...blerg...

it's finally happened. i've been called out on never updating any of my anythings.

this sad sad blog hasn't been touched in over two years. two years! so much has happened in two years. so much! and what's sadder than this sad sad blog is my sadder than sad, bluer than blue portfolio site.

on the one hand, there is this culture where people are posting stuff all the time. every day. multiple times a day. all the time, every day, multiple times a day on several different platforms. and it's great. ok, maybe 10% is great. 2% is phenomenal. and the rest is just noise.

i feel like i fell into the noise.

and not necessarily the noise of putting everything out there all the time, but the trying to attempt being several places at once on the internet and in my own life. and as a person who more resembles an outgoing hermit when i get overwhelmed i shut down. i just stop.

it's that and i've been crazy busy. crazy busy then crazy lazy.

that being said...

i am here now.
i may stay here, at this current blog, but tumblr somehow feels better on the brain. if someone could explain why to me, that would be super. i was going to post more today, but my scanner shit the bed. so...until that gets resolved...

also, i'm a part of this.
i can't wait to see it. julia, matt and jenny did an amazing job on 'the exquisite book'. i can't wait to get my hands on this one.


and really, none of this really matters. what matters right now is what is unfolding in japan. i reeled from that for a few days. some good places to put your money:

there is this.
and this.
and this!

and if you are the type that is all 'i don't need something for my donation' or 'i have far too much stuff as it is' there's the good 'ol red cross.

...coffee sippin, animation swillin...

i love this. i love love love this.

...there once was a lady from nantucket...

which is where you can find me and leonard these days. well, at least for one more week when my artist residency ends. i'm shaking quakers out of the rafters around here, getting ready to start a new body of work...that and drawing for the fun of it, which is crazy.

until then...if you are in/around/about los angeles this weekend, there is this. i have a piece in it, and there are many many other amazing pieces that are apart of this gargantuan show.

...i'm getting kinder country all over my keyboard...

right now i am sitting in craftland waiting for artists and watching paint dry.

i got a text from deb last night who, while painting away in craftland, said that michael corrente poked his head in and said how excited he was that we would be opening up as a year-round store.

my response? 'hrm'

i was at home, collapsed on the couch...collapsed from working on the store that day and from my full serving of humidity, and i read her text and i thought 'hrmmm.' but in actuality it was more like a 'humpf!'

i thought about it moments later...wondered why i held some sort of subterranean grudge against a film maker that, on a day to day basis, i feel ambivalent about. and it occurred to me...well, it occurred to me this afternoon, not that i have been thinking about it for so hard or so long. no, it occurred to me today that, subterraneanly, i blame michael corrente for keeping me apart from my birthday twin, justine bateman.

see, a long time ago i worked at a gift store...a gift store where i first met deb dormody, which has little or nothing to do with this specific story, it's just information. i'm giving it out for free today. anyhow, the aforementioned store was selected by michael corrente himself, aka a location scout acting by proxy for mr. corrente, as a location for a scene in the movie.

i can't remember the ramifications of the situation, if we stayed open, if regularly scheduled workers had to show up, but i remember the lights being off in the store and i remember being bummed beforehand about the hassle of having to work around a film crew. that is until i was told that justine bateman was in the movie and that she was scheduled to be there that very day.

see, a long time ago, much longer before this time, my mind was blown that other people had the same birthday as you. it's a simple concept if you give it two seconds to think about the bajillion people in the world, but i didn't think about practical things. so, i'm super young, i'm grasping at the idea that not only regular joes have my birthday but famous people do too. famous people! which is when i discovered that justine bateman...along with copernicus, carson mccullers, smokey robinson, brancusi, steven nichols (patch from days of our lives! what!), seal, and benecio del toro...had the same birthday as me.

mallory. mallory and me. me and mallory.

i would sit and wonder how much we might be alike. we would get the same jokes and agree on really subtle things. she would just 'get' me. oh eight year old me.

so fourteen or fifteen years later this opportunity gets dangled in front of my face...to meet my birthday twin. while i am a relatively sane adult, the second grader in me sprang forth and tried to figure out what i'd say, how i'd try to play it cool and matter of fact that we have this one awesome thing in common...tying us together through the universe...through time even. it was going to go so smoothly.

(side note: in spite of being a relatively sane adult, there wasn't a part of me that didn't think that justine bateman wouldn't be impressed. it never crossed my mind.)

the big day came. there were trailers outside. large cables coming in and out of the store...as if we had it hooked up to life support. we, the workers who volunteered to be there that day, had to be quiet. i was maybe two hours into quietly hanging around in the dark, eagerly but nonchalantly looking around for my twin, when it was broken to me that justine wasn't coming in to the shoot. i can't even remember why. i think i stopped hearing for a few seconds.

while it probably has nothing to do with michael corrente there is no way i could put it on justine bateman. twins just don't do that to other twins...unless she's the evil birthday twin. hmmmm...

...pvd to nyc...

a thing to know about me is that i love clouds. it's a serious problem...even more so now that i live on the east coast where clouds do not reach the epic, constant and ever-changing menagerie of the clouds in the pacific northwest. flying back into providence in september, looking out the window of the plane i sourly thought to myself...'look at them. they look like mashed potatoes squatting on plexiglas. harumph.'

this past friday i traveled down to brooklyn for my brother's going away party. it was the shortest, longest trip i have taken in awhile. you know...the kind where in less than 36 hours you descend upon a city, cram a late night and a full day of activity down your socialization hole, and swoop back out with a dazed and slimy feeling. it was a great time.

the east coast, weather-wise, has been bombarded with weeks-on-end, flat grey skies and rain. it's making a lot of people around here cranky. not so much me, i like grey weather, but i keep my mouth shut.

anyhow, on the bus ride down i got to experience this panorama of weather that formed and broke up as i traveled south. the biggest bonus: mammatus clouds (second photo from the bottom). i have a barometric crush on them, but have never seen them in person. they occur when the worst of a thunderstorm has passed. i quietly freaked out on the bus.

...playlist...

songs stuck in my head today in order of appearance:

1. 'bret you've got it going on'...flight of the conchords; more specifically the line "that's the conclusion that i've come to, but that doesn't mean that i wanna bum you." over and over again. if you don't know what i mean...here.

2. 'maybe'...from annie; more specifically from "betcha he reads, betcha she sews" to " don't really care as long as they're mine." over and over in my head on a bike, how grossly twee is that? here.

3. 'nikita'...by elton john...which is unexplainable. but later on turned into 'la lupita' as that is where me and folks had dinner tonight. here.


currently and all day i have been transferring files from an old laptop to a new laptop...which is a long and non-elegant process.

WHOA...UPDATE:
i have never watched the 'nikita' video before...what is elton john bowling in?

...sneak peeks of future tuesdays...

all i am going to say, is that come next tuesday you're gonna want to be here, 7 ish, eastern standard time.