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[Mar. 22nd, 2009|10:37 pm] |
i started an etsy store, yay!
primalscreen.etsy.com
it thus far features vulvas and patriarchy-smashing ladybugs and peapods. i only have a few things so far, but i printed up a bunch more stuff today and will be gradually adding it as i take photos of it. still to come are some "direct action direct democracy" prints and more of the screen prints i already have up. i am so happy to be screenprinting a bunch of stuff and putting it online, and my shop banner makes me extremely happy. |
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[Jan. 1st, 2009|01:31 am] |
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Meg Mott's cockatiel is preening my hair right now. (And eying my hot chocolate.) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 28th, 2008|12:38 pm] |
While I was in Detroit at the Allied Media Conference, Charlie and Jericho found this chicken at the side of the road and brought her back to the animal sanctuary. Her name is ( Mabel. )
Plus, especially for Helena: ( Roller Derby photos! ) |
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[Jun. 23rd, 2008|10:45 pm] |
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I am so disappointed that the person with a free baby pygmy goat already has someone lined up to take it. I need a baby goat. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 14th, 2008|06:10 pm] |
Crazy (but boring) story about my lucky incident yesterday: I walked all the way down to the metro stop to go to school to finish up my fotography portfolio. I realized once I was all the way there that I'd left my wallet, including my monthly pass, at home. I was really not looking forward to spending the next hour going back and getting it, but as I walked out of the metro stop, I saw an unused metro card on the ground. I just used that and then waited to go home until the night busses started running (they never check for passes on the bus, only the subway). I've never seen an unused subway ticket on the ground before.
I need to stop coughing! My ribcage is starting to hurt. Especially in the general area where I fractured it the first time I had bronchitis. Umm...
This afternoon I went to the Villa Borghese (huuuuge nice park that is kinda reminiscent of Central park) and took a nap in the sun while some guy played a saxophone. Good times. I predict a lot of my afternoons for the next few weeks will be like this.
I just watched this 40 minute documentary called The Lord's Boot Camp. (It's from the director of Jesus Camp.) There's a bunch of teenagers and preteens who go to this boot camp in Florida and then go to other countries for a month to do missionary work, or who spend that time in the U.S. "saving" people. While there are obviously a lot of things that I don't like about this camp, there is something that I like a lot about the idea of sending teenagers from the U.S. and sending them to poor countries to see how so much of the rest of the world lives. Too bad the message stops at "these starving kids who don't have enough blankets for the winter nights just have to believe in God and Jesus." Also, I really like the drug addict with the attitude problem, and the "my other shirt is clean" t-shirt (even though I'd probably find her annoying in real life).
Here is the link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video … rsOndemand |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 5th, 2008|04:45 pm] |
The 99 cent store has paprika flavored Pringles that were labelled as suitable for vegetarians and vegans. Is that normal?
Also, the goth and punk kids of Rome are out in full force at the piazza today. They are taking over BOTH sets of church steps! As I was on my way out of the piazza I kept seeing more and more of them coming. They must be having some kind of convention. Italians wear so much black anyway that sometimes, I had to look at who someone was with to determine if they were part of that crowd or not. If they don't have black eyeliner tears drawn on, how am I supposed to know if they are goth or just Italian? |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 21st, 2008|01:08 pm] |
I feel much better about Italy and life this week. Some random things:
1. Midterms. I am done! I have been really stressed out about them even though none of them were really that hard.
2. I got my Italy rail pass, and I'm leaving (probably tomorrow night?) for a week in Sicily, Naples, and Venice. Exciting!
3. Some people from couchsurfing are coming over to my apartment for dinner tonight. I am worried about being really awkward with them. I have tried inviting several people that I actually know to come over and eat with us, but the homestay people have dinner with their families on week nights, one person's family is visiting this week, one person has a date (who does that?), one person already had plans to see a movie with someone else...why doesn't anyone want to eat dinner with me?
4. Aparently the UN created an all-female peacekeeping unit to serve in Liberia, made up of women from India. The UN thinks they “are the right people at the right time to come here now,” apparently because “They are professional, skilled, capable, and they will be able to do the job just as well as their male counterparts are already doing on the ground if not better in some instances.”
