september 2003

29 september 2003
a few months ago, i bought a can of Oops! paint for my living room and got lucky. it turned out to be a great color that completely inspired me. well, now it seems that i have found another shade of Oops! paint, except this one i chose myself and had mixed. it became an Oops! paint once i put it on the walls, and said to myself, "Oops! what the hell was i thinking?" needless to say, oops.

i sat on actual new york grass this weekend and came away with several new mosquito bites. they are like the gift that keeps on giving because i keep discovering new bites. let's hope i stay west nile free!

26 september 2003
things are ending all over the place, people dying, breaking up, moving on, finishing. it seems as though the final breaths of summer extinguished a lot of things. now fall is here and the air is brisk and i sense many new beginnings. as i have mentioned 8 million times, this is my most favorite time of year. time to start over and stay warm. i'll keep my fingers crossed.

25 september 2003
has anyone ever used phpnuke before? i feel like it's time to jump on the bandwagon. my new server is pretty cool... lots of fun new features. ok, geektalk over.

i think i would like to be the sixth member of the fab five. i can take pictures and stuff, right? i wish they would come and make me over. i really just want thom to redo my apartment. he's all crafty like that.

24 september 2003
general observations:
often, when i walk down the street, something small hits my left hand, like a little bug or something. happens all the time. frequently when i look at the time, it is 9:11, sometimes 8:11. listening to music on my headphones makes me walk faster. i have some unexplainable tiny bruises on my arm. i miss my dog oscar. i am antsy. smoked cheddar cheese is good. when it rains, it pours.

22 september 2003
i am in love (with the movie Lost in Translation, not with bill murray or anyone else!!)

20 september 2003
i am really lucky to have really high ceilings in my apartment. they are probably about 10' high and make the space feel much larger. the only problem with these high ceilings, however, is changing the lightbulbs!! i can't reach the overhead lights at all. i have one fixture with several light bulbs, and that's down to it's last functioning bulb. i have been meaning to borrow the ladder from my landlord. but today, the other light went out. so now, i only have one dim little bulb to light my kitchen. i need some more tall people in my life. that or some longer lasting bulbs. any suggestions?

19 september 2003
hurricane isabel has come and gone, and all she brought was some heavy winds and a little rain. boring! i seem to find myself in the same predicament every time there is some sort of natural or unexpected 'disaster' here in new york city. i am usually going crazy!

cooking was great last night, i forgot how much i enjoy it. i also enjoy cooking for larger groups of people. tonight i just have to remember my good knife. i nearly broke my wrist last night trying to cut sweet potatoes with a dull knife. kids, don't try that at home!!

have a fun weekend all.

18 september 2003
sometimes i wonder if my life would be easier if i grew up in a town where everyone lived there all of their lives and made their own families and started their own businesses, etc. easier sure, but probably boring as hell. i've got friends all over the country, and the world for that matter, but there are times when i wish we all lived within 10 miles of each other. i guess that is what college is for. those 4 short years (perhaps more) where you live in the closest contact that you ever will with such a dynamic group of people. i remember going to parties 10 strong and sticking to each other like glue, in our own sick little world of drunken linguistics and inside jokes. i could sense even then that those moments were fleeting. i enjoyed them as much as possible, and to this day, remember them fondly. slowly but surely, i have more of those moments in this crowded yet lonely city. i know when i have just about enough, i will probably be off again into an uncharted horizon, only to begin this process again.

i spoke last evening of people slipping through the cracks. no one has really. there's always going to be someone who knows someone who knows where to find them. i even found one today. maybe it's all a lot easier than i thought. maybe i can just snap my fingers and have the answers. it doesn't hurt to try. snap. snap. snap.

17 september 2003
all the way from italy...
I really like your home (page).. it's just what I'd like to do for my site! moving across your pages I feel like being with you in your sitting room listening for a new cd or looking at the photo of your holidays.. quite confortable. Thanks a lot!

finally, somebody gets it! stellargirl is kind of like a living room and if you are reading, you are today's guest. thanks for stopping by...

i am having trouble with my 5th chakra. i still have a sore throat on and off, and it's very interesting what's behind all of that. read more.

some new photos from this weekend.

