Scornfully Rejected

Another page from the story Nick wrote that I'm illustrating. HOPEFULLY I'll be done soon!!!

40% & 80% warm grey prismacolor markers (permanent ink illustration markers), micron pigma pens (archival ink), graphite pencil.

Drawn in Gimme! Coffee, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY (hands down the best latte milk I've ever had. So good!!!)

Christmas Presents

I illustrated some memories I have of my parents for Christmas and framed them in gallery frames. I'm regretting not finishing them earlier because then I would have been able to scan them...


This story reads:

"ONCE UPON A TIME ...Mrs. Kochi's 5th grade class was taking a field trip to Wisconsin's CAVE OF THE MOUNDS. However this was different than any other field trip - this time we were allowed to bring PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICES. Because this was the 1990's, that meant we were allowed to bring our SONY DISC MAN-s and CD collections! A privilege almost never granted!

However, there was one problem - I did not OWN a Sony Discman, and also didn't have another music player. I asked my mom for one, got denied, got angry, and then decided I was doomed to be the most UNDESIRABLE kid in the WHOLE CLASS.

HOWEVER, because my mother was young once, she owned her own collection of music and gave me a replacement music player. "Here, use my old tapes!" she said, as she offered up LED ZEPPELIN'S In Through the Out Door and WINGS' GREATEST HITS. "Ew Mom, what ARE these?" was all I said in reply and shoved the tapes and Walkman into my bag.

THE NEXT DAY we boarded the bus towards Cave of the Mounds. ALL of my classmates were wearing their headphones and listening to CDs, and I was INSANELY jealous. It was just so unfair! I furtively loaded WINGS GREATEST HITS into the tape player and hoped NO ONE saw.

But someone DID see, and it was my biggest crush - Peter L***. "IS THAT WINGS!?" Peter asked me. "Oh...yeah." "THAT IS SO COOL! I love PAUL MC CARTNEY!" said Peter.

My mom's tapes had not only granted me the ABILITY to talk to Peter the whole rest of the ride, but showed me just how RIGHT parents can be - even when you don't want to believe it. Cassettes never sounded SO GOOD. <3 Leanne"

This one was for my dad:

This story reads:
"Dudette and Old Dude were driving down HWY 83 in a 1970's suburban from one farm to another. In the darkness of the road, Old Dude changed the station to WKLH after Dudettes many complaints of NPR being "TOO BORING." As the static cleared and the music was audible, Old Dude "Ooh THIS SONG!" and cranked up the volume. "THIS IS WHAT GOOD MUSIC SOUNDS LIKE."

"You Can't Always Get What You Want" was the first song on the station. "How interesting," thought Dudette. She had never considered her father's history, or that he had been young once, or that he was even a ROLLING STONES fan.

Next was JETHRO TULL'S AQUALUNG, and again, Old Dude knew every word.

The final song and most important moment was Norman Greenbaum's "SPIRIT IN THE SKY". Dudette had never seen her father in such an element; lost in the beauty of a song. She silently wished she saw him like this more often as a smile cracked across her face.

There they were, riding together in the country, DUDETTE'S HAIR ripping in the summer night air, and Old Dude's hand out the window, crooning.

LITTLE DID HE KNOW that this little glimpse into her father's "other side"; this view of his true personality - would impact not only her musical tastes, but the way she saw Old Dude from then on - as not only her dad, but as someone she could relate to more than she had previously assumed. <3>

These were both done in my sketch book, with Prismacolor markers, Micron Pigma black ink pens, Staedtler graphic ink pens, and colored pencils. I hope I make more of these; they were fun!

.LMB.

Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of

So I'm in Chicago again, for the first time since August, and I have never felt so complacent and warm and cozy in a place....Not even after I moved back here after living in NY the first time.

