5.

I am moving tomorrow. I am extremely stressed about it. I have to work tonight and tomorrow and Sunday. I dropped Bryan off at the airport this morning. He will be in Austin, Texas for the weekend for the Wild Weekend Power Pop Festival. I was supposed to go but I made the responsible decision to go ahead and move but I am really good at bad timing. I have more school work than I can possibly imagine completing.

Things due this week;

create a new typeface that pertains to me and mount it

do something visual with all 26 letters of the alphabet and show on 11x17

create an alter ego of myself and present it somehow

Explain yellow to a blind person without using the word yellow and have a visual representation on canvas for the class

finish 30 pages in my sketchbook

Present the guerilla marketing campaign that my group came up with last week a little better by showing photographs to class and explaining it better. (we didn't do so great last week)

Make a type poster for a political party that is 10X16 using visual hierarchy, 2 colors and no illustration and mount it.

Produce 20 clean and decent sketches for new money design campaign.

finish my quote that I am representing with typography. I am redoing it because I got a B and I want an A (teach lets us do that)

redesign a label that I don't like and mount it on 8.5X11

Build a product to be sold in the gift shop of the place that my poster was created for. It has to be in the style of the Kuban Civilization and I have to incorporate a praying mantis into it. It must me made 100% by Thursday.

Finish the three bags that I designed for the gift shop. Each one had to have a reuses that gets rid of no more than 8% of the bag. (I am pretty much finished, just a few more details)

write up tags for my bags that are no more than 3 sentences that explain the reuses of the bag.

Finish my editorial icons ( i don't feel like explaining this)

oh my god. i just finished typing that and i think i am going to have a panic attack.

geez.

well hopefully moving goes well tomorrow.

hopefully bryan comes back soon.

hopefully i get all this finished without neglecting sleep and food.

4.

I finally finished my poster.

I am very proud of it but I am so over it!

Bryan and I went antique shopping and bought this couch for our new bedroom. It needs a little work on the cushions but it was such a good deal that we couldn't pass it up.

I caught my Bryan sleeping like this with Eva. Sometimes I don't like Eva cause she is very hyper and pees on the floor and acts ridiculous. In moments like this I find it hard not to love her.

Last night we played in the rain puddles for a little while......I love moments like this and I love yellow rainboots.

SOOOOO I am finally moving. I haven't really had a place to call my own since the tornado and I will finally be able to get everything out of storage. It will be nice to have a desk again for my art supplies. Right now I use the kitchen table and it is a pretty huge mess!! So wish me luck.

so here is a thought or two.....

Weather has come and gone

arrested some and returned two fold

sometimes a crowd can be another word for empty

and in dissipation the fullness can be overwhelming

Often the way I long for you has nothing to do with you

a fierce sensation filled with salt and voices

untold gaps, heavy places,

the sick feeling when I close my eyes on a swing

Addictions have categories but not limitations

I am made of both the good and bad

I can shake most indignantly

I can not explain my isolation except to say that it is safe here

I would ask you to join me but your real life will miss you

So I will keep taking these photographs

for a picture is an anticipation of loss

another incorrect way to remember

Authority is limited when it comes to breathing

and putting up storm windows to keep the wind out

strokes happen and the upstairs gives up on the downstairs

causing us to forget the calm

we are all riddled with contradictions

We are more divine than we give ourselves credit for

moving and bending

our bodies like sacred candles

producing light as we burn

the salad days are over

I have less clarity and more reasons

-STACI

3.

Elvis danced with my nanny today

It is the first time he really looked her way

her hair is curled and she is only eighteen

she is the prettiest girl he has ever seen.....

Sometimes it is like your are the only one in the room and the speakers vibrate and everything is alive and you realize that you are already gone....that you left a while ago and didn't really let anyone know. No one knew that you felt like a stranger, that you lived on water and air and that you were still finding things out....cause they are all still figuring things out.

You can go anywhere you want to. Trust me, I know. And the coolest part is that leaving is sad but you get over it. Something always comes in and fills the empty space that wouldn't exist without cutting out in the first place. This is all very dangerous you see, because once you figure this out, you can survive anything.

I wish that we didn't get stuck....thinking that we should not keep moving, or learning, seeing or feeling, but I guess you have to stop to settle. That is the thing our parents can't teach us and some only show us. I hate wisdom and art and movies where people die. I hate that we stop talking out of embarrassment because maturity forces us into silence. We shouldn't have to pretend that we have it all figured out, but I guess we do it for the kids, or ourselves or our memories....for something I suppose.

I want to make something that makes someone feel better. I want to contribute to the things that I believe in. I want to wake up and know that I can be apart of something greater than myself. I want to help those that have helped me.

Elvis decided he needed to go

My nanny wanted him to stay for the show

she spun around and took his breath away

Elvis danced with my nanny today.

-Staci J.

"Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering." -Nicole Krauss

2.

I have officially settled down into my new lifestyle. I feel like I've been asleep for two years and that I am just now waking up. In retrospect I didn't realize I was having such a bad dream. I am getting used to my new schedule and having a job that requires less accountablity and thought. I still have the same work ethic but I am not so stressed anymore. I continued working in eye surgery the past 2 years because I believed that I was good at it. I have learned that just because I can do something well it doesn't mean I really want to do it. I get to make stuff all day everyday for school.

One of my teachers is Sylvia Gaffney. I also like to refer to her as Ms. Miyagi. She is trying to teach me some kind of infinite wisdom by making me do lots of crazy stuff. We went through "wax on wax off", "paint the fence" and "sand the floor" I officially got mad and started being ridiculous in class because she was shooting down my work this past Thursday but after class I realized I had learned a lesson. You know when Ralph gets mad at Mr. Miyagi and starts trying to fight him and then Mr. Miyagi shows him that he has some crazy muscle memory and painting the fence and waxing and sanding the floor were all karate moves that he could now do. The lesson goes something like that. Or at least that is Bryan's interpretation. So yeah I feel crazy but its great.

And I am officially biking with friends again. It has definitly been a while.