Quick update: Yesterday, Rob, Dudley and I started off in Highland Park (now known as Time-Stands-Park’d), having planned on a BBQ (barbe[q]ue[er]) and fireworks show on the river. Then we realized that this town is too lame to have fireworks on the fourth of July–apparently, the less-than-spectacular show had happened the night before. I guess people around here only celebrate the third of July. Anyway, after some last minute re-planning and a 46 minute (according to our Google Maps directions) drive, we managed our way past all of the patriotic crazies on the boardwalk and watched the fireworks from the beach. Del and Pinky were enormously excited — the poor bears had never seen fireworks before…

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fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Palestine solidarity in West Belfast

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DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary  » Archive  » Transmen

…is she still receiving death threats over this comic?

Really though, I always felt that she was making fun of herself in this strip, and that its overall meaning was misinterpreted. I completely understand why the comic is triggering and, at least in the first four panels, fetishizes (white, thin, able-bodied, FTM) transgender men, but the last two panels show a certain awareness of her own cis-gender privilege and point out the problem of fetishizing “transmen” pretty directly. I could be wrong, and I don’t remember what she had to say about this comic after the backlash, but overall, I don’t think she gets enough credit…

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thedailywhat:

Bors.

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Yes, I’m starting off the new year with an old photo. In part, it’s because I left my camera at home and won’t have time to pick it up until later in the week. But I’m also choosing this particular self-portrait because it’s part of a resolution I never completed — like most resolutions, it was forgotten by February. Well, not forgotten–I felt terrible for not following through with it–but brushed aside. When I captioned this, I made note of the fact that it was a hectic week due to the beginning of the Spring 2010 semester and other beginning-of-the-year chores I needed to take care of, but hoped that the rest of the semester would run smoothly.

It didn’t.

After I took that photo, I threw myself full force into the six classes I was taking at the time while still trying to complete my duties as Outreach Coordinator of my dorm and officer of two student organizations. Then Onion died. Then a certain professor decided to make my life a living hell. Then a certain (wonderful) dean had to appeal for me to withdraw from said professor’s course in late April — a good two months after the add/drop period. Then I moved out of the dorm I called home for two years (devastated). Then I moved into the college house I’m currently living in, which was broken into after only a month, leaving me without my laptop, the class notes I had stored on it (and I was taking summer classes…), and thousands of pictures I never backed up. Already five months behind on my 52 weeks project, I accepted the fact that I probably wasn’t going to see through any of my resolutions for 2010.

And I’ve decided that’s okay. This year, I’m setting goals for myself, as always, but I’m not going to beat myself up for failing to complete them — or worse, try to do a half-assed job of completing them for the sake of completing them. There are a few things I actually need to do, of course–write my thesis, finish undergrad, find housing for next year–but aside from that, I’m going to write and take photos and update when I can and when I feel like it. I’m still working on starting various projects for 2011, mostly because I like planning and making lists, but for right now, it doesn’t matter where I go with them. I brought in the new year with someone I love, had an amazing night, and basically couldn’t be happier.

So, happy 2011! I hope you’re all starting off the new year feeling well and excited for whatever is coming your way…

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This is my best friend Jamie (left) and her younger sister Casey (right). It’s the first photo I’ve taken of them in a while, which is odd considering I photographed them for three straight years in high school, using them as models for every project I was ever assigned. I took this one at their dad’s house last night. It feels weird to call it that, because growing up–and I practically grew up in that house, rather than in my own–I always called it “Jamie’s house.” When we left for college, it became her parents’ house, and after the divorce, just Howie’s house. Of course, going back there it still felt a little bit like we were 7, and her mom came by to visit as though she still lives there, and a lot of things just haven’t changed. Some of the furniture is gone, there’s only one dog, and Kyle (Jamie’s youngest sibling) has morphed into a teenager with a deep voice that none of us recognize, but we also spent the day uncovering old notebooks, pictures, and maps from our witch-hunting days.

I don’t know if I’ve written about this yet, but Jamie and I once believed our third grade teacher was a witch, and so we spent the majority of the year whipping up potions made of bleach, coffee, and other such things in an attempt to melt her (we read too much of the Bailey School Kids books back then). We even wrote spells–none of which seem to make any sense, though we were pretty proud of them at the time. I won’t embarrass myself by reproducing any of them here, but I assure you, they’re rather unique.

After joking about what we might find yesterday, Jamie pulled out a vile-looking bottle of brown liquid and glitter that was sealed off with wax. I tried to convince her that it was a memory candle gone bad, but her mother just looked over at me and said: “Lauren, you know this is some shit the two of you concocted–you guys were fucked up.” No one but Jill could sum up our friendship quite so accurately…

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I’m late with this post, and although I don’t seem to have much to do these days I haven’t slept since yesterday and I’m feeling anxious about nothing, as usual. I’ve managed to finally perfect my list of resolutions, though, and this photo is one of the 52 self-portraits I’m supposedly going to take this year (I once attempted the 365 project and made it to day 3, so we’ll see). The editing here was simple enough to do, and the main difficulty I had was actually posing for the shots – the last clone I added in was of me pulling my hair up, a last-minute decision that replaced another clone sitting on the left side of the couch. I shot this one by mistake, but I soon realized it was the only shot that added depth to the image. All the other clones are posed in alignment with the couch, as I was more focused on the actions of each clone, making them look in communication with one another, etc. than anything else. So, I went with the random back-turned, hair-fixing clone. Once I finally replace my ink cartrige, I’ll print this for one of my journals – I promised myself that by the end of the year, I’ll compile the entire 52 weeks project into a 2010 book (even though I have 2 unfinished journals still to work on from previous years).

And now for the resolutions in their entirety (well, minus some others that I’m not going to post):

1. Read 50 books – my standard challenge. I’m on my third book of the year, having just finished Wasted by Marya Hornbacher and The Freedom Writers Diaries with Erin Gruwell. The second I enjoyed (despite my concerns about its authenticity and racial implications), and the first I’m not sure I’d recommend (seems like she wrote the memoir prematurely), though the parts that irked me the most were admittedly due to personal bias.

Also, I’m going to figure out why my booklog isn’t working so the books I read will actually show up somewhere on this site…

2. The 52 weeks project – explained above (Flickr group: here).

3. Finish the journal I’ve been “working on” (read: watching collect dust) and start my 2010 book.

4. Work on some of my eating habits and remember to take my vitamins/calcium… doc says it builds strong bones, who knew?

5. Sleep.

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I visited my high school on Friday — a trip that’s always followed by a frantic search for old photos, essays, projects, and whatever else I can find as I subject my friends to cheesy anecdotes and a list of complaints about changes I do not approve of (a maroon carpet, really?). What I found last night were these photograms, made during my senior year with whatever jewelry I was wearing that day in the fall of 2007 and the help of a pen flashlight from my Harriet the Spy phase. If you’re wondering why I was still carrying around my spy gear at age 17, take this as a hint that you should never have private conversations within earshot of me…

So, in the midst of a rant about the class registration process, I mentioned to my former photo teacher that I’m taking Digital Storytelling next semester, a class he was already familiar with, as the new film course at Prep is apparently an offshoot of some of the Literature & Technology courses at the Writers House. They created this course with the help of the former chair of our English department at Rutgers, whose daughter I had just met, randomly, in the art studio… and I’m now absolutely certain of my theory that when you graduate from Rutgers Prep, the “six degrees of separation” phenomenon is cut to just half that. I’m hoping that next time I visit, I can meet a student who is somehow related to Mariah Carey. In the meantime, I’ll begin composing my list of reasons why I’d make a better spouse than Nick Cannon.

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