i want my life to continue to be extraordinary.

and that's exactly where i'm headed.

way past fine, just past excellent, and coming up on monumental.

i need to take more photos. sorry. (sorry mostly to myself lol).

some photos of late (thanks droid):

driving back on 465 from a visit with kelly jean n josh:

k-mooney, yet another brilliant self-portrait:

kristina, caroline, and i all had a pedal party while erik played with his phone:

proof that we found a baby moley moley moley:

first outside ride since the snow, twas a good one:

erik looking most lovely (and more badass than me, plobvs):

erik had a pedal party all his own last night bwahahaha:

doors seem to open nicely, but i wish they'd open to something i could get paid to do. like, i'm super stoked to get this internship, but it's going to be at a time when it prevents me from working at all on fridays and mondays. wish i could get paid more. and not feel like i'm stretched thin all the time.

jared made me feel better last night when i was feeling all useless... he told me how people at the shelter have bragged that i've caught on so fast and that i'm so good there. it was nice to know people notice/that i'm not terrible (cause i just feel like i still have things to learn there, lol).

i decided i'm not going to do anything special/crazy for my birthday (it's comin up fast!)... christmas is still my favorite holiday, it's all good. i just want to spend it with people i love (and maybe sleep in a little bit too).

i'm getting a little fidgity. i get that way, i like lots of change and whirlwind crazy things happening all the time, lots of traveling. i think i'll get my fill in summer when i'm going to erik's races all over again, but lately i've just been FIDGETY. i'm going to LA so that's going to take care of my travelbug for awhile. plus, i need to start saving money again, so it'll be good to fall into a non-travel mode (and spend more time with the erik, yay)!

sitting here, listening to l5 strategizing makes me wish i could do it again. i hate that i can't.

speaking of all that, i don't understand how news travels SO fast.... kelsey got picked up by delta gamma via rush and i just found out late, i don't know how everyone hears about it all so fast. yeah, don't worry about it, i'm unable to keep team rev going, i fail again. what's new?

scored an internship with the boys and girls club in ellettsville. win.

riding twice a day for the last couple of days. inside AND outside. losing weight, toning up, getting in race shape again.

the children and i found a baby mole while sledding. it was so cool!

i got some bad news yesterday. my external hard drive is officially screwed. no one can get anything off of it. there are 2 places in the whole country that you can contract (by paying them more than a thousand bucks) to open it up in a clean room and try to get things off of it, but there is no guarantee and it's 99 percent likely that it doesn't work at all. i was thinking about it, and the biggest tragedy here is that all of my personal photos will be lost. not my work, the exhibitions i did, not the hours and hours i spent on the computer perfecting things. it's the stupid things.... all those days at the track when i whipped out that stupid pink digital camera, everything i've done with friends since (and including) my 21st birthday, that camera recorded it. and now it's all gone. i look like i didn't do anything in college, i can't look back at pictures.... it's a big deal to me.

as all the cutters folks would say... shattered.

the word i'd use to describe me... devastated.

in other news, i think i scored a "job" (unpaid, plobvs) at the ellettsville boys and girls club as the art education assistant director for their after school programs. NICE. i'm pretty excited about it, actually... It's one more great thing for my resume. i printed out some apps yesterday (don't get excited), they are as follows:

-economic hardship deferment for my direct loans

-VIM paperwork to apply for free healthcare in monroe county based on my "poverty level" income

-music@menlo internship for a month at the end of summer in photography/videography in palo alto, CA.

i now have to re-vamp my resume (for each job/internship ew), write a cover letter, find a writing sample (which could be impossible, based on the state of my external hard drive).... it's times like this i wish i had a desk. i thought about taking my computer to the bakehouse or something. i should do that.

this morning i also discovered henry clarke (thanks to michelle sharing a vintage vogue blog with mads), a 40s/50s fashion photographer that i want to know more about and see more photos from. but i can't find much. there's definitely no books full of his stuff, an even google's failing massively on anything related to who he is or finding more than 10 photos. they're different for the time period... a lot of them focus on the environment to bring out the clothes (in some cases by obscuring the clothes) which is just so different than the glamour shot-esque style a lot of other fashion photos have going on from that era. new life goal: find out who or what henry clarke was.

i'm feeling more at home here. love love love spending time with all the people i'm becoming friends with. and all the people whom i have been friends with. it means a lot to be accepted into people's lives, and i'm happy that people have afforded me that opportunity so generously. so thanks. i think.

ooh ooh let's make a list of happy things.

*i leave for LA in t-minus 1 week and 6 days to see erin.

*i decided friends season 6 is my favorite one (i laughed the most).

*avatar was a great movie.

*i'm riding my bike almost every day again.

