pics and such...

some photos from mom's big birthday celebration:







***
it's good to be back in ol' new york. on the cab ride home from Penn Station, i was SHOCKED to find a touchscreen tv mounted into the backseat. a TV!! how long have i been gone?

*happy*

man, this vacation business REALLY WORKS, people!
everything on my list has been accomplished:
totally relaxed? check.
sufficiently tanned (well...freckled)? check.
perpetually full? check.

there was beach walking and magazine reading. turkey sandwiches and coke. Friends watching (i even got my 89-year-old papa hooked on Season 9. ha!) and amazing dinners out. and of course, my personal favorite, sleeping in...ahh, vacation. how i will miss you...i am heading back to the city tomorrow, but feel really ready for it: relaxed, motivated, happy. BRING it.

(interesting side note: i heard several times throughout the week that i MUST get to the stage. maybe broadway. definitely stand-up. hmmmm. i have heard this before. but the very thought of getting up on a stage and telling jokes makes me want to peeee! but hey - maybe i could incorporate that into the 'act'!)

anyway, that's all i got. see ya on the flipside. i don't really know what that means.

Vacation

I feel like a travelin' fool lately. Here I am, on my way out of the city once again, but I feel as if I am only just now recovering from the whitewater rafting “adventure” of last weekend -- (I know I said I would write more about that and I never did. The cliffs notes version is that it was very tiring and very trying. Not physically. But mentally. And I'm talking about the people, not the rapids. I realized something very important about myself during this trip though: I do not enjoy big group getaways, which is what this was. The disorganization and all the small talk get to me. Ugh. Oh well. Lesson learned.)

Anyhoo…there were a few cold and rainy (but semi-relaxing) days back in New York, but now I am on the go again. I feel like I have barely been home these last few weeks. This summer has turned out to be a packed and fleeting one. I can’t believe we are on the brink of fall already (I am not allowed to speak of fall around certain friends here. Most New Yorkers seem to be in denial that their summer-in-the-city is ending. So shhhh….you didn’t hear it from me).

I am now on an Amtrak train headed for Philly where I will meet up with mom and George. The three of us will then drive the rest of the way to the Jersey Shore (YAY the beach!) where we will be spending the next 6 days together with my grandfather, who is awaiting our arrival in Stone Harbor. This is a summer 'family tradition' and I am SO looking forward to some good quality family time. Plus my mom's gotta BIG birthday this weekend, so we've got some serious celebratin’ to do!

And I am very much looking forward to the QUIET. A quiet environment. A quiet brain. My brain has been very noisy and full lately. And as this train pulls me closer and closer to Philly, that noise only grows louder. I’ve made this Philly trip a handful of times over the last half a year or so, but under much different circumstances, with a smile on my face and butterflies in my stomach. Off to see a certain someone who had walked back into my life for a brief moment of time. It has only been a few months since my last trip like that, but it feels like 2 lifetimes ago b/c of all the confusion and silence that has since transpired. I HATE confusion and silence. But….sigh...what can ya do? Such is life sometimes, unfortunately. And such is the complexity of the human heart and relationships. Ah well.....blah blah blah. Enough of that. I’m gonna wrap this up but will choose to end on a happy note: I am going to THE BEACH! And with my amazing family whom I love love love….!! There we go. That’s better. And now I am off to watch some Friends on my laptop until I hear the calls for Philly's 34th Street Station. I love technology.

here they are...

the finished Jersey bowl pics, as promised.







it has officially been sold and is now living happily in...(drum roll pls.)...New Jersey!!! i know, you didn't see that one coming...i have to say, with this sale under my belt, i really feel like a REAL ARTIST!

*we will keep this strictly an art post...more to come later on the "rafting adventure" of this weekend. which wasn't the WORST weekend of my life. necessarily. BUT, like i said, more to come on that later. maybe.)*

Structure

This week I discovered that I don't do very well without structure. This alarming discovery came about when I was graciously given (basically) Monday-Thursday off because both of my bosses were out of town. I say basically because I did go into the office occasionally, usually around 2pm, to check on mail, faxes, etc. Depending on what had come in, I either stayed an hour or so, or I left. Yeah I know, it's rough (and how AMAZING are my bosses for doing such a kind thing, right?). BUT, to my dismay, I did not do very well with such "openness". I know, I know -- what is WRONG with me?! This is every artist's/musician's dream -- to be able to spend endless hours and entire days writing, creating, etc...But I just felt...lost...and a little frozen. I had these big, empty days ahead of me, and I honestly did not know what to do with myself. I had really hoped that I would be able to dip my toe into the waters of "working from home" -- sort of a test to see how I would manage my time if I actually got my art and music off the ground enough to not HAVE to go to an office every day. Looks like I failed that test. I did okay on Monday -- wrote a verse or two of a new song, finished the Jersey bowl (I will post pics soon) and made a significant dent in a new canvas collage piece I am now working on. Tuesday was okay, but not as good as Monday. Wednesday was no good at all. Thursday was worse. Ah well...if that day eventually comes when I CAN sustain myself on art & music alone, I will just have to be really diligent and create my own structure.

