the lion king

When I woke up I was singing "I just can't wait to be king" with Simba. I kept tacking on the words, "of the world" at the end though.
The dream was yellow, everything covered in a film of warmth.
And we were all happy.

blegh.

I keep waking up sad.

Last night in my dream I was sitting in a living room with my lap top. It was raining heavily outside. I was searching recipes for something chocolatey--french silk pie specifically. I wasn't finding that recipe. Frustrated I continued to search for something that would require a similar amount of steps. Something I could lose myself in as a form of therapy.


I've decided all of this sadness is my way of freaking out about life changing. It's like this juggling act with school projects, relationships, and post-graduation plans. And I keep dropping the balls.

The best solution: stop thinking or feeling. It's time to do schoolwork like a robot.
It's also time to listen to Man in the Mirror.

a couple of near memories

I know I dreamt of China last night, but I can't remember anything that happened.
The only reason I remember that is because I'm reading this npr article about a controversial book detailing the horrors underlying China's modern day society, horrors that are hidden from and denied by the current generation. Reading the article I could feel I was in China last night. A little weird.

And I know I dreamt of a professor nagging me about sentence structure, being a real jerk about it. I remember defending myself, saying the sentence needed to be broken into two as I had it. Otherwise it was a ridiculous run-on that nobody could ever follow. I remember getting passionately angry at her for not agreeing with me. I felt she was just being contrary for the hell of it.

quotes

I'm cleaning and found this quote I meant to share like a month ago:

"There are times he closes his eyes and sinks into a great silence. I cannot tell if he is overcome by melancholy, or if this is simply the switch of some internal mechanism. Once the silence envelops him, I can say nothing until he regains his senses. As he slowly reopens his eyes, he looks at me blankly, the fingers of his hands moving vaguely on his lap as if to divine why I exist there before him."

"With the sound turned down, I had gotten confused by the sheer discrepancy between the non-sounds and the reality that would have produced them had they been audible...Which is to say, a waterfall ought to have a waterfall's worth of sound."

-Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami

sasquatch

Artists I got to see:
Animal collective!
Devotchka
Bon Iver!
Mos Def
Passion Pit
Blind Pilot
Crystal Castles!
Nine Inch Nails!
The Murder City Devils
St. Vincent
Erykah Badu
Santigold!
Gogol Bordello
Fleet Foxes
Deerhoof
Girl Talk!
The Knux
(The ! indicates they were especially awesome.)

Things that happened:

walking on the way to the venue I hear "Carissa!" turn around and see Chelsea, a girl I went to school with in fifth grade. she gave me a big hug and it was cool.

applaud with thousands as the clouds finally gave us a short break from the intense heat of direct and prolonged sunshine, and accidentally yelling at the top of my lungs, "Yes! The shadows are covering the sun! Thankyou SHADOWS!!!!"

neighboring tent partying as the sun is rising and the bitter bitter sleep deprived anger a few hours later, attempting to wake them up by yelling next to their tent about the loud obnoxious people. i don't think it achieved anything, but it felt great to allow for a bit of vengeance.

thrashing and singing along to nine inch nails.
holding up a lighter to the last song by nine inch nails and quickly pulling my hand down, and telling the stranger beside me, "that hurts". he replied, "yeah." we're so hard core...

watching an enormous guard struggling with a tiny but determined young guy trying to weasel his way from his grip. i was convinced somebody was going to get hurt, and i think everyone else who stepped back a good ten feet did too.

passing along crowd surfers at girl talk.
dancing like upright sardines at girl talk, literally body contact on every side.

looking down to a few people crouched down in the pit beside us, watching them dip their fingers in tiny bags, rubbing powder on their gums. that was new for me--didn't really think i'd ever see someone doing coke.

there's more, but that's a good gist of the weekend.

nine inch nails, santigold, girl talk, and crystal castles were the highlights for sure.

graffiti

Waking to sunshine is one of those things that makes life wonderful.
Another thing that makes life wonderful is waking up after 12+ hours of sleep realizing your waaaaay to realistic nightmares are in fact not real.
And one more thing is the ridiculous song "this is why I'm hot."


