I've been having trouble sleeping. Basically since I've gotten to Auckland, but like most people, it seems I always have had trouble.
But the only times I had no trouble falling asleep here is when I pass out due to alcohol, and then wake up two to three hours later, hungover and unable to fall back asleep.

I talk less here. I read more magazines, I watch more tv, I take longer walks, I write longer and increasingly more cracked out emails at all hours of the night. I study less. The foods I eat are plainer as now I'm subsisting on a diet of mostly granny smith apples, weetabix, vegetables, plain yogurt, and cappuciunos, with the occasional white chocolate treat here or there. I haven't listened to silly pump up music in months, my diet is mostly Bon Iver, Sufjian Stevens, and Death cab. I have "a lack of Color" on repeat, which reminds me of Marc, the first guy I loved. His favorite song.

I'm making plans. I'm thinking of emails I need to send. I'm figuring out housing. I'm letting go of David. I scheduled my courses for next semester.

Next semester, I'm going to wear bright red lipstick.

Sometime next year, I'm going to fall in love

It's over. And I think this time it's going to stick

1.
I am realizing something about myself. Why did I not realize this before?

Once again,
I shy faltering, set
on the wrong beat and
grin sheepishly

2.
Things have changed since college. Did the lack of college change them?

footpaths into life;
hillfields filled with this green, I turn
single and am there

“The power of the anecdote is so great that in a way, no matter how boring the material is, if it’s in a story form where there’s an anecdote happening—and then he said this to me, and then I went here, and then I came downstairs, and I thought like, ‘What the hell’—then it has a momentum in and of itself no matter how boring the facts are. […] You can feel, through its form—when you have one thing leading to the next, leading to the next—you can feel inherently that you’re on a train that has a destination.”

“The other big building block, your other tool, is that you have a moment of reflection. And by that I mean, at some point somebody’s got to say, ‘Here’s why the hell you’re listening to this story. Here’s the point of this story. Here’s the bigger something that we’re driving at. Here’s why I’m wasting your time with all this.’ And one of the things that is very unfortunate […] is that often, you’ve got the two parts of the structure—you have the anecdote and you have the moment of reflection—and often you have an anecdote which just kills, it’s so interesting […] and it means absolutely nothing. It’s completely predictable and it doesn’t tell you anything new.”

“You’re going to know also that failure is a big part of success. […] You’re going to run into a lot of stuff and it’s going to go nowhere—and you should be happy about that. If you’re doing that, you’re doing it right. If you’re not failing all the time, you’re not creating a situation where you can get super-lucky.”

“So you’ve got really good taste. And you get into this thing that I don’t even know how to describe, but it’s like there’s a gap. That for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, it’s not that great. […] But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. […] A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people, at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like to say to you with all my heart, is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. […] You gotta know that’s totally normal, and the most important thing you could do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work.”

“[After playing and deriding his own journalism clip from decades ago.] So this is year eight. I'm 27 years old when this is happening. I'm not a beginner. I'm deep into it. I guess I’m saying it takes a while, it’s normal to take a while, it’s going to take you a while, and you just have to fight your way through that. OK? You will be fierce, you will be a warrior, and you will make things that you know in your heart aren’t as good as you want them to be. And you will make one after another.”

Ira Glass on Storytelling #1
Ira Glass on Storytelling #2
Ira Glass on Storytelling #3
Ira Glass on Storytelling #4

Tags: things that i found

Favorite palindrome(s)?
Mine are

a butt tuba
dr. awkward
go mog

(of course)

Tags: lists, question

It's been bittersweet. I knew two weeks out would be the hardest, because it always is, and it was hard... but now that I'm past that point its getting harder and harder to think of leaving.
I love New Zealand. I love Auckland. If I didn't have that amazing oberlin place and friend group and loves, I would have stayed here another semester, or stayed here the rest of my life. I love Steph and Hans, and laurs, making friends with people i would never thought i wuld be friends with, the partying, the hiking, the natural beauty. I want to do more hiking. I want to see more of the south island. I want to eat more ice cream at giapo. I want to know my friends families and their houses. I want to build those friendships I have with Bryan and Rebecca. I want to build on this flirtation, hook up, stuff I have with Ben and maybe see it through.

When I left for college, left for oberlin, I didn't have a life in SF. When I left for NZ, I already had a life in oberlin. The first reason made it so much easier the first time.

And I love my oberlin friends, talking to them makes me so happy. And all of them, well most of them, seem down this semester. And i just want to help them

These days I never remember which water tap is which.

 Some new comics up on Flickr.   ( Lady Longboarder )

I've been thinking about my mental health history lately.  I made a comic about it, like I do about most things I think about.  I really like how it turned out.  Tell me what you think.  ( OCD )

Ta for now.

<3,
ejl

Tags: anxiety, art, comics, ocd

I feel like I'm living on some other planet.

Current Music: winterpills

Nothing Ever Happens
October 2009
Episode 25 of many

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C3NWLPP1

1. Belle and Sebastian - Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying
2. Queen - Brighton Rock
3. Operation Ivy - Smiling
4. The Minutemen - D's Car Jam/Anxious Mo-Fo
5. Lemuria - Dog
6. Beck - Missing
7. Asian Kung-Fu Generation - Rewrite
8. World/Inferno Friendship Society - Leni Riefenstahl at the End of Time
9. The Dresden Dolls - Shores of California
10. Endless Mike and the Beagle Club - Heavy Handed
11. Champion - No Heaven
12. Katamari Forever OST - Katamari on the Rhodes
13. The Distillers - Solvent
14. Ben Folds Five - Philosophy
15. Elvis Costello - Watching The Detectives

Current Mood: excited