plated gold

with your feet in the air and your head on the ground

2008-04-17T10:26:00.009-05:00

ok, i'm hustling and hustling to get my feet on steady ground, but i'm beginning to feel some stability. in the realm of doing what it takes to take care of business i've been working two part-time jobs and have an interview for a full time job tomorrow. needless to say thejob thing has continued to dominate my brain space. but i feel that era coming to an end. last week i visited dick blick and stocked up on necessities to get started on my next project. and i'm feeling super super optimistic to have discovered art house, right here in atlanta. so far it's only been a virtual discovery, but i'm eager to get involved in real life. i love the idea that they create nation-wide art projects open to anyone. and of course i love the fact that they're working on putting a printmaking studio in their space....

reminding me that my ol' pal wilder schmaltz from flight 64 press has created a flickr site of his art work. i love his work, his aesthetic, his sense of humor. i'm imagining and hoping for some sort of bi-coastal print show featuring all my old portland artists-i-admire. and so far i know two printmakers in atlanta. i've got to get to work on changing that first. my lil basement studio is coming along. the focal point of course is the royal purple wet bar. it's like the house knew that room would be mine. xo

moved.

2008-02-26T10:46:00.005-06:00

we're slowly getting settled in and it's culture shock all over again! all my time in paducah spent daydreaming about our move to atlanta i thought i'd be out every night, out every day. sipping on lattes between running to art galleries, burrito joints, and seeing bands play. and instead jj and i both are camping out at our house working our way through these mini-identity crises. we can't seem to remember just how to live a city lifestyle. it's everything from what to wear to where to go to what to say. i just started waitressing, which is a baby step out. though chatting it up with my coworkers reinforces how out of touch i am. and that's about it for where i'm at. i do want to report that i've had 2 burritos since i've been here. 2 meals at indian restaurants, 2 meals at thai restaurants, 1 at a cajun restaurant, and hella brunch. fortunately, i never forget how to eat!

atliens

2008-02-14T19:51:00.002-06:00

we made it. we moved. i'm sitting at a kinko's overdrafting my checking acct by $.20 per minute. i'm loving it.

wtf. zomgwtfbbq. wtf.

2008-02-09T18:32:00.000-06:00

our closing date has possibly fallen through again. yes, i've already quit my job. yes, i've already had our mail forwarded. yes, i've already had all the utilities switched. yes, the uhaul is reserved for tomorrow. yes, i've already packed everything but 2 pairs of jeans, a couple of tshirts, and 2 cans of soup. and yes, i've already cried.

we've decided to move anyway. store our stuff at my sisters house, stay at my mom's house, and possibly keep our dogs at a friend's house. i feel like i'm 22 again and taking off f*ckallelse.

the calendar day has come!

2008-02-08T13:21:00.000-06:00

the last 24 hours have been a complete whirlwind. yesterday during lunch we were told that our closing is going to go through on monday and that it's entirely feasible for us to move this weekend! and so we decided we'll move this weekend! i've been glued to my phone and the internet trying to get utilities turned on and moving trucks reserved.... hair appointments made.

i did get a brief respite from moving stress last night. my coworkers planned a pot luck going away party for me. it was very kentucky all around. barbeque pork and chicken, potato salad, pasta salad, oriental slaw, baked beans, deviled eggs, chocolate pecan pie, and orange creamsicle cake. while i have really struggled with my job here (i was indeed "the man") i came to really really love my coworkers. all of them grew up here. only one had ever lived outside of paducah when she went off to college. she was the only one close to my age. for the most part they are women in their forties and fifties, primarily married and with kids. or grandkids. seemingly each an opposite of me in some way or another.

living in portland was like living in a dream world. so liberal, so green, so young. except when you live there it doesn't feel like a dream. it's just the way things are. and it feels so right. and not right like good. right like right, like correct. like civilized. it feels like the rest of the country should want to feel the same way. living in portland during the last presidential election felt like the rift that was a polarized nation was ripping through my heart. it was hard to not take the results personally. i think everyone was being tongue in cheek, but also genuinely hopeful in oregon, washington, and california proposing that the blue states secede from the red. i mean, we'd all still be able to visit new york. and noone felt welcome in middle america and so noone cared to lose it.

and now here i am years later sitting at a table with republicans, bush supporters, evangelicals (and at least two democrats) laughing my ass off. feeling cared for. knowing i'm on a prayer list somewhere. and having the truly insane privledge of learning first hand that all this polarization is not really the human or the american experience. as passionate as i am about ideas, i'm learning that there's a humanity outside of ideas that truly unifies us. and that it's not all that hard to see once it's in front of you. and i'm getting downright hopeful that our government and place in the world will soon reflect that.

