experiments

future footless echidna

2009-03-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

i think that i might be getting sick. it makes sense, because last night i stayed up til nearly 6am writing a paper for someone else for $100. not very ethical of me at all, but hey, you gotta help a brother out right? it's almost like prostitution, but instead of whoring out my body, i whore out my brain. that's cool with me. i can handle that.

so really, my life is going pretty awesome right now. the coolest boy in the world bought me the coolest necklace in the world in return for the coolest money clip in the world today. tomorrow i will make the coolest german-language rollerskating action movie in the world. then i am going to go to the not-coolest town in the world (bloomington ind? what what?) and hang out with the coolest brother that i have in the world. note that i said that he's the coolest brother that i have not the coolest brother in the world. that would be far too far-reaching of an assertion.

i'm watching some hannibal lecter movie. holy shit those giant pigs are going eat clarisse. awesome. oh. no they're not. boo.

this world is not a kind one if i wake up sniffling and coughing tomorrow morning. just sayin'.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb's rules for living

2009-01-30T19:02:00.000-08:00

1 Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.

2 Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

3 It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

4 Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

5 Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.

6 Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.

7 Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).

8 Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties.

9 Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

10 Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.

2009-01-03T01:44:00.000-08:00

things have been kind of weird lately. the weirdness stemming mainly from the fact that life is so conflict-free. it's boring.

stability's good and all, but i'm sure at some point everyone wonders if they're really doing the right thing. i don't want to be one of those adults who realizes that they hate everything they've ever done in their life. even glaringly obvious signs are passing me right by. i don't think i'm imperceptive, just in denial. how good can things really be?

still, it's nice to know that things are going well, for the most part. but nothing ever lasts.

2008-12-07T11:56:00.001-08:00

fuck, i'm pathetic.

to all the physicists of the world;

2008-11-19T17:15:00.000-08:00

i would like for you all to please find me a way to violate newton's third law.
one day i would like to touch without being touched.
get on that!

love,
gillian

everytime i close my eyes

2008-11-18T19:34:00.000-08:00

you're in front of me
pretending in a love like this
i have no choice
but to put you in back of me,
to cover my footsteps.
dead weight alright
i know you're no good for me.
dead weight all night,
i know you're no righteous leader.
you're dead weight that's fine,
but get your hands off me
you have to touch me with kid gloves
you have to touch me with kid gloves

as of late

2008-11-06T18:55:00.000-08:00

my life, it sucks, and so on and so on.

halloween night

2008-10-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

maybe it's too many mini fun sized snickers bars, but my tummy feels all flip-floppy.

"if you don't plan on another baby"
"if you don't plan on another, baby..."

photos from october

2008-10-14T21:43:00.001-07:00

all from the first roll developed from my canon ae-1

ohhh no.

2008-10-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

i haven't written in this for over a month. i'm pretty sure that means it's going to die.

my life is comprised in entirety of headaches, backaches, heartaches, and the discovery channel. so it's not like you'd be reading anything interesting if i was writing, faceless internet audience.

my dog, she looks like a seal.

stockholm syndrome

2008-09-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

"life is a series of calluses, this is just another layer
so build them up, tough it out, yeah, that’s your skin
don’t let anyone under there"

kept happy(?) and occupied by a loveless half-relationship based previously on convenience and now on strictly controlled, subterfuged longing. i sabotage my potential, now, and would enjoy being a robot.

this time away lets me build up my wall, lets me spread my mortar, lets the roots of this plant that's been growing too large for too long dig deeper. further than my furtive investigations into a different path can go, even from so far away. roots that embrace and tear.

statistically, the mean justifies the median and mode, the scatter plot with a correlation of exactly 0. a squiggly line with an arrow on the end, because this graph goes on and on and on. and it will never draw conclusive results. as i've been told.

spam email poetry

2008-08-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

slot machines uncovered
get rid of the pounds you hate
Made from an African cactus
never scrub your toilet bowl again.

Choosing the right corporate structure
Free today only, hurry!
Photoshop, Windows, Office.
my peenis is able to move without interruption

Sensationall revoolution in medicine!
Full of health? Then don't click,
We cure any disease
Easy-to-clean pump container

Get paid to spend time with your kids
The pictures of Avery have been updated.
Shocking top secret wealth building program!
No anguish, just adoration.

Better success, wool moth
Let's face it, you've always wanted it.
Bahama cruise voucher winner!
make your fat friends envy you

Do you want a w-atch?
Become a law enforcement professional.
What's on your coffee wish list?
cursed by God,with a bucket and the milk can

by don hertzfeldt.

now that things are a little more cleared up.

2008-08-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

i think it's good that i can be on my own now.

