how now brown cow

Oh! well, I haven't been here in a while. I really just checked to see what the date was of the last black lodge and the krautrock night and then saw I hadn't posted in 5 months.
Up until this week really I've just been hibernating a lot..partially due to a heightened sensitivity to the cold weather and a pretty strong case of the blues.

But this week I send out my grad school application and I'm anticipating hearing back if the Trailside Museum wants to hire me! Finally I can get the fuck out of emergency care photo research. All in one week! I've been quite excited.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Maybe I'll get back to this sometime again with the fervor that I used to..last year was a great year for exploration of things, meeting new people, etc. This year is going to be a little more fixing of myself.

-j.

the use of the F word has risen significantly

ughhhhhhhh I'm so tired and have been tired for weeks and I keep...going.... and the weekend hits and I can't seem to just calm down. Now unfortunately I'm also slightly homeless. I say slightly in the sense that I'm not entirely without places to stay, its just that I really hate imposing on friends and frankly monday thru thursday nights with the exception of wednesdays, I just want to be alone...my parents house is a wonderful place to stay, also comfortable and my cat is there, but its way too fucking far from Sudbury, I've made the commute up in three days and I just get so tired...waking up at 5:30 and coming back there at..8:00pm...and then going to sleep in like an hour and a half, its no way to live. I'm a little bit screwed. Also I had to pay a lot to fix my car from all the commuting so that sort of wiped out the security fund. Around here there's really just nothing, anyway, not even a room to crash in. I didn't really have these 'oh shit' kind of feelings but we have this huge storm coming today and it'd just be nice to be securely somewhere. I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going tonight. I am so sick of driving. :(

BLEAH!

UF. some days I think repairing the international space station would be an easier job than mine.

anyway I never update this thing but have lost any will to keep doing what im supposed to so here goes.

me and the wee mars are having troubles finding a place to live!! i should clarify. mars is happy and content in westport its just that her MOTHER misses her and I'd like to think mars misses her too. also every day it depends on my mood, if im gun-hoe for living with a roommate or two. today im all about not. and so far with roomates they do not want a cat. i can understand.

craigslist makes me dizzy. speaking of dizzy i need to get super glue to fix the wing on my glasses.

ughhhhhhh.
xo

MOVE # 17

aaaagh. shit. moving in september, or ideally, august, and i'm sad i can't afford a lot of places on my own in boston. this is going to be tricky...

update!

i have much to report but unfortunately i haven't figured out how to use this thing via the ipad so I might have to use some other method besides blogger, which frankly, im open to..tumblr seems to be more my style (sorry blogger). so far this summer has been nice and ive been on a strict limeaid and hot dog diet combined with lots of bike riding. some plans for at least three photo projects in the works however, I need like a whole day to do them. i finally stopped obtaining polaroid cameras, i sold a lot of them anyway to pay for the ipad, which was fine, i think storing so much stuff like a squirrel in my room was/IS overbearing. can't purchase anything unnecessary for a while as I need funding to move. i didn't remember this decision though yesterday when i bought more polaroid film. shit. oh well. i should work.

Lost is fucking stupid. I had a wonderful weekend. Bunnies and j.

Rufus the Raccoon

My head was about to explode at work. Then I found Rufus.

4AD thursday

4AD. best label ever. i had no one else to listen to the cocteau twins either as a teenager, except for my cousin and his goth friends. and if i was still living in nebraska i might not be saying any of this stuff at all. gosh. its a wonder i came out ok.
we're posting videos. unfortunately mine keep disappearing, I do not understand!
oh well.
its sunny out today,unlike the last 3 days, i had a blues attack at the bar last night and worried a couple people which i was surprised i did----its the first time my disappearing had gone noticed! felt pretty cared about.
grieshaber yelled "SNAP OUT OF IT!" to me.
ah. blues never hurt anyone (that is not true).
at least i didn't pull a stunt like that adorable penguin from encounters at the end of the world. he REALLY lost his way.
better-ish today. sleepy. im supposed to drive a long way to go to umass tonight. i could use a shower, i was too lazy to take one this morning. and a nap. and to clean my room and maybe start....packing things in boxes....or burying them. I feel like that would be easier! like a bunch of time capsules.
if anyone wants a typewriter now would be a REALLY ideal time to ask me, because I read something on "hoarding" and I got scared. (though I forget, I'm confined to a small room with many many things....so it definitely looks like crazypersonville in there)
oooh. ipad funding is almost complete. :)

i really feel at the mercy lately of the weather. eeeesh. though today it looks like the sun....oh wait... nope..not here, it was here earlier.
my mom called me yesterday to say she was looking at a giiiiiiiiant rainbow in westport! she said the last time she saw one that big was the day I had moved back home in 2005. that rainbow was insane... i have a photo of it somewhere and I should find it.

