happy birthday to me!

happy birthday!, originally uploaded by estimmel.

eric made this silly birthday picture wish of/for me...and as he says himself, "it's weird to see a birthday card/image with your own face wishing you a happy birthday...(he just loves) this picture and it just seemed right...even though it's wrong"...anyhow, long story short, it made me laugh.

this holiday...

cold city, originally uploaded by Jenblossom.

always leaves me with a slight bittersweet/melancholic/saturnine taste in my heart...despite current states of content happiness, my mind cannot help but conjour images of broken glass, mending hearts, warm tears. and while all these things may seem dismal and sad to most, i am so grateful for the feeling and memories that rise up within me. the saddest thing of all would be to lose a memory to a blank sheet of nothing, no matter how wonderful/horrid/earth-shattering that memory is.

walking out this morning into the cold, snow-swept sidewalk was the near perfect way to begin the day. a clean fresh blast of air upon my face and cheeks to awaken me to the pain, joy, misery, laughter, and more that i have had in my life. i can only hope that all my loves (past & present, brief & enduring, romantic & platonic), know how profoundly you have left imprints upon me....like footsteps left in the freshly fallen snow.

v-day thinking

In the battle for belonging
Every doorbell has its code
With a stare it can be opened
Now you have it now you don't

There are buildings there are people
Walk around and look up to
Every swallow has its season
Every gallow has its noon

By the rythm of your language
By the sparkle in your stride
Talk in riddles or be candid
With a shield or open wide

The lesson you must learn
No one could ever teach
Open up and reach for the stars

Above you
Above you

If you have a way of knowing
Every river can be crossed
Lose the sparrow that had landed
For the one that never was

There's a song for every dreamer
As they climb over this fence
Trading roses for the real world
As the second week commences

Where no one has control
Where the young clipse the old
Predjudice and wisdom
All the same

I want you
I want you


lyrics to "Above You" by The Whitest Boy Alive

interrupted & unfinished sundays

I wonder lately if it is possible to be allergic to a city. Since moving here (not quite 6 months now), I've had a bad congestion cold maybe 3 times, food poisoning once, + general stomach uneasiness at least twice. It's only two months into the new year and I've already used 2.5 sick days from work. In general, my body has been all out of whack. It's putting a little bit of a damper upon me, but I'm trying to be resilient and fight back. Someone suggested that the new city might just have a whole new set of germs that my body isn't used to. Or perhaps it is the fact that I'm forced to interact with a multitude of more people than I am normally used to. New York is a dirty city indeed, ridden with germs at every crevice and corner. It is no wonder to me why I have been so ill. It could also be that all the changes that have occurred the past six months has had a heavy effect upon my mental/bodily state...or even the fact that my iPod has died and needs fixing, my desktop computer has a weird blue screen of death, and now the kittie has knocked over my external hard drive (which has my entire life on it!!!) & it is now making horrible sounds...*scrunched up face of worriment and fear*...yikes...I've been trying desperately not to think of the consequences of this...anyhow....

*got distracted by my pretty turkish friend who now resides in canadia...finally we could see each other...thank you webcam*

little miss sunshine

little miss sunshine, originally uploaded by estimmel.

So, for the first time in a long while, we are out and about. A saturday afternoon laptop date at the coffeeshop just down the street from our house. It feels wonderful to sit in a room outside of my cubicle and apartment. I have been a little grey and down these past days because I have missed the exploring, the being out, the people watching. I often wonder why I haven't made this more of a nightly habit like I so used to enjoy. This morning I was reminded of some of my first days in Montreal. I was alone in that city and for some reason it seemed much easier to roam about as I pleased. It seems meeting people was easier and general happiness was a nonchalant thing that just happened. I have been thinking a lot lately if things have changed so much because of one of/combination of the following:

-the change of place (since August we've been living in Brooklyn)
-I'm back in a nine to five working job (working in midtown Manhattan since September)
-I am no longer alone (he moved in May to me & has yet to be tired of me...amazing)
-I am removed from my close friends (moving has taken care of most of this but there have also been a couple severed limbs)
-it is winter and it is cold (self-explanatory for those who suffer from seasonal adjustment disorder)
-somehow I missed my Autumn yearly rejuvenation/self-reflection (between moving/working, one weekend I woke up and all the leaves were gone in Central Park)

As much as I am grateful and happy for a secure job/a wonderful boyfriend/a BIGger than closet place to live, I miss the insecurities of the life which somehow inspired my creativity. TI ofhe fact it is now winter, has a debilitating force upon me. The cold keeps me shaking and shivering, my arms wrapped around myself that I lack the desire to embrace new places/new things. It seems it is all a viscious circle that I must be shaken out of. Today I am trying to shake out of it and get back into the me that I love.