So my dream.
I was in a daze, confused and feeling lost. I was at the art department, wandering around unsure of what to do with myself.
I had a pallet and paints. There was a black shiny Audi parked in front of the building. I sidled up next to it and began painting on the hood. Painting! On the hood! I didn't think about what I was doing. I painted my initials, and some flowers. As I painted periodically friends would come by and say hi. We'd chat as though everything was normal. We'd talk about how beautiful and warm it was out and how we're all stressed about our school projects---the norm. They'd comment on what I was painting, complimenting my color choice.
After a long time of painting on this car, I began to realize I may not be able to get the paint off later.
I tried rubbing it off with water and it left this thick residue everywhere. And I realized OMS would probably wear through the car's paint too. I had made a huge mess of this person's car and, being a coward, I just left.
The next day I heard professors talking about what happened. The photography professor, a flamboyant gay man, was telling my installation professor how whoever did that, if they were found out, were gonna be outta here immediately. He made a gesture with his thumb over his shoulder: "Outta here!"
I was terrified.
I couldn't believe how freaking stupid I had been.
And all I wanted to do was go back in time and not be a complete imbecile.
I was thinking through what I would say if I were found out. "I didn't realize what I was doing. I was confused."
Plead insanity?

It was so not cool. I'm pretty sure for hours of sleep I was worrying about how I would fix my predicament. So close to graduating and I would be kicked out, left to fend for myself without even a bachelor's degree.

Life is scary when you go around terrorizing people's fancy belongings. Don't do it.

artist statement

this is an excerpt from my artist statement for installation:

"The significance of this work to me lies in what I feel is a disparate
gap between childhood and adulthood. So much of our freedom to imagine
is lost in the cracks of life as we become bombarded by practical
responsibilities and the realities of things like hatred and
prejudice. I'd like to help remind people of the happiness imagination
and innocence brings, offer a brief return to childhood fantasies."


ideally this is what i want to express in my art. at the least, it's an aim to attempt.
...plus it gives me the freedom of over-saturation and an explicit absence of any form of negativity.
it's exciting because it could be a fun direction to go.

woops

as I was saying...
the history of babel.

I was reading this article about the Guggenheim in New York for class and came across the story the word "babble" orginates.
It's embarassingly exciting.

In the bible after the flood, the survivors travelled to Mount Ararat where they planned to build a tower that would reach Heaven. God thought the people were too full of themselves, so to punish them for hubris he destroyed the commonality of their languages. Babel=Babble. Because they could no longer communicate they gave up, parted ways, and left the tower unfinished.

the history of "babble"

Again with the babies

Last night I had a baby.
I was living in this large home, with an unusually long but ordinary hallway, carpeted, with white walls.
I lived in one of the rooms along this hallway.
I was maybe dating? a boy who I didn't really like. He always wanted to go to my ordinary room, but I always said no. He would come over, and we'd sit on this wrap-around couch in the living room. The room was more like a greenhouse, with windows everywhere. It was beautiful, with constant sunshine and the perfect amount of warmth.
We would lay there chatting, but I really didn't like him. At all.

A bunch of people came over one night for a potluck. He was there too. I was seated on the couch, he was lying down beside me. I was thinking about how I didn't care that he was there, and kind of wanted him to leave. He was complaining about something.
Then from across the room my mom was walking towards me holding a baby. Katy from the art dept. squealed, "Oh, Carissa, is that your baby?!"
"Yep it is," I said through an immediate smile.
My mom passed the baby on to me. I cradled her.
I don't even know if the guy stayed. I'm not sure what his place in the dream was. He was so unimportant, but so persistently there.

Anyway, the baby was white. I mention this because she was sooooo white, like bleach baby or something. She was wrapped in blue and could have only been a couple months old, sleeping, with a very squishy face.
She was adorable and all mine.
I had the distinct feeling she and I had a bond nobody could change, and can easily say she was the most important thing in my life. She made me feel whole, powerful, and at ease. It was a kind of love I've never felt.

So I think this dream is because I watched the Desperate Housewives Finale last night and there's been this one running plot with the threat of a delusional man killing a young boy--son of one of the Housewives.
In last night's episode she ended up tied to a tree while the delusional man sat in a car waiting for the boy's father to drive up the street. The delusional man had the young boy in the backseat. The moment the car drove up, he drove straight into it, with hopes they would all die in the collision. The woman got out of the ropes tying her to the tree and ran, crying desperately, thinking she had just lost her son. Watching that moment I felt, a lot.
That's a kind of loss I don't know if I could handle, and I don't know how anyone does.

So yeah, thinking about baby love. That's what did it.
That guy though, no idea.

um.

I feel like in the night somebody came and poked my eyelids softly but continuously leaving them swollen and now someone else in my belly is trying to ring me out from the inside.


I dreamt I was helping a girl babysit a couple of young girls. We were in one of their bedrooms and the girl I was babysitting with starting making moves on me. I didn't realize at first how strange it was. I didn't really know her-met her a day ago-and she was female, and younger than me. I finally resisted and pushed her away.
Then I was walking along a dark damp city street scattered with late night loiterers. It was uncomfortable.
Everything in that dream was.