Other random "news" from the week:
* there was...another practice with my potential "band" (mentioned here). It went better this time...last time was kind of -eh- but after this second rehearsal, I have hope that it will *maybe* work out. Time will tell...
* there was...Casablanca in Bryant Park. Even though I could hear/see NOTHING, it was still a magical experience. Something about watching an old classic, outdoors, while surrounded by the twinkling lights of NYC ::magic::
* there was...busking in Central Park to earn some extra cash (my roommate came along -- I'm too scared to go alone!). We not only made fast friends with strangers in the park, but I also got to "jam" with a three-year-old named Matthew who had his little guitar with him. It was awesome.
* there was...mucho bookworming: I am almost done with this book, which has gotten MUCH better (good, in fact!) and I only have a few more chapters to go.

Tomorrow I head to the Poconos for a whitewater rafting adventure. Yippeee!

Now if you will excuse me -- I have popcorn to eat and some season 8 Friends to watch (I can't seem to get enough of my Friends this week. It's my "happy place").

weather and other randomness

whew. what a week. we had some 95+ degree heat, a twister in Brooklyn, and some crazy flooding in the subway stations on Wednesday which brought NYC to a screeching halt and caused HUGE problems and delays. it took me 1.5 hours to get to work. i walked. 45 blocks! yikes. there was also another mediocre blind date this week (no one can say i'm not "trying" -- right??) and many late nights with the bowls...after such a muggy and tiresome week, today the weather turned topsy turvy on us and decided to pretend that it's winter. COLD and WET. i find this...confusing...

to celebrate the start of the weekend, my roommate and i went to see Becoming Jane tonight (since our ballet in the park idea was rained/winter-ed out). the first half hour or so i was kinda like, eh...but then, as the film progressed, i found myself fully and completely in it - lost, taken...maybe it is because i felt i could relate on some level (don't we always do that though? take certain aspects of a story and relate it to our own life? or maybe that's just me...) overall, i enjoyed it very much. if nothing else, it certainly piqued my interest in Jane Austen's life -- enough so that i went straight to the bookstore and bought Jon Spence's biography of J.A. -- it will have to get in line, however, for i seem to have accumulated more books than i have the time for. i'm still working on the Emperor's Children. it's not awful. but not great either.

that's all for now. until next time...

love, bowls, etc.

once upon a time, i was very much in love with a boy who made me feel beautiful and artistic and lovely. those were good days...but i'm not going to talk about that here. or the subsequent heartbreak that occurred. what i AM going to talk about is a wonderfully creative project idea that was born out of that relationship. one that i am still working on today. you see, i once made for this boy, for valentine's day (aww), a coffee tumbler with a black and white photo collage of all the cities we had traveled to together. what started out as a cheesy idea actually turned out pretty darn cool. (so he thought. so i thought). shortly after that, i began working at Starbucks, and the boy encouraged me to make a bunch of these and sell them there. i never did. dangit. and we broke up. dangit. but months later, when my NYC obsession really kicked into full gear, i took this idea (but with New York photos only), and transferred it onto wooden bowls:



people liked them. i liked them. so i took them to an art fair in Ann Arbor, and they did pretty well. so i started taking the idea to new levels:


fast forward a year, and those very same bowls & company were being shown at a gallery in New Jersey. fast forward another year, and here i am, in my "studio" (my bedroom) in NYC, making more 3-dimensional collages. i'm really excited about this and have even taken on a couple of commissions, like this Jersey-themed bowl:



it's not finished yet, but you get the idea. anyway, all this is just to share what i am working on as of late...and also to spread the word that i am happy to create a personalized collaged bowl/plate/tray/anything-you-want for you and your loved ones :) i am currently taking orders. just send me a message we can discuss the details.

that's all for now. nighty-night.

i live here.

Originally uploaded by that-city-girl

after work today, i had to go downtown to run some errands. it was so very hot and i was so very sweaty and irritated. and then...on my ride up the escalator at Filene's Basement in Union Square, i looked over and saw this. this view. and my heart skipped a beat because i realized: i live here. this is my home. this beautiful city spread out before me used to be a dream. and now i am here. running errands and living life. *sigh*

ps -- yes, i do have a digital camera now (hooray!) so many more visuals will be decorating the pages of this here little bloggie.

Beauty...

some scenes from Santa Fe (taken by dad)