"i'm trying to be alone without being lonely,
i'm trying to be lonely without losing my mind."

retail therapy tonight anyway!

all aloney, on my owney

2008-08-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

the monster in my tummy and the howl in my throat have stopped coming up, now that they understand that bridges are not meant for burning. but tummy monster still churns when i remember you, and purrs when i kiss you.

[EDIT EDIT EDIT]
THIS WHOLE ENTRY IS
SO
GAY
SOOOOO GAY

proof i hate photoshoots.

2008-08-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

"i want something to eat and i want to go home. right. now."

this wasn't even from the actual photoshoot. this was a candid shot of me sulking against a wall of the salon.

message to my insecurities:

2008-08-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

you thought you could get to me, but NO. NOT THIS TIME.

AND NOT EVER AGAIN.

gillian prevails!
yes!

[edit] unrelated but
gillian: i will cut off your pee pee and put it in your butt
gillian: NOW TELL ME I'M PRETTY!

let the ghosts sleep tonight.

2008-08-16T00:48:00.000-07:00

crippling insomnia strikes again. well, not crippling. the sleep disorder equivalent of a hangnail, maybe? i try to wipe the dark circles away from under my eyes, thinking "excess makeup", but really it's just my skin.

when i do sleep i have the strangest dreams. in one i don't remember much, but a boy i know, turning to me with purple eyes and kissing me like he meant it. and it was one of those dreams where you feel everything. texting him about it when i woke up probably wasn't a great idea. whatever's going on with my subconscious should stay there.

everywhere i go, i'm only half there.

my other half is probably at home, masturbating furiously. or looking at ELEPHANT SHREWS!

honk!

dog days

2008-08-07T01:04:00.000-07:00

it seems like, with summer winding down and the school supplies reappearing on store shelves, the "impending sense of doom" that i have been trying to avoid is sneaking up, lurking behind corners, hiding under discount erasers.

one of the hallmarks of stupidity is probably being upset about something before it even happens. stupidity, no, but vulnerability maybe. it's so hard not to worry, though, with friends and family leaving before the summer even seems over.

someone told me that when you're an adult, and in the year-round working world, summer and autumn meld together, and when the hotter seasons approach you don't care, except maybe appreciate the air conditioning in your office, so you don't have to face the heat outside.

why does it seem like i take everything for granted, no matter how hard i try not to? this summer has been a series of events- hallmarks of life, breakups, shows, nights out with friends, days in with books. nothing that i can remember precisely. for all the summer before this, my schedule has been tamer, maybe allowing time for fun between summer classes and my parent's expectations. what i remember about all summers isn't what i schedule anymore.

now what i remember is what i repeat, the bike rides every day and the chicory growing on the side of the road. hours spent hunched protectively over my sewing machine listening to the radio, completely content despite the realization that public radio just repeats after a while. i remember being told that i'm fragile, finding out the hard way that i'm vulnerable- i remember being hurt, over and over, the feeling of lips on skin, again and again, this summer in my mind that is supposed to stay with me forever.

but it will never last long enough.

oh mother

2008-07-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

a conversation with my mom (working) via text message:
me: did you eat all the crackers?
mom: No.
me: oh, never mind, i just found them. why did you put the crackers in the fridge?
mom: R U Ok?
me: i'm fine, i just wish these crackers were warmer
mom: Toast them.
me: that was a joke, i just thought it was funny you put them in the fridge.
mom: 2 much on my mind right now. Bye

hahahhahahah

this is my life.

2008-07-26T23:24:00.000-07:00

[01:07] gillian gamine: AWWH! HE SAID HEY WITH AN EXCLAMATION POINT
[01:07] newcoterierotary: oh man he like likes you. boner sandwich.

can you hear the tension between the trees and the moon?

2008-07-22T20:43:00.001-07:00

it's that feeling that you get when you finally understand where you are,
when you realize that you can't relate to someone that you love-
i managed to pull myself up into the blue
and stare back in the darkness that stares out with you.

so much train and bike recently, driving feels weird. as far as i'm concerned driving is a cooperative/social activity, but still, in a car you are encased in your own multi-ton bubble with its own environment and soundtrack. there's nothing wrong with being alone sometimes- i know that better than i should, maybe- but being encased in an automobile is nothing like being on a train or a bike.

trains and subways require something people usually refuse to do- compromise, and enter the personal space of others. somehow, like on the tightly-packed commuter trains in japan, people try to maintain some kind of defeated aloofness in their car of tightly packed humanity. this i don't understand- why, when forced into a small space with multiple other people, would you do your best to ignore them?