16 september 2003
today i heard a song that reminded me a time that reminded me of another time. are you confused? well, i was working at the yoga studio today and i put in a mix that someone had left there and this african song came on, and it reminded me of this song that i had listened to in crete. one of my kitchen assistants had the cd and when that song came on, it reminded me of being in philly working at essene and hearing it on the stereo. it was comforting to hear in crete to remind me of home, and comforting to hear today to remind me of crete and i suppose, remind me of another home. so now i have to go buy it.

i swear, i am not living in the past, i just like thinking about good times. tonight i reminisced about college and some of the friends that have managed to slip through the cracks. if only there was an easy way to track them down. it's getting easier, but still not there yet. my friends are currently staying in this crazy hotel. for some unexplainable reason, there is a (well worn) full size mattress in each hallway. while they may be staying on the egyptian themed floor (the hallway anyway), their room was pure english cottage. gotta love new york.

15 september 2003
i traveled to 2 different countries this evening. first i went to Once Upon a Time in Mexico where i feasted my eyes on johnny depp and lots of other beautiful cinematography. i really enjoyed the movie, and as always johnny was an amazing character, very quirky and actually quite similar to his role in Pirates of the Caribbean -- a crafty character who sometimes you don't know if he is there to be helpful or cause trouble. it had a very tangled plot, but it was a great story.

after mexico, i traveled to tokyo to see Lost in Translation. i think i have a new favorite movie to add to my list. i have been dying to see this movie ever since i saw the previews. bill murray is an absolute legend. he is so excellent in this movie, and scarlett johansson is so wonderful and beautiful. it was so nice to see her express more of herself since all i really know her from is Ghost World.

a friend of mine saw this same movie recently and said that she felt lonely after seeing it. i am happy to say that i didn't feel that way at all. in fact, i felt like i peered into a really uniquely intimate relationship and received all of the closeness that was shared between the two. the movie was beautiful to watch: nightime city skyline, japanese gardens, ichebana, bath tiles, sushi, pink underwear, woolen scarves.

there is a funny thing that scarlett says in the movie that stuck out to me: she said all girls go through a photography phase and take silly pictures of their feet. i couldn't agree with her more. i loved this movie, and also loved hearing my bloody valentine on the soundtrack.

i might have to see it again.

14 september 2003
it's been so muggy this weekend. everything in my apartment has a damp quality to it -- magazine pages are wrinkled and curled, my mail is all soggy and limp. i can't say that i remember it raining much today. i think it was rainy yesterday, but today there wasn't much rain, just a swelled sky, waiting to burst. there was a sun shower this afternoon, and i looked out into the fire escapes at my friend's house as the rain took on different shapes and intensity.

i feel so much better after being sick. my voice is a little funny now, but it sounds sultry i suppose. losing part of my voice always seems to be the last leg of healing for me. the best part about being sick is getting better, obviously, but also realizing how good it feels just to feel ok and to feel like yourself again. i am so thankful for that.

happy birthdays to matt six, christine and to my very special nephew ryan.

my yogi tea wisdom today:
You are true now, you were true then, and you shall ever be true -- know this and you'll be free.

true dat.

12 september 2003
johnny cash RIP
john ritter RIP

11 september 2003
i don't know why, but i just remembered that last night i was dreaming about 20 watt pink lightbulbs. i don't think that i have anything insightful to say on a day like today, remembering a piece of history that this whole country experienced 2 years ago today. i think it's probably best to just move on and move forward, but sometimes looking backwards can help you to see the road ahead.

10 september 2003
some kind of illness has descended on my body. sore throat, achey, so tired. being sick is just no good! my brain is kind of empty right now. last night i was dreaming about colors. speaking of which, there's some serious painting that's about to go on in my apartment. i just have to choose the right colors. a difficult task indeed. knowing me, i will paint my whole apartment and just move out. that's usually how it happens. i used to live in a house where every room was painted a different color, and the landlord made us paint it all back to white before we moved out. the new tenants who moved in were actually disappointed because they loved the colors. one thing i remember about that house is that it was always cold and our winter gas bill was nearly $300 a month. we tried to tell our landlord that there were some serious drafts, but since he lived really far away, he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. i moved out of that house and into a shittier apartment back in philadelphia. it was one of those places where i looked at it in its raw state, before renovations were complete, and expected it to be all new and nice by the time we moved in. was i ever wrong! ugh apartments.

