last thrusday

oh, last thursday..... last thursday, while getting ready to go to work, I simply bent over to pick up a skirt off the floor, pinched a nerve in my back, and fell to the ground screaming in pain. I promise Im not just being dramatic, I was in HORRIBLE pain, some of the worst physical pain I have ever experienced.

I somehow, within a few hours, and with the help of K, managed to get dressed and make it to work, where I sat, drugged and in pain, finishing what needed to be finished before the 4th of July holiday. Yea, Im that dedicated!

So, that is the reason that I have no fun 4th of July images, because I spent the good part of my "holiday" weekend lying flat on my back. SUCKED! 

I don't really have the best history with the holiday...a couple of years ago my dog Zig died on the 4th of July, and for some reason that I can't even really figure out, I am not the biggest fan of fireworks. Who knows? BUT, I was going to turn it all around this year, and even though K and I decided to break the tradition of playing at my dads 4th of July Picnic (that he hosts every year) in order to do some much needed cleaning & packing (urg) I was still looking forward to hanging out with friends, havin' a few brews, and maybe even some homemade ice cream, and hell, maybe I could learn to enjoy fireworks... but no. I laid on my back for 3 days. SUCK.

So this is how I will visually entertain. These images were taken on my iphone on friday when I shuffled (which was my version of walking) up to meet K for lunch at one of our favorite lunch places FREEBIRDS. (I had friday off work, and K had monday off work? that sucked too). I, in pain, was being very cranky at K, and without me knowing what he was doing, he took a pic of me, being cranky.... and then I squished his head. That was the last time I left the house all weekend.

I guess it's only when you can't move very easily, because of shooting pain, that you realize how much you enjoy moving. 

I realized that some of my most favorite things are: 

1. taking walks 

2. dancing or spinning around just about anywhere (including, but not limited to the grocery story, because they are always playing the jams!) 

& 

3. jumping on the bed

... all of which I have not been able to do for almost a week now, and that has bummed me out. I have a whole new respect for people with back problems, and mobility problems in general.

It is now Wed, almost a week, and I am feeling much better. I even attempted a little dance move last night while we made dinner (a move that had previously sent me shuffling to bed, crying in pain). So here's a big HIGH FIVE to the ever amazing ability for a body to heal it's self. I am grateful.

confession: I have a new addiction that I discovered while lying flat on my back. HULU.com!

THIS is the show that I have become addicted to, and coerced K into my addiction as well. We have almost finished the entire 2 seasons. I highly recommend.

reverie

–noun
1. a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing.
2. a daydream.
3. a fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea: reveries that will never come to fruition.
4. Music. an instrumental composition of a vague and dreamy character.

That is my word for the day, and now I will use it in a sentence:

Yesterday I was lost in reverie while walking, with the thoughts of how different clouds must have appeared 100... 500... 1,000 years ago. They had to be different, with a changing environment and ozone and earth temperatures... 

When I left the building after my workday, I was greeted by these guys. These have to be year 2009 clouds... they seem somehow, digitized.

Thank you iphone for helping me again document the sky.

  

confession/obsession
its that time of year when the fruit & veggies at the grocery store start looking and tasting awesome! My personal favorites so far, white peaches and red grapes.

I have a method for eating most things.  

With the grapes I really like to peel the skin off with my teeth, just half of the skin though, then I obsess over the beautiful paring of the contrasting colors; the red of the skin and the pale green of the fruit. when it has been sufficiently admired, I pop it in my mouth, and enjoy the texture of the peeled grape on my tongue.

Stay tuned, and maybe tomorrow i'll describe how I eat a peach, or better yet... ice cream. btw, written sarcasm is not my forte, I am much better at the tone-of-voice sarcasm which is not as clearly detected thru this medium.

control is not a dirty word

When I was studying photography as an undergrad, I hated shooting in the studio. It made me anxious knowing that the image about to be produced was going to be completely under my control, totally determined on how I placed things, how I placed the light, how I approached the subject... no room for chaos, controlled... if it worked, if it didn't work, all on my shoulders, I hated this thought. 

I was totally in love with documentary style photography, coming up on a scene that has not been affected by the photographer (in theory), and showing my interpretation of the scene thru the lens. To me control was a dirty word. If you control nothing, it was not on your shoulders if it failed... I guess this is what I thought. Actually, I secretly wished that I could create in the studio, but I just could not imagine letting myself have that power.