memorial for the rabbits who drowned in the warwick mall flood tonight at thee fez! instantly will cheer up! until then I have to find some photos with "more bleeding". ffffffffffff.

bunny cast

yeah, im just going to say it. its really nice not being the only one that appreciates 100 year old birds on perches, moreso, seeing one get excited about how fluffy and sad and ugly with a hint of cuteness baby turkey vultures look. little things like this. god they are bad..baby birds never ever look good initially. loneliness again gets temporarily put on hold and back in its suitcase. i had a nice evening i just wish i could fix more things. and started to space out just now. just overtired. mogwai tunes on all day.
today im pretty tired and useless. in rhode island right now it seems like everyones getting pelted with hail and thunder and lightning. man, that little state has gotten such crazy weather the last few months! id like to go listen to the rain and...hammock.
ok thats all for now. tomorrow ill scan some more bird prints and maybe see if its possible to scan the glass negatives too...

I don't mean to brag...

but I keep obtaining more and more cameras for FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE! and polaroid film! bwahahahaah!

so the latest good grab is as follows:

i was doing some spying on ebay for a polaroid id portraiture camera--one that would take 4 photos on a sheet. Or 2. Or 6. Sure enough I found one, and hidden in the description of this camera was that it included some film. A photo that accompanied showed a wealth of polaroid film - 600 and spectra... definitely expired but not horrifically expired. Had this been made aware of in the description it definitely would have been bid on.

Naturally, I used my paypal credit line and obtained this camera.
It showed up today at work.

To my disappointment however, I found no way to turn this on, and also saw that there was a section for a key. Digging through in research, I found that the only way to turn this camera on was by a key, which was not included in the box. I called the company i got it from and they didn't have the key and said "we'll just refund you, you can keep the camera." 3 minutes later I got refunded the amount of the camera plus the shipping in my paypal account. AND i get to keep the film for free.

So just now, I called someone from a laminex distributer in New York, who was extremely friendly, and inquired if I could get a key. I gave him my the serial number. Sure enough, there's a key that will work for this, that I am getting sent at no charge.

:)

So once again, I got a free camera and will find way less space in my room to store it.

the end!
xxxxxxooxoxoxoxoxo.

whhhiiiiiissssssskkkkkkkkaaaaaaayyyyyy bunny!

It is a joy and a privledge to be in the company of an ex-Prof. named Whiskey Bunny. I can't wait.

happy 20th twin peaks/smiling and sleeping at a rest stop

so the brattle is playing the pilot episode and the first 4 episodes of twin peaks tonight....so i could do this for 20 bucks (2 different screenings..the 3rd and 4th episodes are playing at 9 or 9:30). however, I'm currently typing this sideways as I am so so so sleepy and staring at a computer all day certainly doesn't help, though listening to every instance that Gordon Cole appears in twin peaks certainly did.

Yesterday I took Russian panoramic photos of a new friend I've made. He is about a foot tall and has a big problem (or solution, if you'd like to look at it that way!) with whiskey. His name is Whiskey Bunny. Poor whiskey bunny. I saw him fall down a lot. I wish I could have gotten there earlier when Kevin was giving shots of gingerale to a little 8 year old kid that spent his birthday at the fez with whiskey bunny. Wow...imagine whiskey bunny being available to cater to kids birthday parties. Those kids would certainly have something to brag about on the bus.

Afterwards, I listened to more pretty tunes and laughed and watched someone glow in a car for a couple hours until the providence police told us to leave. At some point a gigantic van parked in the fez parking lot. maybe it had been there the whole time but when I saw it i kept staring at it. really. as soon as i get my car in my name, and as soon as the whole issue of driving daily gets resolved by whichever means end up happening, I really do want to get a windowless or heavily tinted van. call me a c hild molester, but I could definitely hole up in one of these and this would solve a lot of issues involving money. of course that would mean though that living with mars gets delayed even further. and.....ill be 27 and in a goddamn van. something is very wrong about that. who would love a girl that lives in a van? well....if it was an Astro van, that's a different story.