Maybe she was me and I'm doing something I shouldn't. I need to learn a lesson and push a certain decision/emotion/goal off and go on a late night walk in the city.
But, what decision?
What if I push off the wrong one?
This is silly.
I'm going to school.

the park.

Yesterday at Boulevard was ideal, and being one of Katie and I's last visits there together, it was fittingly so.
We sat on the rocks hidden by a couple trees from the masses of people and sunshine.
...It was so hot we chose to sit in the shade.

She was recording sound for a school project where she'll be playing the sound while reading something she's written. Turned out while we sat there writing notes to each other to communicate so our words wouldn't disrupt the recording of environment, a weasel (or something like it and equally cute) hopped by, two guys our age drove a monster truck toy along the rocks, the train went by, children screamed from joy, girls belly laughed, the waves quietly crashed, and a peace mob paraded behind us.
See what I mean by ideal?

She might be leaving a few days after graduation. Leaving, as in moving away to Massachusetts. When she told me that yesterday it broke my heart a little. I'm going to miss her so badly and I thought we'd have time to hang out this summer before I leave for China.
Since she doesn't read these posts I'm gonna go ahead and admit that I'm hoping she doesn't get that job that plans to steal her from me two months too early.
Actually, no.
That's not fair.
I'm hoping they'll realize they don't want her just yet.
Two months, even one month is all I need to feel prepared for good byes.
Less than that might do permanent damage.


Also the other night I dreamt a sea creature was getting surgery from the Grey's Anatomy cast. He flailed his appendages in the air, one of them I clearly saw waving all around spewing blood like a hose. It was quite the mess.

Oh, and in last night's dream I was calculating what schoolwork I'd need to do to be ready for Sasquatch next weekend. I had 20 plus 14 drawing assignments to complete. That's a lot and not true.

a little strange.

last night i had a dream with some extreme views of architecture from below. i was viewing myself precariously standing at the edge of a skyscraper...a skyscraper whose image i just saw in my architecture class.

also, for the last hour and a half i've had constant de ja vu.
and, the heinous headache returned from the other day to hang out in my head again for a while.
luckily it's gone, but the moment it went away i felt an overwhelming sadness.
maybe my brain has become dependent on these headaches and now misses them when they leave.

i don't know.

the point is, today is starting out weird.

starting soon

As of now (or as close to now as possible) i'm going to be better.

By be better I mean work even harder on art projects, think harder in art history, write and try to speak more clearly, socialize more, and try to smile and laugh as much as possible.
The reason is, I will be done with Western in less than a month. I don't want to look back in a few weeks and regret having been mopey or stupid. There's not enough time for that!

So starting right now, I'm going to buy a ticket to see my high-school buddy graduate in exactly a month.
After that, I'm going to roll up my drawing and prepare to paint, then critique it up.
And tonight I hope there's movie night, because I need to get started on that increased socializing.

dear diary,

I feel myself becoming a cynic.
It's a tangible shift in my perspective on life and it's strange to be aware of it and not be working to stop it. Maybe it's a maturing situation.

I feel a strong doubt that I will possibly find a person, one person, that I want to spend the potential remainder of life with...someone who wants to do the same with me. That seems far-fetched.


And when it comes to art. Yes, it's beautiful and inspirational, and still a definite passion of mine. But, at the same time, so much of the world measures success by how many people know your name and/or how much money is made doing what you do. The same goes for art of course, and I don't want to fall into thinking that way too. I don't want to seek fame and push myself on people to get it.
And to make things worse, when I reflect on the art I make, I never feel it's that good.

I'm probably just depressed because life is changing right now and I'm scared. This, hopefully, is completely irrational.

This is a huge positive in my life right now, and should overpower the previous thoughts though. Sharron, my favorite professor, a woman I absolutely admire and respect, wrote "I am so glad you're in this class" and other general positive comments about my first 15 paintings this quarter. That felt amazing. She's got a show in Monterey at the same time as Alisha's wedding so, fingers crossed, i'll be able to check it out. That would make my summer.
And I know this will seem strange, but I've got some sort of relationship with people who wear round glasses. She does, as does Xu Bing, vice president of CAFA, another artist I look up to...Maybe when my sight goes I'll wear round glasses too.

My potential employers

My favorite wording on their website:

Q: What will I eat?
A: Don't freak out.

and

In addition to the Water Park there are other parks throughout the city. The most interesting of which is Chong Hong Park which is also know as "Cartoon Street". It's pathways and entrance are lined with generic cartoon characters and in the summer there are regular traditional dance performances.

Awesome.

dismemberment.

Last night I dreamt I accidentally tore off a fellow painter's arm. It left a bloody sinuous socket.
I ran off to find somebody who could schedule him a surgery to sew it back on.