"Somehow, the way life works, people usually wind up either in crowded subways and elevators, or in big rooms all by themselves. Everybody should have a big room they can go to and everybody should also ride the crowded subways. Usually people are very tired when they ride on a subway, so they can't sing and dance, but I think if they could sing and dance on a subway, they'd really enjoy it. The kids who spray graffiti all over the subway cars at night have learned how to recycle city space very well. They go back into the subway yards in the middle of the night when the cars are empty and that's when they do their singing and their dancing on the subway. The subways are like palaces at night with all that space just for you. Ghetto space is wrong for America. It's wrong for people who are the same type to go and live together. There shouldn't be any huddling together in the groups with the same food. In America it's got to mix-n- mingle. If I were President, I'd make people mix-n- mingle more. But the thing is America's a free country and I couldn't make them."
- Andy Warhol

i feel similarly about riding my bike, but in a different way- on your bike, you are open to the entirety of the outside world, you're forced into hearing everything around you, you have to actually work to go somewhere- all obvious symbolic importance aside, everyone should ride their bikes more.

distractions

2008-07-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

pitchfork this weekend was fun. much like last year, i spent the vast majority of my time eating and sleeping, as opposed to listening to music.

for the time being i've decided to do my best to get work done, keep my head up, and stop fighting with everyone so much. and eat more cherries, delicious delicious cherries. i smell like garlic and only natalie knows why!

Любит....не любит

Любит....не любит

Любит....не любит

what?

2008-07-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

i am in a really good mood. but it seems like on this blog i always complain. this is because a lot of the fun things that i do are secrets.

shhh!

hmmf.

2008-07-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

the past few days have been nice, i actually had a really good weekend. it is kind of weird though. my brain can't handle people being genuinely nice (thank you for the empanada.. and the tea.. and the movie, and for beating me at pong). see, this is my nice post! i can be nice too! look at me, being nice!

but really, it's kind of odd and scary trying to keep myself under control, somehow i was granted the self-control of a two-year-old. and i don't know what i want. oh no! you never know who knows what they feel, or who is just pretending- i definitely don't.

this whole dynamic is just very difficult for me to wrap my head around. am i allowed to be affectionate? jealous? demanding? should i really even be thinking about it? a lot of questions, to be sure, that i think i am the one who has to find out the answers to.

life doesn't happen in a vacuum but i wish it did, and i wish sex and affection weren't mutually exclusive, and i wish a lot of things a lot of the time. and do nothing to make wishes work.

really!

2008-07-14T19:43:00.000-07:00

i had a pretty long post but i accidentally closed my tab. but i'd like to point out that i'm not currently angry at anyone. that's a first!

should i pay $8.50 for midnight premiere tickets to the dark knight?

this sucks.

2008-07-11T22:31:00.000-07:00

it is not nice to be rude to me when i do nice things for you, it's not my fault your hard drive is fried. and it's also not nice to act like i was getting all my help from my IT friend, because he was helping, but seriously how is it so hard to believe that i know how to open windows in safe mode and run a diagnostic?

i am just bummed. everyone needs me until i am no longer convenient for them and then i become a burden.

this actually made me tear up a little

2008-07-10T19:54:00.001-07:00

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

late early late late early.

2008-07-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

so much money being shuffled around now, it's hard to think of anything else. i spent $25 on a pair of high waisted shorts from f21 and i feel like a sinner.

every night i've been up at least til 2am, lightweight time for someone else, maybe, but sleep is my escape and i don't know why i deny myself. hearing that we spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping scared me. if i could find a way to magically stop sleeping, like in the adrian tomine comic, i could have achieved so much more. but i'd probably be lonely all the time, listening to the trains go by.

i am an instrument in my own destruction, forcing myself to my limits, trying not to doom myself to a life spent cocooned and hidden. the pressure i put on myself leaving detailed red indentations in my skin that i have to rub out, until i feel normal... it's late. i'm being stupid.

maybe not. probably.

i still feel the same way about things that i always have, that in varying degrees, there is always something wrong. writing this phrase in my sketchbooks since i was in fifth grade: "fuuuuck". always! there is never a time when i do not feel like putting my head in my hands, and going "fuuuuck". lately, meaning within the past year or so, it's gotten worse, this sense of desperation that nothing is going right, and it rises in my throat, more like a howl than a word. some kind of verbal protest against things i can't change. if you haven't stopped reading by now i commend you, because i kind of stopped thinking when i started typing.

tomorrow is free slurpee day!

creation and deletion

2008-07-08T11:57:00.001-07:00

business as usual. 2 orders hopefully being shipped out today, and then one order that will be shipped when the guy's check clears (who uses e-checks? srsly) and then one !new! order from today that i will make while listening to the podcast of this american life.

so far i have profits at about $100. assuming that today's order and that guy's e-check clears, there's another $100.