day trippin home

2008-02-04T13:43:00.000-06:00

the righteous room, biscuits, ria's bluebird, dogwoods, the clermont lounge

cuz movin forward's makin me look back

2008-02-01T15:41:00.000-06:00

things i'm gonna miss about paducah, kentucky

1. $8 bbq rib dinners with $2.75 half pitchers of miller high life at the kountry kastle
2. the ladies at the handbag counter at dillards
3. mississippi mud pie dessert pizza from pizza inn
4. the totally unorganized three story antique store down town with its shelves of glassware, unopened vintage avon cosmetics, and hundreds of issues of old magazines

above: polka dot pumpkin cupcakes for jj's birthday

things i miss about portland, oregon

1. haircuts from galen at burnside proper
2. city liquidators, i could spend hours combing every floor of both stores
3. buttered popcorn topped with spiked nutritional yeast at cinema 21
4. seeing a movie by myself with a beer at the laurelhurst. especially seeing "a very long engagement" twice and "the life aquatic" three times
5. breakfast at colleen's
6. stumptown coffee, most definitely the best coffee in the world, order a pound off their website when you feel like spoiling yourself
7. magpie, a clothing store that carries both vintage and indie designers. more than anything i find this store to be very very inspiring. i have found some really beautiful things here.
8. flight 64 press! this is the printmaking co-op i was a founding member of. they always rock alberta street's last thursday and they always rock a killer yearly benefit party. definitely a good spot to pick up some pieces for your growing art collection. and see the innards of a working printmaking studio while you're at it.
9. chile rellenos burrito from olé olé on e. burnside
10. huber's. i just plain love hubers. it's very portland. it's not at all twenty-something. it's a different portland, but luckily a portland that involves setting cocktails on fire.

things i miss about new orleans, lousiana

1. angeli on decatur. i don't think i'm very good at waiting tables, but i loved it here. i met some of the coolest people i've ever met in my life.
2. the happy talk band. when i worked at angeli, luke was the bartender. luke's song writing just completely blows me away and plows me over each time i listen. if i had to characterize his music i'd say hilarious, heartbroken, sarcastic, nihilistic sorta alt-country. but definitively new orleans more than anything else.
3. the bingo! show. this is the other extreme of definitively new orleans. flamboyant, celebratory, bizarre, inspired, interactive and over the top. seeing bingo (was it weekly or monthly?) at fiorella's was an absolute ritual. and it almost always involved fried pickles.
4. howlpop. i don't know if howlpop still has a store but when i lived there it was a really great boutique in the marigny ran by a woman named mo. she deconstructed thrifted clothes and added her own screen prints and just made incredibly unique things. she was only open fridays and saturdays and i would go every friday to see what was new. she's also on etsy!
5. taking the ferry to the west bank for bloody mary's. whenever i needed a break from the quarter or from the wildness of my life in new orleans, i'd take the ferry to the west bank and walk to the first bar i saw. i can't remember the name of it, but it almost felt like an english pub. it definitely felt like a different place all together.
6. 25¢ oyster shots at café lafitte in exile's (gay bar on bourbon st) friday afternoon happy hour with dimitri
7. riding my bike to feel the breeze

aaaaaand, we're off!

2008-01-30T10:52:00.000-06:00

in the midst of transition feels like an odd time to start any sort of chronicle. it seems like i would want a good, clean beginning. but i'm feeling compelled to start a blog now, and so i'm starting one now, while i'm surrounded by boxes, impatience, and anticipation. i think its the anticipation that's driving me to do this. my imagination is filling with projects to start on once we get there. and once we get there. which sounds like an excuse because it is one.

the past two years i've been living in paducah, kentucky. a small town in the middle of the u.s. a town known for it's barbeque, quilting, and nuclear plant. there was a reason for moving here. a very reasonable seeming plan. we were going to live here and take a break from the dramas of city life. we were going to get out of credit debt and save for a house in atlanta, my hometown. two years later it may have been worth it after all as we're currently under contract on a house that is more perfect than we could have dreamed of for a first home. (due in no small part to the awful state of the housing market and subsequent drop in housing prices) living here has been challenging in ways i didn't expect and heartening in ways i couldn't have imagined. but i'm very ready to move on. in a way i feel like i've been on a reality tv show and now it's time to actually get back to reality. to a lifestyle that is not only more comfortable for me, but that actually reflects who i am. i guess that gets to the heart of what has disturbed me about living in a small middle america city. i feel like the change in lifestyle has changed my identity. or at the very least like i'm wearing some sort of puppet costume over the "real me." and this puppet costume has eaten more fast food in the last 2 years than i've eaten in all my 28 years put together. i crave a lifestyle that includes a burrito stand. this puppet took a job for a system that i don't believe in. and this puppet is much quieter about being queer than i am. forthcoming, yes, but quieter.

so i teeter on the edge of each calendar day hoping that this is the day our contract will go through. and next the day we close. and then turning my heart toward whatever day it is we move. and then the real start of seeking out new inspirations, new restaurants, new images, papers, and a press.