In my life and in my work, I have learned to appreciate a little control. It's really not a dirty word, or a bad thing, actually sometimes it's within the control is where the freedom lies...   

I mean, maybe.

Ok, so that was a bit of rambling to get to show this job that I did a couple weeks ago for the School of Art... shot in the studio, and you know, I really enjoyed it. My 21 year old self would be so proud.

It was also really fun just being the photographer... not the art director, not the designer, not all three of them together, just the photographer. The school is creating a promotion brochure and the students were asked to come in to be shoot with a tool they use in creating their art. It was cool to visit with the student representing the different depts., and to check out their tools!

weekend round-up

Although we thought we had a pretty laid back weekend planned... it really was anything but. On Friday night we went and saw 2 one act plays at a new indie theater in town... The Limelight Theater. Both plays were amazing and I am already eagerly awaiting the next production there. On Sat. I was actually on stage 4...yes that's 4 times! My band The Diamond Center played at noon for the Blue Ribbon Rally, Kyle and I played a set of all REM songs with our friend Daniel Markham, of One Wolf fame, I sang with an old friend that I haven't seen in years, Heath Tolleson, at Bash's and then to top it off Thao, and the guys of The Get Down Stay Down invited Kyle and I up on stage for a song later that night at Bash's II! woooo....
here is Heath and Me (to the left)... I guess this is usually the reaction when you haven't seen anyone in a loooooong time?

At the Blue Ribbon Rally there were so many awesome old cars and motorcycles but my favorite had to be this ART CAR.... CAMERA VAN! Check it out more HERE


I have long had a slight obsession with Art Cars since my sister and I saw our first one at the San Diego Zoo when we were little. (BTW, small side note, Jana swears up and down that she saw that first Art Car we ever saw, the one from the Zoo, in Lubbock about a week ago?) There was a community of Art Cars in Athens and I befriended a awesome artist and art car owner Chris Hubbard ( CHUB ) when I was living there. Chris' car is called the "Heaven and Hell car" and is based on his art... or his art is based on his car... which came first the chicken or the art car? Actually the first piece of art that I purchased for myself was a CHUB piece.  

ok... so that was all kind of random. How was your weekend? Spring is here people!

i am freaking out/my last 3 weekends rocked....literally

I started waaaayyyy back in September, 2008, preparing to apply to grad school. I had it all mapped out in a timely matter to have everything ready for submission early January: research, contacting schools for info, shooting my pieces and arranging my digital portfolio, visiting schools, checking out the schools surrounding community (which is very important to me), filling out applications, writing my "statement of intent" (which I think was harder than birthing a child... although I have never done that so I could not tell you for certain), and finally submitting all the requested materials in the manner requested by each school.... and I told myself in my mapped out calendar that I would submit, and then put it out of my mind... until March, which seemed sooooo far away at the time. WELL IT'S MARCH, AND I'M FREAKING OUT!!!!! I ended up applying to 3 schools, and I have heard from 2, and both places I am on the FREAKING WAIT LIST (which I guess is better than straight up being denied, but doesn't help my rising anxiety) AND my numero uno choice... I haven't heard from yet! EVERY-SINGLE-DAY I anxiously await a call, an e-mail, a letter, I may appear calm on the outside BUT I AM FREAKIN' ON THE INSIDE... hence the capitol letters, ahhhh, I should have told myself April...boo

On another, more interesting side of this post, March has been a-lotta rockin' for the Diamond Center. The first weekend of the month we played a show with our friends from Athens, Georgia, The Visitations... this is the second time that Davey and the crew have been thru Lubbock since we have been here, and I have to say that this is the best things about having transient/musician friends... you never know when they will come see you OR you will randomly run into them (this comes into play later in the post)! The second weekend we played a little mini-tour.  Thurs. we played a Conferette in Denton, the first annual NX35, AND we got to play with some other friends from Athens,  Madeline & the White Flag Band AND Ham 1. This posse included one of k's and I most favorite people in the world, the one and only, mr. Jim Wilson. Friday we played again with Madeline & the Band in Ft. Worth and then all 3 of us back together again in Austin on Sat. night. It was hard to say goodbye to that crew (and yes now I am breaking out in the Boyz II Men song). THEN, this past weekend we went down and played a day show in Austin for SXSW! I have now figured out that THIS is where it's at! Screw those official SXSW shows, the fun and the people are at the day shows. We played at an Ethiopian Resturant, Karibu (owned by our Lubbock friend Akiles' parents) with some of our other friends from Lubbock: The Numerators & La Panza, and some touring acts too... Treasure Mammal & Polka Dot Dot Dot. AND right down the alley was, in my opinion, probably the best outdoor day party, Ms Bea's. A long list of hip bands played there including, but not limited to, Marnie Stern, Mika Miko,  and my fav, The Vivian Girls, who were hanging out there all day. We also ran into several of our friends from Athens, Twin Tigers, and the Dark Meat crew, who we would be hosting for a Lubbock show Sat night. There are pictures to follow so I wont go into the details here BUT we basically squished about 3 days of SXSW into less than 24 hours.... enjoy!

