rainy days in a haunted mansion feel exactly how one might expect them to. i often think about lighting a fire in the fireplace and cozying up with a good book on the couch, but i resist that urge seeing as i'm a good employee and don't intend to change that reputation. sometimes at night i dream about being trapped in the museum, other times about living here...and while these are usually nightmares involving scary hauntings and while i get pretty spooked being here late at night [like when i have to close up after events], i still think this place is awesome. plus, i think it'll be nice having a changing work environment, with the galleries switching out in june. by then we'll be going from 2 dimly-lit galleries surrounding death and black and white photographs to bright and cheerful watercolor and oil paintings. we'll still have the murder movie playing in the theater exhibit but i think the art will perk things up and really prepare the museum for summer and warmth and happiness.

i had a rather disappointing [AWFUL] tuesday this week but things seem to be looking up again. my boss is back at work and threw a dum-dum sucker at me earlier...all is right with the world!

well, the standard 'weekend' is here. due to finances being a bit tight [i'm down to one job!] i don't plan on doing a whole lot - especially since it's not MY weekend quite yet. however, i'd like to point out how almost absolutely PERFECT it is that the farmers market closest to my humble abode happens to be a Tuesday market which is part of my 'weekend'...! i'd even love to hit up one of the markets that opens up tomorrow morning seeing as I don't work until 1pm, but we'll see...i suppose with the threat of rain, markets may not be as happening. another thing i'd really like to do is check out some of the films at the International Film Festival - but again, we'll see. it's rough when my friends work almost exclusively evenings and i work almost exclusively daytime hours.

i believe this time of year may quite possibly be my favorite...minus allergies, of course! the sun is bright but thunderstorms are always looming, festivals begin, markets open, plant sales lead many a student to scamper around campus with tiny cacti or behemoth vines, and i can't help but smile when i see legal adults leaping on the gargantuan, rainbow-colored, blow-up obstacle course in front of Coffman signaling the weekend humbly entitled 'Spring Jam'. for all of you spring jammers out there, may you have a SAFE weekend free of tear gas and riots - i expect the rain might put some of the typical shenanigans safely back inside the houses of dinkytown rather than allowing them to pour into the streets a la last year's fiasco. as for me, i'll be working at a 40 year old's birthday bash in the museum tomorrow night...jealous?

pollen & the tube.

i've been sick for the past few days and while i'm finally well enough to be wearing actual clothes and eating something other than soup [and even washing some dishes and doing a load of laundry now that i finally got a hold of some quarters], i still feel pretty miserable. a lot of people around me feel similar but blame it on allergies and though my allergies have never been this severe, i'm going to go ahead and blame it on that from now on. i have to go back to work tomorrow, go about my week as usual, and i'm fairly certain my fever has broken so that seems like a good enough sign.

i find myself more irritable than usual, something i noticed even before i started feeling sick. i'm not sure what that's about...? maybe people are just being their usual selves and i'm not ignoring it anymore...but that seems harsh. i've been sleeping more, eating healthy, active [except the last couple of days, trapped inside barely able to move]...one would think i'd be in a better mood, but i'm not. i hope i can calm down and figure these things out, but in the meantime i've been watching a lot of television. Weeds, Skins, Better Off Ted...tonight's the season finale of 16 & Pregnant followed by the Dr. Drew Special which never fails to entice. and really, at what point is it all that unhealthy to replace our real-life relationships with the fantasy-world found on the screen? i mean, they make me laugh, they make me cry, and with the brilliance of streaming shows online they're always only a few clicks away...

trying a new layout...it messed with the paragraphs a little bit but we'll give it a shot. i was sick of the polka dots.

busy weekend. i'm tired and meant to go to bed a half hour ago.

time keeps flying by and i'm not sure what to make of it. mostly i just try to focus on the positives-like the fact that i'm grateful it's my 'weekend' now, that i get

to spend a potentially stormy/rainy day [tomorrow] at home doing whatever i please [sleeping], and that summer is right around the corner...hallelujah!

listening to my favorite 18+minute song and considering it my lullaby...give me good dreams, cat power and m. ward. please and thankyou.

a few things...

first of all, i am worried the head-cold which recently took its toll on my roommate's immune system and is currently reeking havoc on another friend may be working its way into my body's consciousness so i relieved my aching throat and chilled body with a deliciously wholesome and comforting meal of ramen noodles/soup base, broccoli, carrots, peapods, an egg, and a couple of chicken gyoza. oh, and a necessary side of sriracha of course.

