It’s been over 6 months at this place and I love it. I keep trying to figure out how I’m going to travel within the end of this year and into the next without giving up this apartment. There’s so many places I want to go but I’m happy I’ve made my home in San Antonio. I’ve definitely come to the conclusion that I want to live in SA all my life. But I want something like Denver was to me. An extended vacation; a place I can call home for a 6 months to a year. I really loved Denver and I keep contemplating if I want to move back, but it’s time I try something new without giving up the place that’s made me who I am. I love Texas. I love being a Southern Belle, hot weather included. I just want to reach out and see what else is out there rather than being stuck.

I’m pretty excited about all the ways I can get creative in my apartment and all the ways I can move beyond it.

(Source: testamentsbetrayed)

latimes:

Roald Dahl’s writing shed

I need a writing shed. Or a creating shed. But nothing has happened. The warehouse thing is taking it’s time. So is the apartment thing. So is the hitting-the-road thing. I’m that 23 year old who lives back with her parents. What’s up with that? How do people get things to start happening? My job isn’t even time-consuming. And I even get paid well where I’m at. I should be out doing lots of things!

This is the awesome warehouse space I may be substituting a real home for. The guy is willing to go down to $600 a month for me but I still may not be able to do it. I’m looking elsewhere for now until I cave. Also, my friend has invited me to do a photo show with a bunch of her friends for Día de los Muertos. That would be cool because I haven’t done a photo show in a long time & I’m trying to find more ways to stay creative. I’m trying to put projects in front of me, set a timeline, and have a final product. But why do I feel all over the place right now?

Maybe if I wrote it out it would make more sense. So here’s what going on in my head:

• I don’t want to rent another apartment, with or without a roommate. It pains me to think of signing a lease for a year when I want to go in and out of San Antonio. I don’t want to make a “home” for myself. My parents took me on a lot of road trips as a kid and travel has always been the most important thing. I miss the road. I don’t care for stuff except maybe art and books. Despite not wanting an apartment, I’ve always wanted a personal space. I’ve always wanted a sort of sanctuary. And I’ve always wanted to set up this mythical space so in the end I could share it with others. Kind of like how kids feel about treehouses and Little Rascal-like clubhouses. It’s not your home but it’s pretty darn close and I would love that more than an apartment.
• Travel. Going around the US & Mexico is enough for me. I don’t really care to go to Europe except maybe Germany & a millisecond in London. Brazil and Argentina are the only real far-away places I’ve always wanted to go. And I pray next year will be the time I do get to go. I haven’t decided what country of Africa I’d like to go to, but once I do more research, it’s on that list too of places I want to visit. Europe has never really been number 1. I did take French for five years. I think I’d rather use that on a Caribbean island. I guess I’m more interested in African, Indian, Indigenous, and Latin cultures so seeing old buildings in Europe has never appealed to me. Traveling has always been about culture and immersing myself in a community. Statues and monuments have had little impact on my travel life. The food I eat, the music I hear, and the people I meet though have been the best experiences for me. I’d like to have those experiences in Africa, India, and Latin America.
• I do like my job. I’m up to 6 days a week now unfortunately, but it’s definitely an in-and-out kind of place. I’m there and I’m gone. It’s not my life. I get along with my co-workers and I work hard but once I clock out, I can forget that place. It’s hard to remember that at times because you can get into this comfort zone. But I have to keep in mind that I am not what pays the bills. Plain & Simple.
• Education. Don’t want to go back to school full-time but I would like to take classes in things that interest me. I want to learn how to screen print & sew. I’d like to take a darkroom class. I would love to do a yoga class again. I want to keep learning and that’s why I keep reading. My method of getting an education needs to be different. But I need to make that effort to make that happen.
• I’m really bad at organizing things and having an overall plan for stuff. So I’m wondering if every final product will even get it’s debut. I may finish it but it also may stay up on the shelf. I have lots of good friends and I’m wondering when and how I will reach out. I feel that if I sign this lease, if I make another portfolio, if I do another zine, then what? I’m terribly jealous of all those people who know how to organize because I honestly don’t know where to go from here.

Overall, I wonder if I’m just scared. But I feel so excited about it that I don’t know why I would be scared. Asking for help is always my weakest trait I guess and a lot of things I want to do will take community. I can’t do it alone. So I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. If only I could retreat into a writing shed to really think it over.

(Source: Los Angeles Times)

Kaimal Mark II Lens, Blanko Film, Dreampop Flash, Taken with Hipstamatic

So I’ve started reading poetry again. Haven’t done that in quite awhile. I thought about where I should start and then I remembered how much I liked John Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn in middle school. Well, I didn’t like it at first. But that was only because I couldn’t understand it. Our teacher sort of made it like a puzzle you had to solve and I found the fun in that. After that, I tried a little harder going after poetry and even writing it myself. Unsuccessful on the writing part but that just made me appreciate lyricists even more.