ohhhhh yea, and I thought I would also mention that somehow, thru her magical powers, my sister Jana, drummer of the Diamond Center, convinced Ales Maas, the vocalist of The Black Angels to come to our SXSW show... AND HE DID! ....AND he seemed to really dig it, and came up immediately after we finished our last note and wanted to buy a CD.... AWESOME!

Alrighty, these pics are from the night after we played with the Visitations in Lubbock. A band that Kyle regularly plays in called 90% death sex, opened up for Wovenhand. It was an ultra expanded lineup this night though with me joining them on TAMBOURINE and the Visitations guys on whatever weird sound things they could find. On the right is Kyle and our friend Kate (you might have seen her around this blog before) I mainly wanted to show this pic to showcase K's awesome slick-back-do.

Alan on the left (our newest member  of the Diamond Center) and Madeline, Jeff and Me on the right our first night at Rubber Gloves in Denton. The light in the green room was AWESOME.
I love this series of Jana changing in the Rubber Gloves green room.

HERE is K on the left and mr. Jim Wilson on the right mentally preparing for the show, i'm sure.


WOW... this is the Style Station outside of Waco, Tx. It's an AWESOME vintage shop that I will have to do an entire post on at a later time... this is the sneak peak!

I just had to throw one in of Cotton, what a sweet face!




This series is the alley in Austin that was between home base, Karibu, and party central, Ms. Bea's. 

The Vivian Girls. (I am really no good at shooting live music, sorry.... BECAUSE...

for some reason I am usually taking shots like this. For some reason I think it is very interesting to shoot the feet of people watching music.... who knows!?

Bike-land at Ms. Bea's

Austin sunset. I have also learned that this thing that I like to do where I shoot things out of focus ACTUALLY is called something.... Bokeh... check it out!

Dusk at Ms. Bea's with more feet and buts! Notice the sticker on the garbage says, "No texting on the dance floor" HA

We ran into Chris, Nate, Aaron & Charlie on 6th st. waiting to get into see Thee Oh Seas
We know these guy from Athens, and they all, at some time play in Dark Meat. Chris now lives in Austin, and Nate in Denton... so we actually get to see THEM pretty often.

This must be when Aaron & Charlie decided not to stand in line BUT to.....

come with us and find some pool tables. Here is Aaron showing his signature move... those are skills I tell ya!

We also ran into my friend from high school, Cory to join us on our pool escapades.

Now here are all the guys having some kind of serious conversation although it must be pretty boring because it seems that Cory & Charlie are asleep... hmmmm

Now here is Kyle, Aaron, Charlie and I attempting to walk to the pedestrian bridge to see The Vivian Girls again for a 2am show.... Although we did make it to the bridge....



we didn't make it until show time BUT we found a sweet cab for to take us home.

The end.

the best of 2008... in this gal's opinion anyway

So this is a big BIG deal to me, something that I seriously start considering at the beginning of the year, and is never far from my thoughts. SERIOUSLY, I guess you can say I am a tad bit obsessed. 

I was a little concerned because up until around the summertime, I had not been genuinely touched by an album, which greatly saddened me! BUT as always the late summer/fall releases came in and saved what started to be a dismal "Top 10 Albums of 2008" list. So hear it is... and know when reading this that many many hours have been spent considering what would show up on this very, very important list. 

... Well let me start with this. I am an album girl. If I want to listen to something, it has got to be something that I can listen to the entire album. So know this: if an album is on my top ten list... the entire thing is good! I am also going to add some singles that I thought were AWESOME, but maybe I did not have a chance to check out the entire album. Looking back at my choices I realize that as far as entire albums go, I generally like moody, reverb drenched or dramatic albums but when it comes to singles... it's the total opposite! HA! go figure. 

