Red Sox red socks for Annatina's
little brother who had damaged his Achilles tendon.

Got on the T as Bill McKenna was getting off, so he didn't get off but came
to Senior House with me and we drew in Gabe's room. We also talked about
Coney Island, because for those of you who don't know, it is being "restored,"
which really means "Las Vegas-ified" (Check it out: thecidc.org). Bill might
have some tentative plans to stop this from happening, but there's not much
we can do without 2 billion dollars. I think I'll ride the ferris wheel next time
I go down. Can't remember if the swinging cars make me sick or not. The
Cyclone most definitely does.

The Goings and Comings of Commuter Railers

Dropped Brooke off in Providence today.  We took a taxi up the big hill 

with another bike-and-builder named Jake who we met on the commuter 

rail. They're all staying in a Brown dormitory which looked pretty damn 

dumpy.  Dead-bolted doors and bathroom locks, double card swipe 

security, tiny little doubles, and linoleum flooring.  

It was raining.

We went to grab lunch but I realized I didn't bring any money with me to 

Providence, so we asked directions back to the commuter rail line at Ben 

& Jerry's.  This proved to be futile.  I don't think the girl working the 

register had ever taken a train, and the lady serving ice cream probably

has never taken a walk.  I'm pretty sure she would have died if Brooke had 

mentioned biking across America.  The walk down was nice, short and 

pretty.  It takes longer for me to walk from Senior House to Central 

Square.  

At the station, Brooke bought me a ticket, I found my debit card, and we 

sat down to start drawing in our new sketchbooks together before I left 

for Boston.  And so, here is the first drawing (started and finished today) 

of the summer.

and although this drawing was drawn on Monday, and was not part 

of the new sketchbook, it was the idea for this project, and so, the 

finished drawing:

if you'd like to see all the drawings, they will be periodically posted here:

web.mit.edu/sadieso/Public/drawings/summer

and finally, Matt Lord had neither a Margarita, nor a Long Island Iced Tea, 

nor a Cosmopolitan, but instead went for a long list of drinks he had never 

had, including a MaiTai and a Kamikazi Cosmo.

Floor Five

There are several types of insects living in Gabe's room on floor five, 

into which I am meant to move upon Gabe's graduation.  The walls 

are all painted, although one contains a mural of two giant koi, which 

I will paint over soon.  I even bought supplies to do it with, although 

I don't have any idea what I'll paint.  Brooke and I will be sharing that 

room in the fall as a double studio, and taking her room as a forced 

double, and that way we both get a studio and neither of us has to 

sleep with the insects on floor five.  

Brooke is biking across the country tomorrow, and as a way to keep 

up with each other we have decided to start one drawing and finish 

one drawing every day of the summer.  Today we both bought 

Earthbound sketchbooks to start drawing in tomorrow.  Tomorrow 

we will go to Providence, Rhode Island so she can meet up with her 

other biker friends. 

Ally is reading Before the Storm, a book about Barry Goldwater, 

who is called "Mister Conservative" according to wikipedia.  The 

most interesting thing in the book so far is that he ran unsuccessfully 

for president.  Sounds enthralling!  

The rest of the happenings on floors five and six, which are also 

called Towers, have been quelled, or just paused.  Matt Lord turned 

21 today.  I do not know what the first drink he ordered today was, 

but here are our bets: 

Brooke-Margarita 

Ally-Long Island Iced Tea 

Sadie-Cosmopolitan            

Jose and Fanny both went home for the week and will be back for 

the weekend, and Gabe is in Rhode Island at nationals with the MIT 

Sailing team.  By the time Fanny and Jose are back, I will have left 

for New York City, Ally, Gabe and Connie will have graduated, and 

Matt Lord will probably just be drinking.

In short, floor five is a lovely dark lounge with three doors onto the 

balcony, excellent for sitting around writing about nothing in 

particular while listening to the gurgle of the three fish tanks (one of 

which contains no fish), whistling songs by Air or Kimya Dawson, 

storing bikes and empty Bombay Sapphire bottles, and waiting for 

everyone to come back.