an idea

i was thinking (while reading for securities regulation) that it might be a good idea to pretend i'm an artist looking to paint a few attractive nude males. i realize this is thinking like a man, which means i'm not really thinking at all, but it's an interesting idea. it actually makes me giggle a little. i imagine the screenplay to read like this:

me: are we ready to begin?
random hot nude male: yup. is this where you'd like me?
**clothes come off**
me: hehehehe!
random hot nude male: what's so funny?
me: hehehe!

ok so i don't have an elaborate sense of what this would look like aside from the fact that it'd make me giggle, which kind of isn't sexy. in the last 30 seconds i did, however, start thinking, "what happens when he asks to see the painting and he looks like a stick figure?" or "what if he asks for previous works of art?" or "what if he wants references?" but then i realized that (1) models aren't very bright (generally) and (2) i could always respond by saying art is interpretive and excuse me, but haven't you ever seen anyone paint a man as a blob? you obviously don't know art.

a quick google search for "looking for nude model" gave me this craigslist posting:

Photographer looking to add a nude series to his portfolio. Currently just finishing the photography program at [deleted] College. Looking for only female models right now but will be looking to shoot male models later. You can see some of my work at [deleted]. Please send photo and we can talk about my ideas.

ha! yeah right. "currently just finishing?" ok mr. redundant. i'll send you my nudie picture. pshaw!

in conclusion, it appears that this actually happens. weird. and by the way, i'd never do this. i am not an objectifier of men - i just use them for sex.

ok. i don't do that either. shit.

more on panda

a panda walks into a restaurant, sits down, & orders a sandwich. he eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun, & shoots the waiter dead. as the panda stands up to go, the manager shouts, "hey! where are you going? you just shot my waiter, & you didn't even pay for your sandwich!"

"hey, man, i'm a PANDA!" the panda shouts back. "look it up!"

the manager opens his dictionary and reads:

panda: tree-dwelling marsupial of Asian origin, characterized by distinct black & white coloring. eats shoots & leaves.

i think my obsession with anything panda has officially gone too far. teehee.

Morning

there are two ways to look at life.

actually, that's not accurate; i suppose there are thousands of ways to look at life. but i tend to dwell on two of them. the first view is that nothing stays the same and that nothing is inherently connected, and that the only driving force in anyone's life is entropy. the second is that everything pretty much stays the same (more or less) and that everything is completely connected, even if we don't realize it.

there are many mornings when i feel certain that the first perspective is irrefutably true: i wake up, i feel the inescapable oppression of the sunlight pouring through my bedroom window, and i am struck by the fact that i am alone. and that everyone is alone. and that everything i understood seven hours ago has already changed, and that i have to learn everything again.

i guess i am not a morning person.

however, that feeling always passes. in fact, it's usually completely gone before lunch. every new minute of every new day seems to vaguely improve. and i suspect that's because the alternative view - that everything is ultimately like something else and that nothing and no one is autonomous - is probably the greater truth. the math does check out; the numbers do add up. the connections might not be hard-wired into the superstructure to the universe, but it feels like they are whever i put money into a jukebox and everybody in the bar suddenly seems to be having the same conversation. and in that last moment before i fall asleep each night, i understand Everything. the world is one interlocked machine, throbbing and pulsing as a flawless organism.

this is why i will always hate falling asleep.

say cheese

i finally became part of the digital age last month when i got myself a digital camera. and i must say, it is an addictive piece of equipment. almost everywhere i go, there also goes my camera. in my purse, in my bag, tucked away in an $8 dorky camera sack is my new, shiny little camera.

to be sure, all my camera-lugging stems from a desire to want to document everything. in college, i took a lot of pictures my freshman year but rarely took any of the three years after. it's nice looking back at everything from freshman year, seeing all the friends i'd made then, capturing the first few months of our eternal friendship. gosh i love those pictures.

but i digress. the point is that i thought, "hey. i'm in d.c., seeing things i may never see again. i should get a digital camera." this makes sense.

what i didn't realize is how camera-happy i would become. it's like some weird feeling of power: "look at me. i have an incredible amount of memory and i'm gonna use it." i never have to worry about the limits of film. forget 36. i can hold 500. muhahahaha. ha.

this new "digital camera power" that's seemed to have taken over me is not new. understandably, most people with digitals take more pictures than the ordinary. but let's think about this. i mean, remember looking at your parents' photo albums? their college years - hell, their whole life can be seen in picture format in just a few albums. cameras were bigger; film was expensive. they could hardly take their giant camera out on an ordinary friday night at the bar. it'd be ridiculous.

but now i turn around at a happy hour and people are snapping away. actually, the group of us interns took a few shots while eating crabs yesterday. messy, dirty, gutted crabs. and we weren't the only ones trying to get a shot of our clearly life-changing event.