As my train rolled in down the familiar tracks from Milwaukee to Chicago, I didn't read, I didn't draw, I didn't sleep. I just looked out the window with some headphones on. I was too excited - I couldn't miss a thing. The sun setting over the snow, the way the cold was coming through the door every stop we made. The snow was rushing past the salty windows and the train had it's usual meltdown between Sturtevant and Glenview. But then...we were approaching my true home and the lights were visible through the snow-fog and I just felt that same familiar feeling. The ripping of my heart down the middle and the pouring-out of all the gooey goodness of my memories and loves, back into my veins and arteries again. Top to bottom, into my nerve endings and into my tear ducts, swelling and subsiding and release and a great big exhale that transformed my entire face into a smile. With teeth. After staring at the lights on Lake Shore Drive, soon enough I found myself in Froilan's apartment with Erik.just warming up and settling down and in. Then he walked in from riding his bike in the cold...and despite the snow on his facemask and coat and Smartwools, I recieved the biggest, warmest, best hug I have gotten since I left. It took all I had to not physically tackle him when he walked into the room, let alone burst into happytears.

The past few days have been amazing. Cooking vegan dinners at Jen's with Erin and Froilan and new friends, Morrissey cover bands with Chicago locals and late night visits to my favorite Chicago haunts with Kristen. Feeling sick and watching crappy movies in bed with my best girlfriend; eating at my favorite brunch spot and reconnecting with people I never really lost it with. Riding the bus and train and walking in the cold and actually loving every single second of it. Sitting in Dollop, where so much as happened and not happened, and just feeling like I never left.

I don't know if it's because Chicago is where I truly changed, where I truly "grew up" and where I learned most everything about myself, but I have yet to find a place that fills me with that irreplaceable joy I always have of being here. I am going to blame it on my school-less year I spent here, but I never feel like I want to leave when I'm here and nothing else makes me feel like here.

But let's talk about New York. Wow, New York City is my new home. Every single day I have to remind myself of that, because it still doesn't feel real or true or anything. I have only lived in NY for 5 months (not counting the first time I moved there), but I just really don't know if it will ever feel like "home". Chicago felt like home after about a year, like...I didn't want to leave after that...so...I don't want to say for sure that I'll move back to Chicago after school's over, but I definitely will if I don't feel like Brooklyn is my home by the time I'm done.

I was trying to explain this last night, when Jen and Froilan and I were sitting around watching videos of Chicago's FootworKings and super old Usher videos...we started watching the music video for that Jay-Z / Alicia Keys song, because Froilan had never seen it. Laugh all you want, but I see the skyline and get that grandiose feeling, and I feel like I know Brooklyn and find it extremely intriguing and interesting and constantly satiating my need for urban beauty and decay....and I explore all these new places and see extreme beauty, and every day is new new new and ready to be figured out. NYC is a city where you wouldn't have to repeat yourself one single day if you didn't want to - there's enough stuff and people and places within the city and borough limits to entertain anyone for the rest of their life. You essentially don't have to leave, ever, for anything. Not for the country, not for the ocean, not for a difference in culture, not for anything. The weather is more doable than the midwest and people are generally more accepting of just being 100%totallyfreaky-YOU no matter what that is, but New York City is just too much all the time.

I don't want to sound too negative about my new city (and I have to start calling it that because I fucking LOVE Brooklyn) - I have had some of the best nights in my entire life in Brooklyn and Manhattan; some even in the Bronx and SURPRISINGLY one in Jersey City. I am meeting and have met some incredibly amazing people so far. Everything is very real and upfront and visceral...which is precisely what I signed up for. So on that side, I am getting everything I want. I have a great living situation, and for that I am grateful because my roommate Nick is one of my closest friends in the city, but even so I still feel like it is so impossible to get into a niche in Brooklyn...I have these friends now, which I was so afraid I wasn't going to be able to make, and I run into people in the weirdest places kind of like I've been here longer than I actually have, but I miss knowing a place like the back of my hand. I miss knowing a city and having an extreme pride for it and just feeling like it truly IS the best city in the whole wide wide world, hey.