of course i can't be all business all the time, i have to worry about my love life too, if you can call it that. disregard the fact that any and all guys interested in me probably just want my mediocre-at-best body, and i still don't even have that great of a selection. frankie tried talking to me again last night, after the whole frankie-gillian-betsy-anthony debacle, under the guise of missing my also mediocre-at-best conversation skills...

obviously it's kind of impossible to decode people's real feelings through the internet. anthony told me this: "ok then if you want frankie to fuck you, forgive him and have it, and i will never speak to you again." thanks tony! what a pal! seriously, does he really think i'm that devoid of moral boundaries? it's also somewhat shitty that he'll be a total douche to me, and then get all offended when i say he doesn't care about me.

this is all just more reason as to why i would like to become a floating creature, some kind of ephemeral animal, to float into the rooms of the people around me at night and sing quietly to them while they sleep.

and then float away.

petting zoo!

2008-07-05T21:31:00.001-07:00

this is my little goat friend.

the nuuuuuuuuuge.

2008-07-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

somehow, despite being in the relatively liberal midwest, the combination of beer, flesh, and ted nugent brings out some kind of bastard southern-fried rock and roll in even the mildest of suburban businessmen. today, volunteering for ribfest (yeah really) i got treated to some of the cream of humanity. the de riguer shirtless, beer-bellied men with pierced nipples, walking around with camo pants slung way too low. and leather-vested long-ponytailed aging bike gang members holding stacks of beer cups 6 inches high. where do these people come from? a fellow volunteer, jon, gave me a knowing smile, saying "indiana".

truly the most ridiculous performance i've ever seen was ted nugent. there was smoke and beer everywhere. "uncle ted" spent quite a lot of time yelling about vegetarians, the enemy- this being ribfest, celebration of ribs, holiest of holies- and went into a short diatribe that involves him yelling AH LUHV DEAD COWS! DEAD PIGS! DEAD DEERS! and constantly touting the NRA. i was particularly perplexed when he asked if barack obama was in the audience, because uncle ted wanted to teach him how to dance. the crowd went wild. i don't understand. is john mccain a better dancer than obama? i doubt it, uncle ted!

the night ended when ted nugent, in full indian headdress, shot a flaming arrow from an american flag patterned crossbow into a white guitar, screaming that he had to sacrifice the white buffalo.

and i never even got any funnel cake out of it. damn you ted nugent.

in a normal situation

2008-07-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

i would consider it unfair of me to make several posts on a blog in a night, but since this is my first night, hey, why the hell not.

hopefully, with the few yards of fabric i bought (read: my mom bought for me) i'll be able to churn out a couple of cuddly stuffed pillows for RIO and make some money. so far my pre-order list adds up to $115 potential dollars, if the pillows go well, plus two other users planning on buying who just want to see pictures of the finished product first. if i can manufacture the finished product by about this time tomorrow i'll be in the clear. or more accurately, the green. here is some bookkeeping to help me think about things properly. if all these numbers seem low, it's because i am a small person, and therefore require only small amounts of money.

current funds:
$40 in bank
~$20 in cash
negligible amount in debit card

potential funds:
$115 from comfirmed pillow sales
$70 from potential/discussed but not yet confirmed pillow sales
$40 on august 1st

expenses:
$20 for pitchfork transportation
$10 for 4th of july (maybe $8 if i can manage to find tickets elsewhere)
$36 at least for "medical expenses"
$10 i owe anna
$10 i owe danny

obviously the pillows will be a godsend. i hope i can get everything worked out and start making them in my little one-girl basement sweatshop, and then all will be well.

well;

2008-07-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

i guess blogging on IAM is no longer a viable option for me, considering that a. my account time is quickly running out, and b. i honestly have less and less interest in body modification. so i made this blogger, like any young idealist wannabe hipster would, but hopefully i'll manage to update it with more than some cryptic free-form poetry or fuzzy holga pictures on the occasion.

documenting my life has always been important to me, because i am terrified that if i don't know who i was last year, i won't know who i am today. for nearly 4 years i've kept a sketchbook, an online journal, or both. right now i'm keeping a sketchbook diary which is somewhat more intimate than any other online journal, meaning that i will write about sex in my sketchbook, glance at it nervously the next day and wonder if i should tear it out, and then decide that if i edit anything i've ever written i'll lose a part of myself.

there aren't many people i know who have blogs, but i'm sure that eventually someone from the real world will find me, and i'm terrified of that day. rterrified! i take more comfort in the probable fact that there are faceless strangers reading my thoughts, bathed in the blue glow of their computer monitors, than in the possibility that someone from my school or one of my friends could be reading these, not really my innermost thoughts, but somewhat far in there. i don't want someone i barely talk to, or worse, someone i talk to a lot, approaching me somehow and saying, "hey, i read your blog!". although i can't guarantee that anyone from the real world will ever do that, i just don't want them to tell me. please.