it's just interesting how our lives will pass down to our children. out of our 97098237458 pictures, which ones will we pick to show them? which moments will we treasure?

and is it that important to get it all on film? sometimes it's just better to have it in your head. in the end, the most memorable events of my life just aren't saved on film, you know?

i have no conclusions about this. it's not deep. i just think the rise of the digital age is magnifying what we can capture - what we can store. as long as we don't let the picture-taking get in the way of experiencing the moment.

it'll be interesting to see what it'll be like 20 years from now... and how many pictures i'll have taken.

i dream of panda

dear friends. i would like you to meet my friend - baby panda, tai shan. tai shan (meaning "peaceful mountain") was born july 9th, almost one year ago to the happy giant panda parents mei xiang and tian tian. he is healthy, happy, and as cute as can be.

i'd been planning on visiting tai shan for months now (shut up. they're my favorite animals), ever since i found out i was coming to d.c. for the summer. though i'd planned on visiting little tai shan around my birthday, i caved and decided to go earlier instead...

let me just tell you that no other creature has ever had such an effect on me as little baby panda tai shan. i almost jumped into the panda habitat in an effort to coo and cuddle and climb trees with the little bamboo-eating fluffball. i think that life would be perfect if i could just spend all my time with the panda family, rolling around in grass, living the moral vegetarian life that i've always aspired to lead. yes indeed - after seeing the pandas, i feel like i want to be one. yup. my obesession is that bad...

i already miss the panda...

i think i'll go back to see little baby panda again. he makes me... happy. =)

townies

let me first begin by saying that boston was fabulous.
fabulous.
fabulous.
fabulous.

i miss rosebud's omelets and its makeup caked, 60-year-old waitress. i miss judy's sexual escapades. i miss having to 'turn right to turn left' and the 'caution: elderly' signs. i really really miss the no-smoking-in-massachusetts-bars. hell, i even miss getting my stilettos stuck in harvard square's brick roads.

i do not, however, miss the townies. sure, i might in a few weeks look back upon them fondly, but no. i do not miss the townies.

another fuzzy naval please!
i miss you, boston. i really do.

sigh.

bowflexfitness.com

Not sleepy. I'm messed up for real. My sister and I were up till 7am talking all night. But today - today is what's really done me in.

It's because of exercise; not doing it - watching it. I have been watching this Boxflex commercial for way too long. This thing is intense; no - really. fucking. intense. They have this six week challenge and they show the results... wtf? This shit is bonkers. Obese women bowflex themselves for 6 weeks and BAMN! They look like muscular dudes. DUDES. :ike the kind that drink liquified egg whites and don't feel bullets penetrate their bodies. Beats running.

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with this. I mean, seriously. Didn't I just advertise that this machine turns women into apes? What the heck is appealing about that?

enjoy the silence

Time. Distance. Change. Sometimes I think I'm so stuck on the warm fuzziness of the past that I can't see what is evidently true in the present. Talk without understanding; silence without contemplation... It's worse than walls and barriers between people - it's empty space.

I am feeling uneasy.

spamalot

it's hopeless. i sit down, turn on the computer screen, and anxiously watch the monitor brighten into an array of 256 colors. as i open my email and click on the "new mail" button i know in my heart that only one of the 70 emails i get every day will be of any substance. why? because i am a victim of spam.

unsolicited email, AKA spam, is about as annoying as hootie and the blowfish, and quite frankly, at this point i think i'd rather listen to them for an entire day than receive any more junk mail. i mean seriously. why the hell do i get mail from lonely house wives, viagra, and companies that want me to consolidate my bills? nothing could be less applicable to my life. what's even sadder is that while my junk mail grows exponentially, my daily delivery of real, meaningful mail has been decreasing. i think i died outside in the real world and the only people that can see me can also see dead people. ew. i write emails hoping for some sort of response but to no avail. not that i sit in my chair for days twiddling my thumbs or anything, but i'm seriously beginning to think that i smell or something. and where are all my friends that said they would visit this summer? where are you huh?! i know you're reading this. i'm still up. come here. now.

whoa. there is someone approaching my house... bum? BUM! ahHHHHhhhHH!!

for me this is heaven

you know what the best time of the day is? night. sometimes i think it's early morning when the sun rises... i've always thought of it as some sort of metaphor for the beginning of something new. but there is something nice about coming home at night to your room, turning on some music, looking out your little window, and letting your own thoughts marinate in your head for a while. for those few moments before you close your eyes and fall asleep, the world becomes an entirely different project... your perspective on everything changes. i don't know what it is about night and what brings about this sudden reflectiveness... perhaps the evening sky, the stars, the moon. whatever it is, it's nice. i'm glad the world is submerged in darkness for those ten hours. nights like these... funny how puzzling clarity can be...