You know, I decided to move to Brooklyn and applied to NYU because I wanted nothing more than to have a fresh start; one where my past made me who I was but didn't matter as much as the here and now. Isn't it funny now, that I miss being non-anonymous? That I miss my connections and everything that I had that on one hand I realized I had and love with all of my heart...but on the other hand, didn't even fully realize until it wasn't there? New York City and Chicago aren'tthat much different in size for the difference I feel in community.

And maybe that's just it; maybe I haven't given it enough time or space or let it thaw out enough before I can get warm to it. No matter how many free vegan activist community dinners I attend and no matter how many subway rides over the bridges and no matter how many spur of the moment urban exploration trips and no matter how many countless hours in my classes and field work I have spent learning and taking everything in, I probably just haven't given myself the time and care to settle down and really settle in, the way I did in Chicago. To make those friends without thinking they are temporary; to stop thinking about "what if what if what if" and what I'm missing, constantly. Clearly my friends here in Chicago aren't going anywhere - I'm back after almost half a year it's like basically nothing life-altering has changed...including those that I love. Their arms - my friends' and the city's - are always going to be flung wide open, and I'm always going to have the option and support of going wherever I go. I know I will feel so homesick after this week-long stint in my favorite place in the universe, but it is a reminder that it is still here and is exactly how I want it...and that is so invaluable.

I guess in my first quarter of getting my MSW I have really learned what it is to completely and totally bust-ass at school. This was definitely the hardest semester I have ever endured...not just the turmoil and excitement of a new place and people and discovering all that I didn't know before, both good and bad, but just extremely tough events that have happened through this fall and winter. Friends dying. Family members dying. My parents' marriage dying. Learning to navigate a complex and gigantic and extremely trying university system instead of having it work for me constantly. Learning to be okay with letting myself cry to my best friends on the phone instead of just being okay with the vice versa. Learning that those friends aren't going anywhere, no matter where they are located; learning that it is in fact possible to find new ones in a place where it previously wasn't - without forgetting or replacing those sewn into my heart.

I am coming out of the last 5 months with amazing stamina and pride...with a lot of ambition and hope.With a sense of the resiliency that I have been learning about in all of my classes that I am just now realizing I actually possess. With a lot of plans and a lot of desire toreally get it good this time. To not just get my foot in the door but to open that door wide open and move it on into my spot in the big city. I feel like I can do it, and I feel like I'm okay with feeling the desire for Chicago as long as it isn't going to inhibit me in my current New York City life.

There's nothin' you can't do...
And I think I actually believe that now.

.LMB.

Bust Holiday Craftacular

...I am hoping that it is like walking through a real-life version of Etsy, because that's what the website makes it seem like!

If you're in Manhattan come check it out :) Sorry updates have been so sparse, I am in the throes of finals...in 2 weeks, I'll be 1/4 done with my MSW!

.LMB.
I'm going to this tomorrow with my friend Shane:

No More Games.

One of the pages from a cute little story Nick basically wrote and I basically am drawing. Still a little rough, and the story isn't finished yet because I am drowning in procrastinating on school work.

Westward

I've said it before, but I'm pretty sure that after I am through with New York City, I am going to have an affair with the West for a while. I miss the woods and colors and the smell of dirt and the feeling of "in place" that I felt while visiting. Portland, here I come.

Naïve . Super

My roommate Nick let me borrow Naïve. Super by Erlend Loe and I just started reading it last night. I am in love already - the style of writing is perfect for me.


.LMB.

Coffee in sunset park is cuter than any other!

King of Sorrow

I'm crying everyone's tears
And there inside our private war
I died the night before
And all of these remnants of joy and disaster
What am I suppose to do

I want to cook you a soup that warms your soul
But nothing would change, nothing would change at all
It's just a day that brings it all about
Just another day and nothing's any good

The DJ's playing the same song
I have so much to do
I have to carry on
I wonder if this grief will ever let me go
I feel like I am the king of sorrow, yeah
The king of sorrow

I suppose I could just walk away
Will I disappoint my future if I stay
It's just a day that brings it all about
Just another day and nothing's any good

The DJ's playing the same song
I have so much to do
I have to carry on
I wonder will this grief ever be gone
Will it ever go
I'm the king of sorrow, yeah
The king of sorrow

I'm crying everyone's tears
I have already paid for all my future sins
There's nothing anyone
Can say to take this away
It's just another day and nothing's any good

I'm the king of sorrow, yeah
King of sorrow
I'm the king of sorrow, yeah
King of sorrow




[I've been on a Sade kick as of late...and as usual she's really good at hitting the nail on the head with her sweet jams. A lot of things are going on right now with me...maybe a longer post is in store, but maybe not. Sorry for the recent silences.]