It took me forever. I was in a huge office building, stopping at many cubicles, speaking with many bored and perturbed office ladies, all of them saying no or being otherwise engaged and unwilling to speak with me.
I was frantic.
I found someone to speak to. As I pleaded her to pencil my friend in for an "emergency medical surgery" she was preoccupied with a pile of papers at her desk. She was scratching notes and numbers while I begged her. A man came into my peripheral who was clearly in agony. He was old and fragile and had a skin disease. The woman, upon seeing him, said that sorry, she couldn't help me because this man was worse off and needed the surgery more.

So I went back to meet Austin in a small dimly lit room with a television and lazy boy. He was seated slumped in the chair with the tv blaring something nonsensical. It was a depressing scene. It felt he had been there for weeks, a sloth in front of the tv.
I sat down beside him to deliver the bad news.
He had bandaged his arm back onto his shoulder and I asked whether it was attached at all under the gauze. He said no.
He seemed to have surrendered to his sad situation.

I'm pretty sure I ended up finding him a surgery, but it wasn't any time soon.

I saw him today and told him this dream.
He just sort of smiled throughout, so once I finished explaining it I quickly ducked away.

art is just a dream.

Last night I dreamt I was making art for exhibitions. They were student exhibitions but the art was incredible.

Reflecting on my art, it's like I was a slightly less famous, female version of Matthew Barney. I had the multiple textures thing going, with gelatinous sculpture, and the animals sculpted of something else.
I had one installation with some sort of metallic instruments screwed to off-lime green gelatinous hoses that reached to the ceiling.
The metallic instruments rested on a table, and under the table were two animals facing either direction.

I remember the process of getting myself and the art there--baggage, tickets, airplane, anxiety and all. And I remember, walking through the exhibition when it was finally all ready, thinking how profound my piece was and hoping people would spend enough time looking at it to understand.

a list.

1. Yesterday I went to the library to pick up some books I had on hold. The lady had an enormous smile on her face. She said, "Everytime I see your name I smile...My name is Clarissa Mannsfield."
Whoa.

2. Yesterday I read in the book Hard-Boiled Wonderland, by Haruki Murakami, a passage that was exactly what I dreamt a few nights ago:
"The woman jiggled a metal fitting in the corner, and presently a portion of the facing wall began to open inward lifting up like the door of the trunk of a compact car. Through the opening it was pitch black, but I could feel a chill, damp air blowing...Stepping into the total blackness wasn't my idea of fun, but I toughened up my nerve and planted one foot inside the gaping hold. I crouched forward to duck head and shoulders through, coaxing my other foot along...I stook there dumbfounded, as if I'd been hit by a blunt object, overcome by the chilling realization of my utter helplessness...I felt for the flashlight switch and sent a welcome beam of light straight out across nowhere."
(Not exactly the same, but eerily so.)

3. It poured and poured and was windy windy all night long.

4. The Shins concert from outside the black plastic covered gates. We ended up with better seats under shelter than the people inside, standing in the rain, who paid money...to stand in the rain.
We left early too. The shins are okay.

5. This kind of sickness makes me hear everything weird, so it's like I've been living in a bubble, or inside the television set broadcasting my life. I don't feel like I'm directly interacting with anyone or anything.
But at the same time I'm super sensitive to taste...so I'm living through my tongue.

6. I haven't started any of the many things I need to get done yet. None of them. I've tried printing my article, but it failed. I've tried reading other things, but nothing comes through. I haven't tried painting, that scares me.
But today is the day I will do things, no matter how they turn out, because it is Sunday.

7. I'm not sure what this list is. It was weird things that happened yesterday. Now I don't know.
...

8. Maia is sitting on my couch.

codeine dreams

my dreams involved being in an enormous mall on a secret mission to find something hidden in a dark tunnel behind a vault.
It was scary and strange and dangerous.

It ended with me running through the mall as fast as I could, running from a man, presumably my lover but also my enemy.
I ran into a special portion of the mall made of entirely gold jewelry shops, where he bought me earrings to catch and subdue me.
It worked.

My favorite scene in the dream was when a man opened the vault on an otherwise innocent white mall wall. He opened it to a dark tunnel that went on forever. At the end of it was our goal, was the thing we (a group of us) intended to get. We needed it.
Maryann held a flashlight to the tunnel and it beamed a line of light all the way to through the tunnel hitting something golden. That was it, and I remember feeling terror in anticipation of needing to crawl into the deep darkness.

I woke up sweating and feeling out of it.
These past few days I've felt the closest to what a crazy person must feel like, and I think the sickness combined with the evening ritual of codeine syrup is likely actually making me crazy.