before all that, i was standing at the bus stop and i realized i was seeing something similar for the second time in two days. i'm a complete and utter fool for signs...all about semiotics and potentialities. in any case, yesterday while waiting at the bus stop to head to my therapy appointment, i came across this:

and then today while waiting at the bus stop from the museum [on my way home] i found this:

for now i'll just think of it as a coincidence, but i'm on the lookout for more bus stop sidewalk street art. if i can find enough this spring, perhaps i'll make it a summer blog/project...bus lines all around town will get to know this girl right here!

har mar superstar + grilling...i feel summertime!

this was an eventful weekend full of fun [and with it, pictures]. saturday after work, b and i got dinner at pizza luce. no pictures, but it was delicious. then we spent some time with boo while getting ready...

and what were we getting ready for, you might ask? well, i had the fortune of winning tickets to the Har Mar Superstar WAMplified performance which in many ways was born from a lot of sessions during my internship at the Weisman last year. it was a fun night, full of sweaty Har Mar glamour.

later we spent some time singing karaoke at grumpy's. i sang 'tears dry on their own' by amy winehouse and b + l sang a few songs together...here they are performing a cher gem.

my friends and i decided, after they demolished the produce section at trader joe's the other day, to grill after we were finished with family time on easter. so, in the early evening b picked me up and i hauled my little charcoal grill into her backseat. we spent hours outside chatting with friends, taking pictures, and eating delicious food. i have a feeling this will be a regular occurrence this summer. here are some gems from the long, wonderful evening.

i hope you all had lovely weekends. i'm grateful for my friends and family who make each day worth waking up!

on death.

As a kid I used to ponder what that whole 'death' thing was all about...I'd lie awake in bed staring at the cheap plastic stars stuck to my ceiling and wonder what dying felt like, if being dead meant losing any sort of consciousness, if reincarnation was real, if there was a heaven, and all sorts of other things that people contemplate. I'd get stuck in this loop...wondering how things could possibly have any definite 'beginning' or 'end'. If the universe is constantly expanding, wouldn't that mean everything would stay in some form or another? Was 'heaven' in the universe too? If we were reincarnated, who decided where we'd end up next? Was it a cosmic thing, random chaos, do we get to decide, or is there some 'god' determining who goes where next?

Now that I'm a little bit older I still wonder about these things but it's different. Death is more tangible than it used to be. I feel more mortal than I used to feel. I recognize the choices I make in my daily life that may impact my lifespan one way or another but simultaneously I recognize that there is a lot of chaos in life and I give myself up to that little thing called 'chance'. I see death as inevitable but try to make choices that will maximize the joy I [and those around me] get from the days I have before death. Fussing over the 'death' part seems to zap some of the pleasure out of life. I think maybe that's why my family always celebrates death with parties and laughter rather than dwelling on the selfish sensations of loss.

That said, I work in a museum that currently has an exhibit dedicated to death and mourning rituals. I sit ten feet from a small white coffin every day, walk past post-mortem photographs as I turn on the lights and sounds of the gallery, and sitting at my desk I catch glimpses of the tall mannequins in long black garb, big black hats and veils...I work in a mansion which is, for all intents and purposes, haunted. You can feel the eerie presence, particularly on/around/near the stairwell to the roof. You can notice things out of place, hear voices when no one else is around, footsteps when the building is empty, and so on. I don't care whether people believe these things or not...but to me, it's almost comforting. To an extent this is because it's creepier for me to believe that spirits don't exist. After all, I work by myself at night in an empty mansion. When I hear footsteps/whistling/voices, I can blame it on the ghosts or else I have a whole new set of worries...things like possible intruders. Simultaneously, it's comforting to believe that the energy doesn't just disappear...that life goes on in some way, even if it's no longer a human form. If ghosts/spirits weren't real, it would go back to taking the pleasure out of life with a constant worrying feeling about death.

The show 'Dead Like Me' gave an interesting perspective on the matter and I used to spend a lot of time watching that show while attempting to work out the details and apply them to reality. I realized it was just a pseudo-scifi take on the subject but it still made me wonder. Working here at this museum still makes me wonder, but more than anything it just makes me remember every day that I'm lucky to be alive, grateful for having the luxury of time to ponder such things as 'death' and 'afterlife', and blessed to exist in a world with so many possibilities and so few definitives...after all, would life be nearly as much fun if we already knew all the answers?