.LMB.

sometimes

A lot of times I don't think it was that much of a fluke that I felt that great out West. That it wasn't just happenstance that I wanted to just stay in Portland, Oregon; to not even want to return to the Midwest after that green, rainy, petal-and-leaf-and-coffee-filled week and just sink into what felt so naturally good. I felt at home in a place I had never been; my first solo-trip to a place where I literally knew nobody and it felt right. For once I was totally anonymous and it felt good instead of awful; for once, I didn't have to force it.

I want that again. I want the Northwestern air and I want to feel "right" where I am.

This is not to say that NYC is not where I'm supposed to be right now - the city itself, and my New-York-life outside of school, is going really really well. It's just...I can't stop thinking about how long I'm going to have to keep talking myself into this degree. To keep convincing myself that yes, I do want to do this when all I can think about is how much I'd rather be working on the rooftop farm or drawing or drinking good beers. Or all of the above.

And I know that once I have the degree I will be able to do what I want with it - eventually have a private practice, eventually be able to have that cute little bakery in the city with the non-profit side that teaches cooking and gardening classes to the community. To run the women's recovery groups and to do art therapy projects. I can do all these things, if I just get there.

But getting there's the problem when I am not sure...
...especially after figuring out what "being sure" feels like.

It's just that I didn't feel this with my last degree...yes, I wanted to draw sometimes instead of write a paper, but I never once had to convince myself that I was majoring in the right thing. That I was getting a degree that I knew I would use. I knew that after the first women's studies class I took; for whatever reason, being a professional feminist was absolutely what I needed to do.

I would just really love to feel that certain - in anything - again.


I'm not sad I left the Midwest, but I do miss it. Wisconsin's rural beauty and kitschy charm; Chicago's brutal, endearing grime that is laced with nostalgia and my first new feeling of "home". Missing the place where I found myself makes me sad, but I don't regret the decision to leave at all. Regrets and pressing fond memories are two very different issues. The fall makes me miss Wisconsin in specific, and the things I miss about it are many.


You know the smell of cold air? It smells different in a city than in a field.
Or under an oak tree, on a hay trailer.
Or rolling through an open window.
The smell of a yarn scarf pulled up under your nose.
Campfires.
Apples.
Crunchy leaves.
Trails that are not paved.
Needing to get back home before dark because there are no streetlights and you are in the woods.
Night sounds.
Falling asleep in wildflowers, because you can.


It's not time for me to return home.
No, instead...
I think I need to go West again...just for a little while.
I need to take a trip out to Oregon or Washington for a minute and breathe all of that in again.
And then maybe I will feel ready to come back to the big question mark hanging over my New York City life right now.


....And now, to figure out how to make that happen.


.LMB.

CHIVES

Chives. 2009. Micron graphic ink and Prismacolor graphic markers. 65lb acid free paper.

Drawn for Greenpoint Rooftop Farms in Brooklyn!

the stop i see every monday, wednesday, and friday! Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

Sustainable Silver East NY Farms Trip

A poster I drew for our upcoming trip:





At least the group I'm a part of is giving me a little opportunity for some drawings!

.LMB.

wuh-oh

My collection/book/story/etc. has totally taken a back seat to everything happening right now. I can't decide how I feel about this, but most of the time I do not like it.

Paul Simon

I could listen to this song, forever, and just never get sick of it. I wish I had an un-live version to post here...but you get the point. This song had been stuck in my head for days...for good reason.