So lucky me!, while at one of my favorite bookstores, Cheever Books, I found a pocket sized John Keats with 14 of his poems. Cheever Books by the way has the most amazing selection and even though the books are used, they’re in amazing shape. I purchased 6 books from them one time and spent $30 while I’ve spent $30 at Borders and got 2 books. Just goes to show that supporting local businesses isn’t always as expensive as most people think.

Anyway, what a fantastic way to start off this cute little book was with his poem On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer. I didn’t know who Chapman was at the time and I had to familiarize myself with Homer before I completely dived in. I do believe in titles and it’s funny when you hear what a title of a song is and you think it has nothing to do with it at all. But I think there’s always background to that and it can be important when you’re tackling a song, novel, or a poem. This must be why it’s been difficult to name some of my short stories. But Keats here shows that sometimes it’s just easier to get straight to the point.
I say it’s a good start to the rest of his poems because it’s a poem about discovery. He starts out talking about all the places he’s gone (…many goodly states…western islands have I been) and it makes him somewhat of a stranger in these places. At least, that’s what I always take travel to be. You’re a foreigner even outside your own neighborhood and nothing is yours. Keats description of his travel seems far off. Beautiful but not his own. But once he hears and understands Homer’s “demesne” (domain) from Chapman, it’s as though he takes possession of this new land that Homer has laid out. I look at the title again: Chapman’s Homer, Chapman’s Homer. In being the translator or having knowledge of Homer, it first belonged to him. Figuratively speaking of course. What I’m saying is I suppose that when you know something, it can never be taken away from you. And in sharing that knowledge, you give other people that power. Chapman was an educator in my eyes before I knew anything about him. He helped Keats to see, to understand. And what a great thing to possess and then share!
Once Chapman spoke “out loud and bold”, Keats became like an astronomer who has captured a new planet (like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken). He becomes like the explorer Hernán Cortés while he stands on a peak in Darien (Panama). Astronomers, conquistadors: they are more than just travelers. They are explorers. Discovery is then theirs, never to be taken away. Chapman allowed Keats to understand and Homer, with all his adventures and all of his empire, can now be his.

It’s such a good poem to start with, especially if you haven’t dived into poetry, because this poem is about so much understanding and discovery. And it’s definitely about how literature or poetry can really take you places. It’s interesting because I’ve never been out of the country except to Mexico. And when you live in Texas, especially San Antonio, the feeling is we belong to Mexico and Mexico belong to us. I feel like I haven’t traveled that far at all then. But if I never leave this country, I’m grateful for books. I’m grateful for all that I see with the help of authors and poets. Of course photographers and film directors can help too but with books, it’s about what you see; not what someone is letting you see. Then it can’t be yours to have. You’re just borrowing it. Let someone truly bestow a knowledge on you and it yours to run away with and have forever.

The picture above is the next poem I’ve read by Keats, from Sleep and Poetry. I’ve already deciphered it and jotted down notes in between stanzas. I’m still going over it a few more times. I won’t write about it here but maybe another time. This has been an excellent exercise for my mind and I hope I can keep it up.

The weirdest thing happened the other day. While taking money out of the ATM, during the transaction screen Wells Fargo told me happy anniversary. That’s I’ve been with Wells Fargo for three years! Yay!!…I guess. But then I thought about it and remembered I got a Wells Fargo account because they had no Bank of America up in Denver and I needed a bank to cash my checks from the recent job I had just gotten after two weeks of living there. So three years ago I up and moved to Denver, Colorado out of nowhere, not knowing that much about the city except that I wanted to leave Texas and go to school for a while somewhere else.

It was a very exciting time in my life and although I was mostly broke, I met some wonderful characters, saw beautiful scenery, and got to live on my own for the first time. I also learned the art of enjoying being alone. It was amazing! So here’s a photo of my first fall in the Midwest or just West (debate amongst yourselves). I love San Antonio but I think after a year, I will be very excited to leave again and experience another city or town. SA will always be home and I find the beauty in how lame we can be. And it will be interesting what will happen over this next year back in my hometown. I hope to do lots of things. I just hope some of those things will launch me into other places.

So this was pretty cool. It’s some suit of armor made out of dog tags. The awful part though was this super pretentious lady telling her friends what she thought this art piece meant and her friends didn’t even see it yet. I was walking up on it when she was running at the mouth. I was like, “Shut up!” Let everyone experience it before you give us your thesis, lady!

I don’t even remember who made this or what it was called but it was insane. Seattle Art Museum.

African exhibit at Seattle Art Museum.

Sleepy-time in Seattle.