Inspiration

I bought my first piece of signed art today. My fam was walking around Downtown Naples and happened upon the annual art fair. Most of the art was bad but the artists weren't talentless; they just made boring, insipid art. I guess one has to consider the audience - a bunch of wealthy old people probably don't want anything revolutionary hanging on their wall. Anyway, seeing all that stuff reminded me how much I like to make art and how I could make better art than a lot of that; art that people still might want to own.

This all tied in with this week's conversations between my brother and me. Rick's pretty knowledgeable on economics and unabashedly libertarian. He says the economic situation will force people to stop consuming and start conserving. Instead of throwing away a torn shirt you'll take it to a seamstress for example. He also thinks people will become entrepreneurs again. They'll lose their jobs and be forced to create products or services that fill a need. I've had some good ideas that I thought would make money before. But those ideas have never come to fruition because the risk required to realize them was too great. I wonder if getting pushed out of comfortable jobs will force people to wager what they wouldn't before. Perhaps the results will be innovative and fantastic.

Which brings me back to art. It's something I couldn't risk before and the pressure of it made me hate doing it. Now that I'm away from it, I realize I might have some talent, and I might have some good ideas. I bought that picture because it was the first one of the artist's that caught my eye. Michael Bryant is his name. He does the double exposures all in camera, so he's got no idea how they'll come out until he develops the film. I guess it just reminds me that life operates in strange cycles. Sometimes you think you're just going around the same circle all the time and nothing's going anywhere. Then all of a sudden you're someone new, and you're in some new place, and your whole life is different. But at the same time, whatever it is that makes you you is unchanged and you can't escape from it. Nor would you want to.

"plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose"

Hi everyone,

I don't have a transcendent topic for today so I'll just update you.  

1.  I think I won my bout with insomnia.  Two days in a row I've been able to sleep! Hurray.  It might be too soon to call it, but I'm pretty sure it's school/stress related.

2.  I'm going to Abu Dhabi for studio next semester.  Yep I'm pretty psyched.

3.  I don't know what I'm doing with my life. 

4.  I have a gay husband via common law.

5.  My family is getting together in Florida for Christmas and my bro is coming sans gf.  Word.

6. The future, and how my present choices are impacting that future, and how the future does or doesn't influence my present choices, scare me.

Making lists is illuminating.

Sorry for being euphemistic. 

<3 

krayon

A fortnight and a half

Hello dear friends,

The third week of my New Orleans adventure is coming to a close. I apologize for my infrequent posts - apparently computer chargers die in humidity. Luckily I live across the street from the Loyola library so I've been using the computers here.

A few comments on work and friends (as per Brian's request):

Work
I work at a non-profit organization called NHS which serves a number of functions. First, NHS teaches gives homeownership counseling and teaches financial fitness classes. Second, NHS does construction management and real estate development. Finally, NHS has a Community Building Initiative (CBI). That's the department I'm in.

My supervisor also has a Masters in Planning and he's really cool, as is everyone else at NHS. So far we've done a survey of 1200 housing conditions in the Freret neighborhood. On Monday Eddie Izzard (the comedian) did a benefit concert for NHS. We are also working with a group of architects called Design Corps, who are designing and building a new bus shelter for Freret street. My job involves attending a lot of community meetings and giving a lot of presentations. Tomorrow I'm starting a more independent project. NHS recently bought a building which needs to be renovated. I'm going to do some renderings of the re-designed building for a capital campaign. I'm also creating urban design guidelines for Freret Street.

Friends
One other student from my program is down here this summer - my friend Matt. He is working for NORA - the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority. There are a bunch of interns working for the city who I've met and hung out with once or twice. I've also hung out with the Design Corps kids a few times. They're all in their Masters program too and pretty cool.

Moving to a new city is a fun adventure, but, as I'm sure you all know, it takes a while to really settle in and make good friends. Weekends have been fun so far - bars and bands and good times, but lots of small talk and mingling. This Saturday I'm heading to the beach with Matt and some others. It should be a good time.