So now that you are on the edge of your seat and can not stand one more single second before you know exactly what I loved about music this year... here it is: now you can breathe again ;)

NUMERO UNO... yup Im gonna start with my favorite

1. Deerhunter, Microcastle 

(buy it and listen to it over, and over, and over, and over... then go see 'em live, you will not be disappointed) moody, reverb drenched, and dramatic!

Agoraphobia - Deerhunter

2. Stephen Malkumus & the Jicks, Real Emotional Trash

The entire album is full of great rock tracks, the song Hopschotch Willie, was my personal jam/mantra/song in my head for a solid MONTH. What else would you expect from Stephen (of pavement) and btw: the Jicks drummer is Janet Weiss (of Quasi & Sleater-Kinney)

Hopscotch Willie - The Jicks, ...

3. The Raveonettes, Lust Lust Lust

again dramatic and reverb drenched awesomeness, The album makes me want to put on boots and dark sunglasses and walk, with attitude, down the streets of New York City (I don't know, it just does) AND on top of that... their appearance on Conan is what inspired me to force Jana to play drums with the Diamond Center.  

Aly, Walk With Me - The Raveon...

4. Black Mountain, In the Future

This is one of those albums that I fell in love with early in the year. Moody & dramatic, it reminded me of the Jesus and Mary Chain, which is always good. PLUS they have a tambourine playin' female vocalist that makes some Yoko-ish hollers come out, which is just cool. 

Stormy High - Black Mountain

5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Dig Lazurus Dig

Moody and dramatic, I am semi-obsessed with Nick Cave and this album is awesome! 

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! - Nick Ca...

6. My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges

OK... so Jim James does sing about a peanut-butter & Jelly in a falsetto voice, WHATEVER! this album is my guilty pleasure and the first one that I put on when I am home alone, and no one is there to judge me (j.k. HA) I am not a HUGE My Morning Jacket fan so I think that I can appreciate some of the chances that they took with this album.

Evil Urges - My Morning Jacket

7. King Kahn & the Shrines, The Supreme Genius of King Kahn & the Shrines

Part of the reason that I love this album is because of King Khan and his over-the-top personality. At the beginning of the summer there was all this festival footage coming out showcasing his outlandish antics... and I fell in love. PLUS, the songs are great, and it sounds like old music ( which is another of my likes ) AND there is a song where he talks about his baby being "Fat & Ugly... but he loves her anyway" now how can you resist that!

8. Vivian Girls. Vivian Girls

This Brooklyn, all girl, trio embraces the moody, and revebed sound I love... plus the songs are simple and infectious.

Tell The World - Vivian Girls

9. Tilly & the Wall, O

This is the first of their albums that I have gotten into, probably due to the fact that some tracks have that 60's girl group flair.... and one of the percussion sounds is the tap dancing feet of a member of the band, now that screams cool! Iv'e gotta see them live!

Pot Kettle Black - Tilly And T...

10. Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak

This album probably would have ranked higher if I would have gotten it earlier in the year BUT because I got it from everyones favorite, santa, I haven't been able to spend the amount of time that I would like to with it... yet. BUT I will say this.. from the moment that I heard Love Lockdown, I knew that album would be awesome. There is this drumbeat/sound that happens throughout the album that is so deep pounding it is like it is drumming on your soul... or something like that.

Love Lockdown - Kanye West

side note: K bought me the 2008 Calexico album yesterday, Carried to Dust, which would have probably made it onto this list if I had gotten earlier and not taken the advice from the weary record store dude... thanks for saving it K baby!

Alrighty, now for the singles:

Kings of Leon-Sex on Fire

Sex On Fire - Kings Of Leon

Brendan Canning-Hit the wall

Hit The Wall - Broken Social S...

Deptartment of Eagles-No One does it like you

No One Does It Like You - Depa...

Beach House-Gila

Gila - Beach House

MGMT-Electric Eel

Santogold-Lights Out

Lights Out - Santogold

Marnie Stern-Ruler

The Ting Tings-That's not my name

That's Not My Name - The Ting ...

Fleet Foxes-White Winter Hymnal

White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Fo...