The UN website does not say what Refugees International says, which is that this female unit might be better than their male counterpart because “The pattern of behavior of these peacekeepers [that is, the generally male troops who have the same hyper-masculine culture as the rest of the military], their attitudes, justification and sexual exploitation and abuse of younger girls has much in common with the activities of the so-called ‘sex-tourist.’”
By the way, a study in 2005, reported that about 90% of women in Liberia had been subjected to sexual abuse and violence. Also in 2005, a female president was elected as the first female head of state in Africa, with a mandate that highlighted the protection of women.
So, the UN is helping Liberia tackle issues of sexual violence by sending one group of non-western women of color to help another group of non-western women of color, with efforts that include reducing its own destructive "boys club" culture (even if they aren't publicizing that last part). Wow. I am kind of shocked.
p.s. diy blacksmithing! |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 11th, 2008|03:39 pm] |
Plus one point in the "I should never leave Brattleboro, terrible (or at least highly inconvenient or rather unpleasant) things happen when I do" category. Last night, I was sitting on the sidewalk outside school using Skype, when a guy came running past and stole my computer. While I was using it. I ran after him for a few blocks, but then realized I left my backpack with my wallet and passport and camera and everything just sitting on the sidewalk, so I had to go back and luckily it was still there.
I spent like an hour on the phone with my mom crying about it. Not having the machine itself is not such a big deal, although it sucks that I won't have it when I have to write papers and stuff since there is always a line to use the computers at school. But I was so upset- and I'm still coming to terms with- not having all the photos that were on there, and poetry that I wrote in high school, and papers I've written for Marlboro, and essays I've written just for myself, and pages and pages of diary stuff from freshman year. Man. So much stuff. So much of me that I will never get back. So much stuff that I would never let anybody else read, ever- even though I don't think this guy will care about anything that I have on the computer, let alone be able to understand all of it since it is in a foreign language, it is very strange that someone else has it...
Plus I was really upset about not being able to use skype. Over the last couple weeks I have been feeling somewhat less overwhelmed and incredibly lonely than I felt before that, and while a lot of it is just getting used to being here and getting to know people that I actually like, a big part of it is also that I can talk to Charlie for a really long time several times a week without it costing 50 euro for that kind of conversation.
It was also really jarring the way it happened. It's not like when my bag was stolen in Montreal and it was a pain to replace everything and I whined about it every time I realized that I had to replace something else- but it was just really really annoying to come back and find it missing. While I was not in danger at all yesterday, it was still very upsetting because it was something that actually happened to me, if that makes sense.
But today I am coming to terms with it. And when I told my school friends about it, Katta told me that I can use her computer whenever I want, that she would even give me a spare key to her locker so I can use it for skype or papers or anything even if she's not around. She also asked what the guy looked like and wanted to beat him up for me.
I think I am done talking about this now.
I am ready to come home. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 6th, 2008|10:49 pm] |
1. I am sick. I am hoping that if I drink my weight in orange juice I will get better by Friday, when I go to Stockholm. Handkercheifs are way better than tissues.
2. I'm going to Stockholm! All the websites are mostly in Swedish. It's hard to figure that place out. Hopefully when I get there it will all be clear. Plus I just like wandering aimlessly around cities and happening across cool things and taking photos, so I guess I won't have to be able to navigate it that well. I'm staying with a couple from couchsurfing, they seem really nice, I think I will like them. (And I'm pretty sure they won't try to make out with me!) I wish I were going to be there for more than two days. I'm getting there Friday and leaving really early Sunday morning- I'm thinking of just taking the bus or whatever from the city to the airport late Saturday night rather than getting up at 3 in the morning and trying to go when public transit isn't running. StockholmStockholmStockholmStockholmStockholm!
3. I love drawing! Sketchbook is my favorite class right now. I feel like I'm learning and improving so much every week. But sometimes it is hard to listen to 3 hours of everything that I'm doing wrong. Apparently I draw like I'm from the 14th century, when they were just figuring out how to put bodies together. I guess that is pretty apt, since I AM just learning how to put bodies together. Actually today I went from 14th century to 15th century, so that's good (apparently). But really, I secretly am not that into Michaelangelo style bodies (why are there SO MANY MUSCLES? Gross.) so I don't know that I necessarily want to move into the 16th century.