Life in General
My average day involves going to work, coming home, eating dinner, running, cold showering and then reading. I've read "The Moviegoer" by Walker Percy and "Old Men at Midnight" by Chaim Potok. I just started "Women in Love" by D.H. Lawrence. It's a quiet life. I like the independence and the free time to think. But, conversely, and necessarily, it's a bit lonely.

I actually went to church last Sunday - First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans. I think I'll go again this Sunday but I'll try a different church. I think I'll dabble in Catholicism since New Orleans is such a Catholic city.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading.

-k

Hey friends,

So another school year is coming to an end. It's crunch time, but not crunchy enough that I'm freakin' out yet (hence me writing this blog). In any case, I just realized I'm going to be home in about a month. It's going to be summer again. I simultaneously feel like summer just happened and that summer was a lifetime ago. I feel like I've lived about three lives in the last year: Calvin, summer, and Penn. I'm happy with the one I'm in now. I wouldn't want to go back to anything I've been before. I think I'm on the right track life-wise, even though I never anticipated the way things have shaken out. I never thought I'd doubt the things I've doubted. I never thought I'd decide what I've decided. Maybe the first lent itself to the second. This time around though I've owned my actions. I'm not lying anymore, to myself or anyone else. So word to that.

Who knows what summer holds? Waiting to hear back on an internship opportunity. Don't want to talk about it yet for fear of jinxing it. Trying to keep my hopes down. Sigh. Wherever I end up this summer, I don't know if I can handle any more lifetimes. So much change is overwhelming.

Despite the different lives, some patterns emerge. For example, I have a boy problem. I always thought I just fell into relationships without looking for them because I wasn't assertive enough to know what I wanted/didn't want. While I've become more discerning in my taste, it's no coincidence that I'm always in a relationship. Because I don't know how to be friends with girls I just become friends with guys. It's way easier, it makes more sense to me, I'm more comfortable. And then that always ends up somewhere. It's a strange deficiency. I could probably teach a class on dating but I need a class on making friends.

I'm having a hard time foreseeing my future. I'm failing to connect my present actions with possible future consequences. I'm living in the now. How lame that sounds. I don't even know how to picture a future or where or with whom.

Life goes by pretty fast. I always indulge myself in brief moments of perfection. I wish I was brave enough to look at the big picture.

Until we meet again,

-k

Without a fight

Who knew happiness could be so quiet?

I don't consider myself an argumentative person by nature -- maybe some of you would disagree. I've definitely gone through phases where I like to argue, but I suppose I'm out of that now. Even in class I find myself without anything to add to debates about modernism, post modernism, and ethics (some of my favorites!). Maybe I'm not down with the format of asserting myself in an interrupting manner whenever the prof says anything that could be argued with. I'm all about meaningful debate, but I guess I prefer to hear what profs have to say, and decide what I think about it, before interrupting class time to bloviate at length for my own egotistical satisfaction. But I digress.

On the one hand, I find myself without any desire to argue and I wonder if I should be concerned. I don't feel like enforcing my ideas on anyone else. I don't feel like fighting for ideals. I don't feel impassioned about anything in particular. Perhaps this is an offshoot of my previous post. I haven't sorted through all this stuff in depth on my own so I'm not quite sure what I think anymore.

Perhaps more disconcertingly, I don't feel like fighting with other people cuz I'm not sure what I want to fight for. I'm struggling to reconcile myself to a number of disparate beliefs that I once believed concretely. Or rather, I'm currently questioning previously concrete components of my identity (good sentence, no?). I once wanted to be a city planner. I still do. But now I don't know what that really means. I once considered myself a Christian. I still do. But now I don't know what that means, or if I really like what that means. I once wanted to be in love. I still do but...I once wanted to get married, I once wanted to move around the world, I once wanted ... It goes on like this. I fear I don't have much fight in me, not only because I don't know what I want, but I don't know if I know who I am? These things I knew I wanted in a way defined me. Now I don't know how to define myself. That sounds melodramatic. I'm not sure if it's true. Ha.