I've been reading Henry Miller's trilogy, The Rosy Crucifixion. I finally finished book one "Sexus" and now I'm onto "Plexus". It speaks of Henry's days in New York, living in Brooklyn, walking in the Lower East side...riding the trains to a deserted winter Coney Island (this has been on my to-do list for weeks now). Somehow I find a comfort and connectivity in the places where I walk, I see the streets thru a different lens and realize that the same Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods I see haven't changed too much in the last 60 years. I've been horrible about reading ever since my departure from Montreal. Julien has started reading a book a week (52 for the year) and I should thank him for making me feel like a slacker.

Other failed projects that are sitting untouched *pulls out her special new "list sketchbook" (a place for only lists i.e. to do, movies to watch, projects to tackle, music to buy, people to write, blog titles to scribe about, etc):

-work on my website www.linesthatwalk.com, it's just been sitting waiting ever-so-patient for some love and attention
-build my Flash interactive life travel map (a way to share my personal timeline of where I've been and what I've seen)
-sketch/collage a day (ugh...how come I've stopped doing all the things which make me happy inside?)
-study/take more Architecural Registration Exams (a step forward to liberate oneself from "the man"---who is that guy anyhow?)
-make more postcard book sets (I made special postcard sets for xmas...one for Er.c's sister and one for my mom of my 30cities.365days Flickr sets...it felt awesome when I received one of MY postcards from his sister...i want to feel special again.)
-fix my desktop computer---oof...i think it has a case of the blue screen of death.
-submit pictures to the Brooklyn Artist's Gym upcoming show on "Reflection" (uh-oh...january 26th deadline came and went---DOH!)
-build a flatfile for all my drawings that have yet to find a place in our apartment
-build a cardboard staircase for my new kittie, Azriel, so she can get to & fro our loft bed with ease.
-make moo.com cards for any occasion
-write/send all our xmas books to both our relatives with thanks you (ugh....soooooo late! it's nearly february!)
-revisit the thought of artivistic in montreal (deadline is february 15th!!!)
-setup a good Autocad template .dag/.ctb file for future personal projects/work endeavors
-paint our kitchen (more strip removal)
-paint the bathroom with a single stripe
-build a low-standing closet
-entertain thoughts of exercise/yoga


So there...I've purged the major things on the to-accomplish list. Now onto the "what-have-we-done" to redeem myself and my conscience just a little. Eric and I went to California for one week. The trip was short and exhausting, but comforting and comfortable (it seems those would be the same thing, but if you think upon it, they are two very different feelings). We started our adventure subwaying to the JFK airtrain (my first time ever to fly out of New York). For just a moment, I saw the Saarinen wonder, the TWA terminal jewel that has circular penny-sized tiles on the floor/walls (or so I'm told, since it is closed to the public for renovation/restoration). It was so much smaller than I had imagined. It is strange to think how ideas are so grand within the small confines of our brain, and the realities of those ideas in actual space is so minute in comparison. Anyhow, my heart did a tiny little flip as it always does when posed before a wonderful piece of architecture. The trip started in southern California with Eric's mom, sister Amy, + sister Amy's boyfriend, JP. We entertained on Christmas eve a party of mother's friends...the tables were spread with cookies/sweets/cheeses/crackers galore...and introductions of JP and I, plus updates on the moving to New York had me exhausted by nights end. The day after xmas, all of us drove midway up California to a small beach-town for more visiting/family time with Er.c & Amy's dad+stepmom's. More introductions to uncle's and aunts, grandmother/grandfather, more talk of new york living, more, more more...

I was so relieved for the 1/2 hour that I finally got to spend on the beach (windy as all heck as it was, and I spend most of that time running down the beach after my hat). The wind and ocean air somehow cleansed me for that moment. I miss the days when I could go drive to "my beach"...it is one of the few places where I have ever been able to just be. To think of nothing. To be reminded that there are things bigger than me.
For some reason, the East River just doesn't cut it.

The point of all this is that by the time we arrived at my parents' house in the Bay Area, we were without any energy whatsoever. Eric and I passed out on the couch, and 3 hours later woke up realizing how badly we had needed that nap. Whenever visiting family is involved, multiple families now as it seems is my fate, it can never be called "vacation". Never in my life have I felt more like needing a vacation from my vacation when we returned to New York on New Year's day. It doesn't help that I've been so sick lately. I've had a major head cold/food poisoning/and another congestion cold all within a period of the last month. Once again, the drastic changes in weather have not been helping this matter, although I did relish in that one 75 degree January in New York day....*ahhh...remembering what it felt like to be wearing a t-shirt in the winter*

Time is winding down for the moment...a friend has asked us to her house tonight for dinner, and before we are all going to the Met to make something of our weekend. Weekends/weekdays seem to fill up so easily here that it is harder and harder to find alone/quiet time to wind down. I am so happy for this little moment of "solitude" he and I are sharing in at this present moment. (He is sitting across from blogging/catching up/doing the same as I). Of all the things I hope to accomplish, can we try to make more of an effort to do THIS again? My heart is happy right now and I miss that.