Wow... well that's that. What in the world would I do if I had no music to obsess over?

heartless

On my drive to work this morning as I was flipping thru the channels of the Lubbock air waves, and found absolutely NOTHING that I wanted to listen to. I again became frustrated with the KTXT situation. I love music, I can not live without music, it is what pumps the blood thru my veins, who needs that muscle "they" refer to as the heart when you have good tunes. Of course I own good music and there are billions selections I could make between the CD's of K's music collection and our growing digital music library BUT that is not what I want to listen to while Im driving. I want to listen to KTXT. I love the spontaneous nature of the radio. I love not knowing what song is going to play next and what mood it will instantly catapult me in to. Whether they play my personal life mantra jam song OR a song that is so bad I wish was never created... who CARES... that IS the awesomeness of the radio and KTXT had that mastered. So here is my next story of the cold-blooded nature of the Student Media decision makers. Just like Kanye says, "how could you be so heartless?" side note: I am currently obsessed with Kanye.

THIS is Wombat, or as the media is referring to him "J. Wombat Porter" and this is his story of what happened on 12 10. 2008. (get out the kleenex, this is a heartbreaker):

Wombat is the station manager for KTXT and this man lives and breathes selflessly for KTXT. On that fateful day he had a meeting with the Student Media, a monthly scheduled meeting in which they were to discuss different matters that concerned the station. Wombat came to the meeting inspired with the love for KTXT and notes on how the station would continue to improve into the 2009 year. It was at that very instant that he was informed that the station would be taken off the air waves in 10 min.... 10 min! Wombat quickly jumped up and ran to the station, attempting to call some fellow DJs and staff on the way to inform them of the fate of the station. Wombat got to the station and was literally  3 steps away from the mic when the station was terminated.... permanently! No final farewell, no last song, no thank you for the last 47 years.... NOTHING! Heartless.

The story is getting some national press. Hopefully it will do some good. HERE is the link to find out what is going on as of now. I believe in the power of the people, maybe it will bring our station back.

side note: I like to pretend that Wombat is actually the red-headed illegitimate great-grandson of, the one and only, Buddy Holly. The resemblance is uncanny... don't you think? btw: this has nothing to do with the afore mentioned story... or does it.

side side note: this is my personal life mantra jam song for the moment

don't worry, my corneas are fine.

Yesterday I had an appointment with a specialist to see if my cornea had healed, well, a couple hours and 300+ dollars later, and my eye balls are all back to normal... no more bumps, and better yet, no more glasses! The whole ordeal seemed to be a huge waist of money until the doc showed me a infrared map of both of my eyes!

Dilated eyes, so weird! Eyes fascinate me! I must admit that when I was younger I used to sit in the sink, extremely close to the bathroom mirror, and turn the lights off, and then turn them on real fast to watch my iris open and close... repeat... repeat... repeat... Oh who am I kidding, I still do this.

Thank you K for picking me up and for taking me for coffee and exploring in the book store until I could see again, you are the best!

why underline?

This weekend the Diamond Center crew and I headed to Denton TX to play a show, and stopping every couple of hours provided us with ample exposure to small town wonderful-ness. I started taking note of all the handmade, explanative signs at and it raised the question, why underline?

I never really understood underlining past those notes passed in school that an underlined word would clearly help your best friend understand that you really, really, HATE (underlined & capitalized) that cheerleader that stole your boyfriend. 

I can understand that people think that when you underline a word it gives it more imphasis, and it might, especially in a long block of text but why in a less than 10 word sign does ANY word need to be underlined. I am a fan of ALL CAPS, it gives type color, and guides interest BUT underlining is just grotesque. Maybe the thought is that you would just clearly not see the word NOT, and flush your shoe (or any other object for a matter of fact) down the toilet if it had not been clearly underlined? 

This is an example of a sign that I encountered in Snyder TX ( after I had seen many priceless examples, and then started documenting). Now answer me this: if CRAFTS, PIES, and BRISKET would not have been underlined, would your eye not read them? Would you at that point decide not to go to the Fall Festival in pure disappointment because you had your heart set on browsing the crafts with a full belly of brisket and pies? NO! 

The bathroom sign illustrated below was found in Crosbyton TX and although it is not a case of useless underlining, it is clearly a confused person. Confused but not concerned enough to just use that extra piece of paper for a new sign, ahhhhhh. Kyle and I had a lengthy discussion about this one and decided maybe they should have just written LADIES.