8 september 2003
happy monday... i hope no one has a case of the mondays. i hope that you all realize that i am being sarcastic and quoting one of the best movies ever: Office Space.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSEPH! (one day late)

i came the closest i have come yet to doing a handstand in yoga class today. the inverted postures are the ones that always manage to bring down my practice. i can't do a headstand or a headstand yet. but i try. sometimes i try harder than other times. like today! i had a really good teacher who held my legs up once i kicked them up, so i could feel what part of my body needed to be doing the work to stay up. it's never exactly what you think, and you really can't imagine the experience until you do it. that's a good metaphor for my life. i get really scared about things sometimes and i let fear prevent me from being more trusting or open. it's a problem. but it's good to realize the power of fear and also the ability to shatter it. nothing is ever exactly what it seems, and you will never know until you are in the thick of it, or perhaps even standing on your head.

5 september 2003
oh joy! thank you so much to michelle all the way over in japan who just sent me a copy of neutral milk hotel: in the aeroplane over the sea -- one of my most favorite cds in the whole world, one that i have been meaning to buy for so many years, but just never got around to it. i am listening now and loving every minute. it gives me chills and makes me want to laugh and cry. if you haven't heard it, go find a way to listen to it. i recommend it with my whole heart and soul.

4 september 2003
put it in writing!
i feel so much better when i write. i have really been embracing it lately. as you may have noticed, i have kicked stellargirl into high gear again. just my stuff. my ramble, which has been known in the past as the daily yarn and umm.. the daily journal? i don't even remember actually. it's not usually daily either!! but lately, i have been feeling it. there's been some stuff that needs to come out!

stellargirl is not my only written (or typed if you prefer) outlet. i also release a lot of words in my livejournal, in emails and also on paper in my written journal. the (paper) one i am currently working on was started the night before i moved to new york city, which was over 2 years ago. it's been a wild ride, sometimes very exciting, sometimes very dull. but that's the way life goes, right?

i also enjoy letter writing. i can't tell you that last time i actually wrote a letter, but whenever i travel abroad i send lots and lots of letters to people. some lucky people get many many letters from me. when my roommate was moving out a few weeks ago, i saw a pile of airmail envelopes and i realized that they were the letters i had sent to her from crete last summer. i also have a friend out there who received almost daily letters from rome. i save every letter that has come to me over the years from dear friends in japan, ireland, spain, puerto rico, wherevers. i've also been saving all the postcards i have gotten from all over. i really want to find a way to keep them all together in a book, but it has to work so that you can see both sides of the card. i need to work that one out.

it's been a long time since i made an album. i have only been doing digital photography in the last year, so i suppose i have only really been making web albums. before i moved to san francisco, i laid out all of my photos on the floor and edited and put together 2 small albums, which to me reflect a story and a connection to all the people whom i photographed. i think it might be time to invest in a printer for my computer, one that prints out decent photo images. they don't have to be amazing, but i think i might like to make something tactile out of all of these pictures i have captured in recent years.

i am also working on my life makeover, which as of now involves lots of yoga, lots of writing, a completely different color palette for my apartment and autumn!! autumn makes everything feel alright.

3 september 2003
i think a good way to get a new perspective on your life is to spend 4 days straight with a 7 year old. it makes you realize how simple life really is. the good stuff is so easy.

i am coming off of a long whirlwind week of friends and fun. as always, i spent some quality time with joseph (whose birthday is sunday... my friend marian from alabama visited philly with her boyfriend lee for a few days. we went out friday. i hadn't seen her in years - but it felt like just yesterday. fun times.

on saturday, kris and lola tied the proverbial knot and we spent a rainy afternoon under a tent laughing and drinking yuengling from a keg. i finally met some of kris' friends that i have heard so much about, i felt like i knew them. the world feels smaller. (of course there were some special friends missing at my table)

sunday morning, i headed north with my cooking school friends for a holiday weekend of sun and fun, which turned out to be rain and fun. i'm glad i packed jeans and a hoody and wore them for 4 days in a row! we did a lot of cooking things from scratch, which is something i don't do enough of.

i thought a lot about a lot of things, mostly good stuff. like where my tomorrows are, and how near and distant the days are. it's been a challenging end of summer, but fall is on the horizon. what happens next? i don't know. i will probably send out a few more cryptic messages, perhaps fend off a few. i will continue to search for something real, a path before me.. an understanding of what i feel or want out of life. things will be revealed in appropriate time.

hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekends. check the photo page to get a load of mine. yay for digital cameras.