Sick Beats

I can’t help but watch this video and say “I know where that is! I’ve been there! I walked down that street! I fucking walked there!” It’s unreal to me that this is happening.

After 20 years of Mubarak’s “presidency,” I have to admit I’m happy to see this. I don’t know when or how this government will improve, but finally the Egyptian people are uniting. (At least, I hope there are Copts out there protesting as well.) After the food riots and the riots after the swine flu, this will hopefully be the beginning of the end. Solidarity, my friends.

Reasons I Shouldn’t Be Alive

I was talking with my manfriend/boyfriend/person/thing the other day about all the reasons I shouldn’t be alive for evolutionary reasons. He suggested it be my next blog post. So here it is: the list of reasons why I shouldn’t be alive/why I’m an anomaly.

1. I’m allergic to lots of foods: peanuts, peas (sometimes), soy (sometimes), red bean, sesame paste, sesame oil (sometimes), poppy seeds (sometimes), legumes in general (sometimes)

2. I have bad eyesight.

3. I have bad teeth.

4. I have asthma.

5. I’m bi-racial (hundreds of years ago the Chinese wouldn’t have mated with the Irish)

6. My mom is a lesbian (there’s nothing wrong with that. it just seems unlikely she would’ve had me if she had realized it earlier)

From an evolutionary standpoint, I really shouldn’t be alive. But thanks to modern technology and social evolution, I’m here! And I better have a purpose.

Everything Is Never As It Seems

My roommate’s friend stayed with us for these past couple of days. She grew up around Philadelphia, lived in San Francisco, and now she’s traveling around the world until she decides what to do next. She’s got a camping backpack and a couple other bags and that’s it.

It used to be a lifestyle I wanted to pursue, partially because my ex-boyfriend was similar: he grew up in DC, and before attending NYU, he lived in San Francisco for a year and traveled a bit. I wanted that hippie, bohemian, nomadic lifestyle. I wanted to travel around the world and meet random people and make art and live a colorful life, like Auntie Mame (which I watched last night).

There are a lot of choices I’ve made that led me away from that dream. I left NYC. I left the Bay Area. I walked away from some amazing job opportunities and comfortable lifestyles, and for what? To follow an Army boy? To have a job completely unrelated to art? To live nowhere near my family?

Oddly enough, it was all for love. I moved to Atlanta with nothing but my savings account. I knew no one, I had no job, no connections, nothing. I just moved here because I’m 22 and in love. It’s certainly not what I dreamed of doing, and it’s not what I thought I wanted to do, but here I am. And life is good when you have love. Except for when it lives 400 miles away.

ATLANTA SNOWPOCALYPSE

It is day 2 of the Atlanta Snowpocalypse. The grocery stores are low on food. The booze is diminishing. The streets are blanketed in ice and what was once snow. There is no sound but the dripping from icicles to the ground. The city is deadly still, and I will party on through the snow days.

Originally I was going to tell you more about experiencing snow in Atlanta, but I just got an email from a peer of mine regarding photographers’ rights. This story is just wrong and it needs to be heard:

A friend of mine who is a photographer was severely beaten by police officers.  He was taking photographs out in the street, in public, and cops arrested him and charged him with resisting arrest after they smashed his head into the pavement and beat him so badly that he still has a bone sticking out of his shoulder.  He needs an operation but can not afford to take off work for that long.

That said, he asked me if I knew of any groups who fight for photographer’s rights, or resources and laws that clearly explain photographers rights, specifically in regards to public domain and shooting in public on the streets.  He is facing some serious charges in which he could see jail time and heavy fines.  I am not really familiar with laws and what the exact rules and regulations are regarding making photographs in public.  If anyone out there is familiar with this, please pass on whatever information you have or even what direction I may be able to guide him in.  This incident occurred in New Jersey if that is significant in terms of varying state laws.

The current war on photography and the camera seen as some tool linked with terrorism really pisses me off and in the end I think we all should be aware of our rights and know the specific laws regarding photography and public domain.  Perhaps if people have information about this they can reply to this list serve instead of emailing me directly so we all can have this information on file if we ever need it.

When one of us goes down, we must all join together, extend a hand and pick up our brothers and sisters.

Raise It Up

I always knew a select few people regularly read my cooking blog, but I recently learned that people have been checking up on me here. I find it sweet. So here’s what I’ve been up to.

Um…I don’t really have much to say. I guess that’s why I haven’t blogged in a month. Life is pretty routine. I still work at Arden’s Garden. I cook a lot (but forget to post about it all the time). I crochet. I write letters. Every once in a while I go out and venture into the world (usually to the Yacht Club). I guess the real reason I haven’t been having adventures is because I’m saving money for a car. Other than that, life is simple.

Though I guess I’ve been thinking about my photography and art, and I’ve made a new year’s resolution to have a significant amount of work done on my next photography project on military partners. My manfriend will finally move to Fort Benning in March, and hopefully I’ll have a car for the summer. I’ll have three different aspects of this project I’d like to achieve by December 31, 2011:

– Have a notebook dedicated solely to this project. Kind of a cop-out goal, but I still think it will help me organize my thoughts and research.
– Have at least 10 different articles/studies from at least 10 different sources about military partners. Again with the research. It’s difficult to find the information I need when no one has done anything about it.
– Photograph and interview at least one other person other than myself. Since I’m transferring from my self portraiture project to this one, I don’t think it’s fair to include myself as a significant part of this work.
– Apply for at least one grant. This one is ambitious, and I can only accomplish it once I’ve achieved the above goals.

So that’s what’s up I guess. More to come maybe.