Oh, so to wrap up my evening, I got way too tired to drive so I ended up sleeping in my car at the rest stop on route 95 near 495. initially I parked and had my window down to feel the breeze but then realized I was definitely in a "female car" with a lot of big trucks around. granted though this is a giuant rest stop so I had one whole parking area to myself. climbed in the back to my trusty 1983 batman sleeping bag and pillow. I found an unopened bottle of raspberry lime poland springs seltzer so that ruled. and then i woke up to the sound of cars on the highway and the sun coming up. so thats where me and my tight pants are right now.

also last night saw meg elias. we are not related but its funny she has the same last name as i do! she is cute.

I'm going to a goth night on Friday. Maybe going to design an outfit with my feather collection.

OK!

haha, its silly that im posting this, but yeah, its 9:33 and I am still at work for I got my slide film in and was so excited that I had to scan it. And seeing as I no longer have a computer, and my scanner broke, work is the only option for me to do so, and after hours.

I am going to go have a drink and then go for a bike ride.

problems and solutions to a store window, filled with old polaroid cameras.

Hey. You know what? Never give up. And don't inquire about store "decorations" around christmas time.

So back in November '09 or so I decided on my break at work to go to the whole foods in Wayland to purchase soap and probably an overpriced lunch. Whole Foods drives me nuts but when I do go in there it makes me want to get creative and start cooking a lot, unlike when I go into Foodmaster where the thought is "What here is microwavable?" So I noticed there was a store called Photo Video Store a few stores over in the plaza and I decided to take a look at what I thought appeared to be things with lenses in the windows......I got closer...and closer...and then neurons burst for in three of the windows on each little shelf was a little antique camera!!!! One window was mostly 35mm's, another brownies, one shelf had the cutest TINY little yashica, maybe it was 6x6, but the window that grabbed my attention was the one filled with polaroid cameras. SX-70s, pack film cameras, a couple of the old kodak ones, some regular polaroids..... and then I looked in the store and saw even more way high up near the ceiling on a shelf.

Naturally, I thought "Fuck whole foods" and went inside this photo shoppe.

Inquiring about the cameras, I learned that they were from the original owner, who was in his 70s and came in very infrequently. He was an obsessive collector of old cameras and had way more in his own home. I mentioned I , uh, liked polaroids. A lot. Were any of them for sale? The man behind the counter said not technically but he'd ask the owner and for me to check back. I walked away very intrigued.

Two weeks from then I called the shoppe, again, inquiring about the cameras, could they take my name and number. Sure.... but this time a lady was like "I don't think he'll give those away." "I can pay for one". "I don't think he'll sell them." Ok.

I didn't hear back, so another week later I called and the owner actually was there. Someone asked for him that a lady was interested in buying a camera. The owner said yeah sure..$25.00 would be fine. Wow! I thought. Except that I didn't have $25.00 until the next time I got paid and was commuting to work via whatever money I could find. Then I got busy and just never ended up going to the shoppe.

Christmas time came around and I made the mistake of going there like....really close to Christmas. The old owner was there and NOT in a good mood. "Hi I'm the girl that was interested in the..." I was cut off. "NO WAY. Look lady, just..not now. Unless you have $10,000". "I don't".

So I was kind of bummed and figured that was that and i had a pile of cameras anyway but no sx-70. Then finally my dad found his old one and gave it to me. Then I obtained another one at a goodwill. Not the folding kind but the more modern one with the built-in focal distance. Then I tried some sx-70 film. And then this was amazing and I kept thinking about this store.

So today, Monday, April 5th, I had to go to the photo shoppe anyway to pick up some slide film that I had been waiting 3 weeks for. It was ready, and I thought I'd give it one more shot at obtaining one of these little gems.

Sure enough, the kind man behind the desk called the owner, who had decided he had so many cameras that he was going to bring in even more from his own personal collection and "give some away." I was then told "you can just take whatever sx-70s you want."

You can just take whatever sx-70s you want.

What?

Yeah, sure. Just don't take the Polaroid Printer.

...................OK!

So yeah. My passenger seat of my car now has 5 sx-70s (I snagged all) + a polaroid 450 which I didn't get to look too close at but the lenses on these are supposed to be really nice. All of the cameras were quite dusty but so far I just tried one of the ones with a sonar and it works! Just a couple pieces on it are broken but nothing that impairs picture taking.

Also, my slide film looks really cool. I can't wait to scan the photos from Videodrome! I just want to run around outside! Things are suddenly just really really nice lately and I'm still quite surprised!

