Epic failures and successes

GOD. I'm going to fail my online Health class, the easiest, most convenient class in the world. It's pretty much set in stone by now. I missed two tests, basically because they're due at 4 p.m., when I am inevitably busy at work, not thinking about them, with my deadline blinders securely in place, doggedly plodding toward the finish. Then I come home and realize with a chill that I have missed another test or assignment, like discovering a dead pet hamster I forgot to feed.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to, more like can't, have two pursuits going at once. Work and school have never really gone well together for me. Work takes over. I come home and feel justified in not getting any schoolwork done, because I have been at work; writing, maxing out my brain, making money. School is fast losing its luster.

On another note, AAAAD on Friday went nicely, with a solid turnout that never made the space too crowded, good folk music, and high-quality art. Next month is a solo show by Russ Pope, an awesome artist who draws really cool bulbous heads and who, whaddya know, is already blogging about the cool shit he is building for the show.

Pics to come. Maybe. I shouldn't make so many promises.

Slip and slide

Oh, my brain is a surging inbox, full of mental notes that got misfiled. My mouth is an open window on a blustery day.

This blog was born in Germany in the wake of New Year's 2010, when I realized I needed to be writing more often, chronicling my adventures abroad in an accessible way before they were gone. It was hard at first, but soon I began seeing every situation as potential material. My roommate's neurotic notes, my loneliness, non-refrigerated milk products, my grand shopping cart theft, Mirjam and her crazy dancing, Micha, Berlin in late spring, Erich's nudie park, and soon my broken heart at having to leave.

Berlin street art

After getting a writing job back in the States, though, my need to write was satiated in other forms, and my blog dried up. This is my second attempt to bring it back-and my first post of the New Year, 2011. But what have I done since the last promise to be more faithful to my blog and my loyal followers twelve? How do I collapse it all into one redeeming post? 

Let's try it:

December

Spent 48 hours in the same house as my family. Longed for mulled wine.

January

Went to the Symphony for New Year's.

Phone-interviewed Lily Tomlin.

Wrote a cover story on Santa Barbara photographer Santi Visalli.  

February

Took over monthly art happening Art After Art After Dark (explanation: an art happening that happens after the art walk Art After Dark). Themed the dentally inspired show "Word of Mouth" and donated the proceeds to a friend who had recently knocked out some teeth.

Word of Mouth

Went with Chase to the Santa Barbara Int'l Film Festival...and stayed at Santi Visalli's place.

Went to the launch party of the book The Tribes of Burning Man in San Francisco. 

Wrote a news story about the ethics of sex robots.

Decided next month's Art After Art After Dark theme is Food and Frustration.

Food and Frustration

...and that leaves us with now.

I slipped into the slide of not blogging, and the more I slid, the more lubricated the slide became. Which is a shame, since I know my absurd, vaguely uncomfortable mixed metaphors have been sorely missed.

Ablogagies

Dear blog,

I am so sorry to have been ignoring you. I feel so bad. I cannot even look into your big bloggy eyes anymore.  Oh, come on. Quit looking at me like that! I've just been under an avalanche of work and had an earthquake of life changes, that's all. Mommy still loves you!

Funny how, when nothing's going on, I have plenty of time to tell you all about it. You know I'm having real adventures when you hear absolutely nothing from me.

Well, the good news is, I look forward to reviving you soon. This time, I hope to strike the right balance of leisure and adventure.

I love you.



Quit looking at me like that.

-Anna

So f&%#!ing busy

Dear Spill,

I am so sorry to have been ignoring you. I have been pouring every single iota of human effort into staying alive, making deadlines at my new job (yes, it's going great, thanks), not allowing the ol' account to dip into the red zone as I wait for that first full paycheck, moving in (pictures soon, I promise!) and passing World Politics and (boredom central) Microeconomics. It seems like every day there's some new crisis to be averted, something I forgot at work, a new bill to pay, a debt I didn't know I had, a call I forgot to return.

I can't wait to be finished with school. It is such a drag, and all it does is get in the way. Oh, and a certain someone is coming from Germany for a month but I don't have any time, so I guess he'll have to entertain himself until Thanksgiving break.

Even with all of this, I am SO, SO grateful for my beautiful apartment, so happy to have my Arts Editor job, and even though I am really poor now I am so extremely glad I went to Germany for a year, if only to have danced until morning properly, met Mirjam and Erich and Micha, read Kafka in the original language, to have lived in a house with a Klingel, reveled in the joys of public transport, divided my waste into like 15 different receptacles, experienced the madness, the agony, and the ecstasy that is World Cup fever, and shocked the socks off a lot of middle-aged women in the German Hygiene Museum by saying I got up at 9 most mornings.

But yeah, sorry I'm so out of touch these days. Here, keep yourself busy with a New Times. 

Love,

Anna

Housed, for real this time

I have good news to impart: I got that apartment! What apartment? You know, that one, the dream one, the one! (I don't tell you guys about things I am hoping for anymore until after they're finalized, otherwise things get jinxed and nothing works out and my blog becomes a sort of memorial to my failures.) I can't tell you exactly where the new apartment is because it's so ridiculously public, being right above a shop downtown.

...Just know that when you're strolling through the city center, I am above you, watching, wondering why it doesn't occur to anyone to look up. When you are going out for a cup of coffee I am soaking in the tub several feet above and to the left of you. And when you are bar-hopping, your drunken cries will shape the plot of my dreams. That's all!

And it's gorgeous too. Don't think I mentioned that. Pics to come. Obviously!