As of late

We rejoiced when it was 95º in the shade, I had fun losing (Thumb Wars, 5-Card Stud Poker), and have never regretted leaving my sketchbook (or even just a BOOK, I normally carry at least one) at home more than this past weekend.
Hello randomly placed sketches and portraits, I missed you.
Don't ever leave me again.

P.S. The foot was from when I had to stay in bed part of June. The face was probably someone sitting in Bay Street. I am the one sporting the Sapporo label (in my top 3 favorite beers, thanks to my Shoko Hori), and I unintentionally did a portrait of a flute player in almost the same exact manner as my brother Michael's portraits of people. Right down to the bright colors.
Gotta love genetics ...?

Zombified, and loving it,

c.i.

Zehn

It's been 10 years today that my uncle was killed down in Mammoth Lakes on a motorcycle trip on his way up to see my mother and I. We were supposed to meet him the next day in Jamestown, just outside of Yosemite and Sonora.
Instead of moping around, mourning the loss, I ditched my Algebra II class this morning to sit out in the sun, listen to music and take a nap.
When I got up I tried to find his obituary online, but instead I got a link to Santa Anita Raceway where he was the finishing photographer for the races. I had no idea, but in the same week a jockey named J.C. Rodriguez was killed. A few lives summed up in a few sentences.

-------

This second weekend of Faire made it so I would miss Newark Days - the annual celebration of suburbia that includes a cast of the same yuppies and carnies every year. Thank God.
The escape came with a price: setting up camp in a space time continuum where nakedness was encouraged, intoxication rained down like the tomatoes at the "Flogging Booth" and the unshowered heathens that I've come to love and cherish in all of our LARP-ing glory resided.

And now, dear Lurker, I sit. I drink my coffee, and try to fudge my way through my online math homework.

Cheers,
c.i.

Ciao Bella, Ren Faire [First Weekend]

I was able to tack on an extra 500 geek points for being employed, very last minute, at the Northern California Renaissance Faire with my lovely Sydney, and will be wenching Gelato every weekend until October 18th.
I realize I have given out this URL to advertise my art, be patient: I need to install my "new" scanner when I'm not bombing online math tests.
And now for something completely different: a shower.

Fractured Ulna, Full Love

You roll off my tongue like smoke, and I'm struggling to keep you in my lungs.

"alone with everybody"
the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

-c. b.

9.9.09

This is my brother and
(still feels weird saying this because I'm not even sure if it's official, but)
my sister-in-law, and my niece kinda chilling out.
I'm not sure what names they're coming up with, but I know this:
that kid is going to have some crazy hair and some insane want to draw/photograph people, or buzz their head and play bass and guitar (not like my brother and I ever did that ... -cough-).

Now accepting monetary donations to go see my brother and Melissa in New Mexico.

Also: thanks to the power of the internet, apparently there's a lot more people visiting this site. Bravo for being interested, hopefully you won't get scared off, and keep on lurking, you lurkers ^_^

Cheers,
Auntie C.I.

Uncle Tex

Moving back home with the parents has

• Made me eat healthier than I had when I was living on my own (although I do cook, it's nice to have two chefs for parents).
• Renewed the need to get the HELL back out there again, maybe out of the state or country. Go visit Shoko in Osaka. My 20s shouldn't be spent worrying about those damned student loans I had to take out just to finish my undergrad.
  
• Increased my chances of running into not one, but two kids from my graduating class of high school AND my 5th grade teacher all in one grocery store within a 20 minute span. One worked at said grocery store, and the other I recalled being an uptight gal who I don't remember even having conversations with. From the back I gawked at her FuckMe slingback white heels and rose-patterned strapless summer dress, and suddenly there was a face attached to it that I recognized. Awkward(turtle).
  
  ... Christ, all I remember from my 5th grade teacher were those godawful giraffe print dresses (not the pattern of giraffe hide, but actual giraffes just walking around on an otherwise perfectly nice dress. She had one with zebras, too) and the fact that she made us spend 3 months of our U.S. history on the Puritans. Therefore most likely solidifying my distaste for any kind of Puritan/Manifest Destiny dogma.
  

• Reawakened an obsession with 1950s cartoons, namely those done by Chuck Jones (directed "How The Grinch Stole Christmas", "The Dot and the Line", "Phantom Tollbooth", various Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry), and good ol' Tex Avery ("Droopy" and "The Howling Wolf", co-creater of Looney Tunes, and the nameless redheaded siren). Thank you, Direct TV, I don't pay for you, but you've kept me up many nights with recorded caches of cartoons, movies, and Criminal Minds. ... The priorities in my life are astounding.
  

You may remember this from your childhood along with other various banned cartoons.
I think I blame Tex Avery for wanting to do various voices, facial expressions, and secretly wanting to be a redhead, ha.

In other news, I don't care if the online classes are eco-friendly, they're a pain in the ass. That is all.
Cheers,
c.i.

Balls on your forehead

I'm not sure why it took me so long to see Garden State, but I kind of love it.

And who doesn't want a Dick Cheney Desert Storm trading card?

I can die happy

CAUTION: SPOILERS Do NOT open if you haven't seen the movie yet, and don't come bitching to me.

But my GOD. The love for this movie continues.

Anger dwells in the bosom of fools

Thank you Jacob for sending me the Helmetfish. May Wisconsin treat you well in your last year of college.

Yesterday marked the last day of my summer of discontent, surgeries and debauchery, and I mean that in the best possible way.
There are few places I can name or think of that are more comfortable or serene than laying underneath a pine tree around sunset with a good friend. Although we were pursued by an elderly Indian gentleman on a tricked out tricycle (only in Fremont ...), just the general feeling of goofing off brought about recollections of childhood summers where our biggest concerns were sunburns and mosquito bites.
When I woke up this morning, the gray reality of my location, situation and disposition slapped me upside the head: I was running late for school and didn't have time to shower, the coffee my father made at 7:30AM was lukewarm and tasted burnt, and one of my family friends, a Dr. Alan Zacharia, had passed away on Saturday from cancer. The service is today in Daly City, my parents left shortly after I had left for class.
September never seems to be a good month for anyone close to my family; this month marks the 10 year anniversary of my uncle getting killed in a motorcycle accident outside of Mammoth Lakes. The only time I've ever been down there was on a family vacation my freshman year of high school, and I kept straining to see the exact place he died, like I would recognize it just by intuition. I couldn't, and still don't know which blind curve he and his friends went around just to find a Toyota 4Runner with a driver blacked out behind the wheel veering into their lane.

It's about this time that I believe I should take a nap, and upon waking draw some comics, and eventually get back into the responsible routine of (ugh) doing math homework.

Cheers,
c.i.