Also- surprise- I draw people like they're architecture. My teacher told me to draw less like Mies van der Rohe and more like Frank Gehry, which I think is kind of amusing since the buildings I like are way more curvy and gestural than all those boxy Bauhaus things. But I guess I still draw very orderly curvy buildings, not gestural curvy buildings. Anyway, I want to be a great drawer. I learned at my lecture tonight that Cezanne was a terrible drawer when he was 20, and only became great when he was in his 40s. So there is still hope for me.
4. I feel like I should try to stay in Italy as long as possible. But every time I think about going back to the states earlier, going to Marlboro for graduation and then just building stuff at the animal sanctuary, I want to immediately change my plane ticket and come home as soon as possible. I feel really lame about this. Where is my sense of adventure? I love Rome. Part of me totally wants to come back and live here permanently. But it is not home, and I just wanna go home right now.
5. Although I would really like a break from being a student, I am excited (theoretically) about coming back to Marlboro in the fall and doing Plan. I am excited about the class that I want to teach. But I keep not sending my proposed syllabus to Tim, because what if he hates it and doesn't want to sponsor it?
6. I really want to know about racism in Italy.
7. Although Italians only wear black and grey and brown, they desperately want more color in their lives. I get one or more comments on my purple hair every day. Sometimes it's annoying, but sometimes it's really amusing.
8. Italian teachers love telling me weird things about anarchism. Apparently anarchists do not really exist. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 22nd, 2008|08:12 pm] |
So. I have been in Italy for over two weeks now. I have gotten an apartment, been to two medieval hilltowns, walked around the entire Rome ring- a walk that was 14 miles long and took 8 hours, with only two short stops for snacks/lunch, spent tons of money on art supplies and taken about 1.3 bazillion pictures. Someday I will bring my laptop to school so I can upload them to the internet. But not soon, because tomorrow and Thursday I meet onsite for my morning classes. I am going to spend so much money on museum entrance fees this semester. I am also going to have to get up ridiculously early all. the. time. Friday I have a field trip to Naples, for which we meet at 7 am, at a piazza that's way across the city from my apartment. So far our trips have been amazing though, I'm sure it will be worth it. Our trip for my drawing class last Friday was so amazing, it was such nice weather and I got to spend a couple hours just wandering the streets of this medieval hill town (which was of course stunning, because that's how Italy is). And also look at Etruscan sarcofogi. And...stuff.
The last couple days I have started feeling lonely though. Yeah there are a few people in my program who I like well enough that I could maybe actually be friends with them, but for the most part I have no interest in actually investing time in these people. I want to meet Italians but I don't really know how/where. Also the fact that I'm shy enough in English, let alone other languages, makes that prospect seem really daunting even if I did know where to start. I don't miss Marlboro per se, but I wish that the student body here were more Marlboroesque. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it's still true. |
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| Roma! (Finally!) |
[Dec. 20th, 2007|01:27 pm] |
Take two: finally made it into the country. The first time, I went to the airport and I thought I had an e-ticket, but apparently I didn't, which the travel agency neglected to mention when I bought it and then I never got one in the mail. Boo. I had to spend basically all day on hold with the travel agency, but I got another flight a few days later which they mailed me a new ticket for and that one worked.
After a bunch of different problems I finally made it to my hostel the day before yesterday. I dropped my bags off and went sightseeing. Well, it started out as just a walk around the area, but then all of a sudden I was in front of the coloseum. (I'm not actually sure how to spell that in English.) So, the first day I was here I looked at that, and then yesterday I went back to watch the tourists look at it. While I was standing across the street from it, writing some notes to myself, this Italian man started talking to me. I talked to him for a few minutes in my broken Italian before I had to leave to look at an apartment- when I left, he tried to kiss me. Well, maybe I shouldn't say tried, he was at least halfway successful. At first I thought it was one of those European kisses like Signora Herlea would do sometimes, but then, nope, full on the lips. It's strange, but I've been warned about the men here so much that my first thought was, "At least I've gotten that out of the way now."
I visited three apartments today. I even set up one appointment entirely in Italian, so I'm proud of myself for that, although I don't actually want to live there even though it would probably be the best for learning the language. The place I want to live is actually much farther away from school, but the woman I'd live with there is so nice, she even met me near my hostel and we took the metro together to her apartment. I forgot to ask her about a rental contract for my Permit to Stay, so I'll have to call her later this morning and ask about that- I hope it's not a problem because I want to live with her so badly!