On the other hand, at least in the context of a relationship, it's so nice to not have to fight. I like being able to enjoy things, and share that enjoyment without having to logically justify my enjoyment. I like having someone else just get it. I like just getting someone else. I like not having to fill every moment of silence with something. Shared silence is quite a lovely something that is all too often ruined with weightless words.

I think one of the most beautiful parts of an amazing Thanksgiving break was reading newspapers on a Starbucks couch, passing favorite articles between us. As I've said before, sometimes I tend to get too caught up in my head. It was amazing to spend time with someone whose presence magically makes all those stupid internal debates disappear. For the entire week, it was like someone hit the mute button inside my head. So as we read the Times and the Tribune, I heard silence and rustling pages, and Starbucks' token world-music-of-the-week album, and the prose of some wonderful Tribune staff writer -- instead of an internal monologue droning on about which of Jameson's four quadrants I fall into.

Now that I'm back to the real world, my self-imposed esoteric dilemmas are back to hashing themselves out in the space between my ears while I vainly try to get work done. But in the same vein as above, it's nice to have someone send me an NPR show they happened to come across which they think I'd like. Those small tokens of affection somehow possess that same peace which reminds me why I'm here and what I'm doing and who I am when I'm not muddling through theory and history and computer programming.

I suppose thoughts of the previous week's loveliness will have to get me through two more weeks of school work. I'm now transcending stress and just enjoying learning (or trying to. I was mad zen-like earlier today! With a deadline tomorrow morning I wonder how long it'll last...) Regardless, Christmas break isn't so far away and I've never looked forward to it more.

If you're reading this, I love you.

<3
K

Absorbing and Reflecting

Two separate but related thoughts:

One - I am learning a lot at school. This is good. I am learning new skills in the forms of new computer programs and data analysis methods. I am also learning new theories of planning which are quite fascinating and are blowing my mind. The problem is that I have so much stuff to do that I don't have time to internalize the theory. I know it and understand it, but I don't have time to think about it and absorb it into my personal theory of what kind of planner I want to be. I came here so certain of what I wanted to do and now I feel confused and overwhelmed and uncertain about all of the options and realities of what planners actually do.

Two - I missed Grand Rapids for the first time a couple days ago. I realized how much I took it for granted. More specifically, I did not appreciate how lucky I was to have not just one but many close friends to whom I could talk about anything at any time. I missed having people to stay up late with and/or have conversations with while falling asleep.

These two thoughts are cyclically related. First, I realized the problem from part one through a phone conversation with a friend from part two. (Sorry, this is mad cryptic) Essentially, I internalized all of my learning in undergrad because I had good friends to talk to about everything. I also make my best realizations about myself by talking to people who know me well. They don't even have to talk, I can just talk at them, and by talking, all of a sudden, I have a revelation about whatever situation I'm talking about.

The moral of the story: In a previous blog (http://urbananarama.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-love.html) I talked about how love (as in a relationship) makes a person real. I think this extends to friends. Being known and loved by someone, and being able to confide in someone -- the fact that that relationship exists somehow substantiates your existence. Just a conversation with a good friend (even if they're hundreds of miles away) is like looking in a mirror after you haven't seen your reflection in a long time. If you're forgetting yourself or are confused about who or what you are, a friend can remind you without saying anything. Your muddled thoughts bounce off their presence on the other end of a phone line and come back crystal clear. This is a fascinating phenomenon.

On the one hand, I feel like my identity is safely stored in best friends across the country who won't forget who/what I am, even if I'm starting to. That's a reassuring thought. On the other hand, it sucks that those people are all so far away. I know making close friends takes time, but I don't really feel like making new best friends. I have them already. I don't need any more.

Unlike conversations, writing this hasn't clarified much. I guess I want to say thanks to all of you close friends who are far away. I truly appreciate you despite the distance between us and I hope you are all well. Now everyone move to Philadelphia. Just kidding...kind of. Maybe someday we can all live on the same block and be crazy old people together. In the meantime, hearts to you all, and I wish you luck with whatever adventures you're pursuing.