Also, I didn't eat breakfast or lunch today and the only thing I have right now is skippy chunky peanut butter. Rather than just grab a fork from upstairs, I used the next best thing to eat a bit of peanut butter with, which was the non-ink end of a fat sharpie marker. I win.

dear march

ok, fine, if you're going to rain, just get it over with now. I don't want to see this crap in July.

Kind wishes,
Jess

--

also, hm. I might sew some decoy rabbits to a black dress for tomorrow evening. i just hope there aren't any hunters that show up at the fez. ooh that reminds me I need to see if I can find some color fuji peel apart film..this may be tricky as lately im having difficulty finding it in the photo shoppes and im not sure why....black and white is always there but not the color..and it looks really good.. if not though, 'tis ok.

--

also, my usage of text emoticons displaying the 'happy face' has soared recently. id like to state that while this is extremely unfamiliar territory, it's extremely welcome. and nice. I think I've missed out on some things. and the bonus part is that most of the time I end up then smiling IRL. haha, yeah I typed that. but really. see?

:)

ok time to get sushi, I'm treating myself! Thanks tax returns! You were way smaller than I thought!

let me see you stripped down to the bone

i remember playing depeche mode's 'stripped' everytime I got in sight of a keyboard. been listening to it rather obsessively lately, particularly the 'highland mix' version as its a bit darker, slower, and in a sense, romantic as hell, or at least it conjures up those feelings for me. as well as much minimal 1980s synth from france, and it goes without saying, kraftwerk has made a huuuuuuge comeback in my little cd player and record player lately, and that my dears is a very good sign im relatively happy.

also, GODDAMNIT, someone has posted a 4x5 burke and james monorail camera w/ lens AND polaroid 545 back on craigslist for $150.00. They are up the road in lexington. this is very cheap. right before I checked the ol' camera listings, I dropped some money on the new monochromatic film + more fadetoblack film PLUS maybe more polaroid chocolate film, I can't remember if I threw that in there... how impulsive, as usual. I have sold some things on ebay that made more money than I thought, so its sort of like....its just getting recycled. however, this makes traveling a little more difficult.

other nice things are happening too. ive been dancing a lot more lately. and shooting polaroids every day, and walking around late at night, and catching myself smiling a lot more.

ok. back to work and checking on the live owl box web cam feed.

"I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and underdeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all [men] have." - henry david thoreau

also, im really looking forward to thee fez tonight. lately i feel like a moth who REALLY finds itself immersed in those red lights... it seems those lights are serving better guidance than the moon. also, the company of some particularly intriguing people.

i haven't really written much of note lately so here's a brief bit before I meet up with a couple friends.

i have a favorite phrase. or maybe it's a part of one. "when you least expect it".

i took photos, obtained 2 cameras, fished through life magazine for a long time, spent $6.00 on amazing postcards, sent the russians to sneak up on the german forces but that one didn't work out too well so instead I flew a kite that I keep in my car for times like that when I'm again by myself, trekked up to providence, found something rad at the fucking goth store, trekked to the apartment where there was a lot of kids here, threw a lot of stuff in my hair, off to tt the bears and watch a strange crowd. dj chris ewen did play depeche mode which i enjoyed and that other 80s tune thats REALLY good and I cant remember the name. also lady gaga which again, I still don't get.... later a dear friend and I watched a cat circle around the block a bunch. he guards this particular part of cambridge.

spring is off to a really nice start. Im getting out more. the desire to be around people, particularly those I care about or moreso wish to see a lot more is surprisingly high, unlike last spring/summer, which was fantastic but acceptingly lone-wolf. hm.

ok, i need to eat something and call my cat.

"I have spit my pitch gum out of my mouth onto her walls and floors and sometimes onto her booths."

Episode 28, Log Lady Introduction:

(Holding log directly in front of her, instead of the usual position cradled in her arms.)

"A log is a portion of a tree. (Turning end of log to camera.) At the end of acrosscut log--many of you know this--there are rings. Each ring represents one year in the life of the tree. How long it takes to grow a tree!

"I don't mind telling you some things. Many things I, I mustn't say. Just notice that my fireplace is boarded up. (She glances over her right shoulder at the fireplace and the camera moves over to it, where we see the opening covered by plywood.) There will never be a fire there.

"On the mantelpiece, in that jar, are some of the ashes of my husband. (Camera pans up to the mantel where we see a vase, a pipe stand, and some old pictures--none recognizable.)

(Camera pans down to Log Lady.) "My log hears things I cannot hear. But my log tells me about the sounds, about the new words. Even though it has stopped growing larger, my log is aware."