So far I have discovered that:
Italians think 50 F is cold.
Italians (at least Romans) love comically tiny cars.
Italians like to hang their laundry out to dry on their terraces even when it's overcast and drizzling.
Italy has the best orange juice ever.
The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill are awesome! (And free, thus increasing their awesomeness.)
Hmm. It's a quarter after 6 in the morning. I've clearly not adjusted to Italian time yet. I'm also not on U.S. time though. I don't know what to do with myself until breakfast time. This isn't a dilemma I usually face... |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 8th, 2007|05:20 pm] |
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I just got my acceptance letter from the study abroad program I applied for! Hello, Rome! It starts in exactly three months! I have so much to do! Like get a passport! I am excited! And also just a little bit nervous! Italy! Exclamation point! |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 7th, 2007|08:21 pm] |
I'm done with my apprenticeship and my whirlwind tour of San Francisco/Berkeley. My callouses are already fading and I'm very sad about that.
I realized yesterday that between living at the ecovillage and traveling around the city with Charlie, it's been quite a while since I've gotten attention from strange men on the street. I realized this a few hours after Charlie left for the airport, when I was standing in a restaurant in Berkeley trying to decide what to order and a guy came in from the street to ask me if I was traveling (I was carrying around this sweet suitcase that I'd just bought at a thrift store for a dollar), and if I knew any good hostels in the area. He didn't ask the guy behind the counter- when I said I didn't, he just left. Counter Guy said that he was looking at me before he came in. Shortly afterward, as I was getting on the train, this man told me he liked my glasses. I get that a lot, but then he added "They're very becoming," and then didn't stop looking at me until he got off at the next stop. I'd also like to add that he had his daughter with him.
Now I'm home. It's a very foreign feeling to have these weeks stretching in front of me where I don't have all this stuff laid out for me to do every day. I have a bunch of craftsy sewing and knitting projects that I want to do, but...I'll probably just surf the internet instead. I'm lame.
P.S. I guess my grandparents are going to leave me $25,000 in their will so that I will take care of their parrot after they die. Also, my mom wants Iraqi refugees to live in our house, but isn't sure if that will make my step-dad lose his security clearance. Sometimes my family is weird. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 16th, 2007|12:15 am] |
Emerald Earth had a work party this weekend. I lead the cobbing yesterday. It's kind of...awesome to have a bunch of middle aged men looking to me for instruction and asking me if they're doing everything right. Also there were a TON of kids, some of whom I taught to make cob for a little while. Mostly they were more interested in lounging around in the clay pits though.
Today at our lunch circle (we all hold hands and sing pagan songs or whatever before every lunch and dinner) this 5 year old boy said he wanted to hold my hand because I "look cool. And also beautiful." For some reason little boys love me.
I spent all day today plastering my mural and it's AWESOME and so much fun to work on. I'm not ready to be done in two weeks. I want to stay in California and keep playing in the mud. Although I also want to go back to school so I can experiment with fired clay tile roofing, and build a secret clay wattle tree house.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot about the guy at the work party who showed up wearing a Mocha Joe's shirt. Turns out he's the younger brother of Willow, who just graduated from Marlboro.
AND the best person I met at the work party- this little girl who's name is Supercat! She's named Supercat because, in her words, her mom is psychic and she (Supercat) is psychic too, and before she was born her mom psychicly knew that she would love cats, and she does! She has 3 grown up cats and 10 kittens. She also has 12 names herself. She listed them all off for us, using all her fingers plus her feet to count to 11 and 12. She was amaaazing. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 25th, 2007|11:29 pm] |
We took a field trip to the coast this weekend, and it was a pretty awesome way for me to see the Pacific coast for the first time. If I had a spare $800,000 lying around, I would totally buy that 30 acres right on the coast near Mendocino and build a cute little mud house there. There were tide pools with huge starfish that were surprisingly purple and anemones and other cool stuff. We also went to a beach that used to be a town dump where there were more pieces of beach glass than sand or rock, and huge rocks that you could stand on that were composed of melted down car pieces and stuff, with seaweed growing on them. It was pretty sweet. There was other good stuff too, but those were the highlights. Also sleeping on a real bed! It was so good I laid in bed for about an hour in the morning before I forced myself to get up.
This morning we raised a huge 20 foot plus beam up to our roof. This afternoon we were going to raise the other one, but we got it most of the way up there and realized that one of the notches I'd just carved in the beam was in the wrong place. Now our beam is resting on straw bales maybe 12 feet high, and we have to go carve a new notch tomorrow. :( |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 12th, 2007|11:44 pm] |
What a good afternoon! So, my computer broke a little over a week ago, and I thought it was because I plugged it into my laptop into my solar backpack. It hasn’t worked, even plugged into the wall, since, so I sent it to town with one of the people from Emerald Earth today. She took it to the computer guy, he opened it up, and it just worked again! So, awesome, I have a computer and I can upload photos and send masses of emails! But, not awesome, the computer guy said he thinks there’s a loose connection inside the computer somewhere, and that it will come loose again and probably not be fixable. Also I cut my hair really short and it feels so cool (literally and figuratively) and it will be much nicer for washing and drying here. Our worksite is really dusty and windy, so along with all the hair oil I had a good layer of grime going. I had probably half a foot that would stand up on its own. Gross and cool at the same time. Now it’s short and mostly clean and fun!
More important stuff- I’ve been at Emerald Earth for a little over a week now. I really like it (aside from all the computer and cell phone trouble I’ve had). Pictures will be forthcoming. So far I’ve:
-dug trenches
-screened gravel
-mixed and poured concrete for piers
-learned a lot about drainage and building foundations
-shoveled lots of pumice
-learned how to use a skill saw
-stacked and mortared stones
-filled fabric tubes full of earth and tamped them (rammed earth is fucking hard work!)
-painted rammed earth bags with clay slip/wheat paste mix to prevent the bags from breaking down in sunlight
-helped raise huge posts at the corner of our building
-probably other stuff but this is what I can think of right now
In the next couple of days we're finishing our stone wall base, plastering the earth bags, building a deck, and putting a short layer of cob on top of the earth bags.
And non-building related:
-seen lots of wild turkeys, including one about two yards from my tent and a whole bunch of babies this morning
-collected chicken eggs from the coop
-eaten way too much at every single lunch and dinner
-not gotten poison oak! There are like 8,000 kinds here. Two people have gotten it while peeing in the middle of the night. One more reason to love the pStyle!
-discovered that I have really really bad allergies to something in the air here. I got some allergy stuff a few days ago and I can breathe through my nose again, but I’m still not great.
-gone to the tiniest farmer's market ever
- talked to a really cool mother/daughter couple on the flight to SF (the daughter-about my mother’s age- had this really strong southern accent, and the mom had a British accent). I told them about my apprenticeship and they started talking about these mud buildings in Italy- turns out they lived there for a while when the daughter was in high school. Note to self- visit Puglia and see clay houses.
It's so beautiful here. The people are pretty cool, both in my apprenticeship and in the community in general. Our building is pretty small so it's going super quickly. Sometimes it completely wipes me out, but it's really satisfying. I'm excited to be able to upload photos, either tomorrow or Thursday probably. Tomorrow I'm going up the ridge in search of cell phone reception and I hear there's a really great view of all these vineyards in the valley. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 31st, 2007|05:03 pm] |
I got a sleeping bag today at the thrift store. I'm pretty sure it's for a child, but it's just fine for me anyway and it will take up less space than a regular adult one. And it was less than five dollars.
I can't believe I'm leaving on Saturday. I keep feeling like I'm going to forget something that I'll really want. I feel exactly like I did right before I left for college. Not about forgetting stuff, but about going somewhere where I don't know anyone and doing stuff I've never done before. Only this will be like a two month long WOODS trip, and then no college right after. Also, what am I thinking always going to places that are so hot during the summer? Especially really hot places that don't have air conditioning.
Remember back when it was cold and there were pillow fights in New York City?
(I just put a bunch of pictures from the last six months on my computer.)
Air America apparently talked about my mother for an hour today, but she can't find that segment online.
I keep forgetting that regular cars have to be put in park before you can turn them off. |
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electric_claire's journal