*i like "what i wouldn't do" by a fine frenzy.

*i bought flats yesterday. i feel good about it.

it's 2010.
let it be.

that said, i can't decide what to say about 09. it gave me lots of good things and a few not so good things. off the top of my head...here's some firsts.
i had my first broken bone this year.
i had my first surgery this year.
i broke up with someone (on my end) for the first time this year.
i got my first adultish "real" job this year.
i quit a job for the first time this year for said real job (instead of being fired or working a temporary seasonal job).
i moved in with people i had never met for the first time ever.
i used twitter for the first time.
i did a bike race for the first time (l5 doesn't count, it's not real).
i shot a wedding for the first time.
i shot athleticness for the first time (yay bike races).

2010 will see:
my first time in california.
my first cohabitation (yay).
my first (and only) college degree.

stay tuned.

spent today doing lots of things, some which i needed to do, others which i wanted to do.

finally ate some serious solid food (after being flu-stricken for the last week) at village deli for breakfast with kristina (my first experience with VD [ha.ha.] for breakfast) and ellis was our server and it was good to see him and chat again. it's so funny, everyone seems to be in the same mode right now.... i'm not sure whether it's due to it being new years season and being inadvertently and societally forced to make resolutions/decisions/plans, or whether it's just that point of the winter when people subconsciously need something to look forward to, instead of bleak white/brown snow. erik is, kristina is, ellis was, i am... in need of feeling like i'm living my life like i'm supposed to, like there's got to be a way to get out indiana (this i already know, duh). like i'm waiting and waiting to do all these things i want to do because work/making money/being somewhat secure is more important. it may be time for a life reorganization, lolz. been thinking about my trip to LA. socal scares me.... i don't expect to be disavowed of any of my current assumptions about southern california. i'll be happy to come home, i think (but sad to leave erin once again).

on that note, i was at a bookstore today (mainly to buy a planner for 2010. i got a sassy brown one), and i was browsing my favorite section and i rediscovered annie leibovitz's "Women" and was just struck by the labels of all the women. "olympic gold medalist", "united states secretary of state", "mother", an all sorts of things. i wonder how they chose what to label them. someone who is a mother is certainly other things as well, just as there's more to the US secretary of state than her job title. and i was thinking, whatever label would have to change as life progressed. it seems limiting to use one label. but i mean, who can argue with annie and susan sontag? it just seems wrong.

i also looked a book that was beautiful inside and out. the great thing is that not only were the photos beautiful, but the concept was beautiful. something black and white made me appreciate the variety in my life and the variety in such dullness. "The Oxford Project". i was reading it and a dude walked up and i asked if i was in the way of him looking at the shelf and he said no and then saw what i was reading and said to me "i own that. it's amazing. if you don't mind a stranger's recommendation, i would buy that if i were you." i would have bought it if it wasn't 50 bucks and pawed over. i'll buy a nice new that one no one's bent up.

i saw a title out of the corner of my eye that was "why art cannot be taught" and my mind's first thought of how to finish it was "...it must be fostered." it's so true.

love today.

i was browsing a bookstore the other day (a pasttime i'm VERY fond of), and i found a collected and annotated book of thoreau's journals, starting when he was 20 years old. i turned it to when he was 23 (which happens to be as old as i am now) and i immediately found this, which i like: "be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be."

merry christmas.

to everyone, in my life and from my past lives.

to everyone who's ever made my christmas special.

it's a lovely time of year.

i have some things to mention. my external hard drive crashed and burned, and everything i had on there is lost unless i pay someone hundreds of dollars to scrape it off. it was the ruination of my evening in fort wayne.

i got a new phone! HTC droid eris and it is amazing. but a disturbingly low amount of people have called and/or texted me.

i know a ton of people visit my blog. but no one ever comments. weird.

also, i pulled the 6 am shift on new year's day. FML.

i got to ride this weekend, finally.

ugh i'm heinously behind on christmas shopping. it is time to rectify that immediately.

it's been a christmas event filled week.... the NUVO holiday party in indianapolis was thursday and i put on my party dress and had a lovely time. however, everyone got a free present and there were approximately 8 copies of "Drag Me To Hell" under there. Erik and I both opened one of those. fail. it was a great time though, i like seeing kate and david and everyone. 

kirkham's christmas party was last weekend, and it was good times had by all, however vargo forgot to inform erik that there was dressing up involved so we were not exactly dressed for the occasion.

to preempt the new year discussion, i've been looking back already on the ridiculousness that this year brought me. i started it literally the most unhappy that i have ever been, and am ending it happier than i've ever been. isn't it funny how things work like that?

look for a list of things i learned this year to come.

i got the thing i ordered for my dad in the mail today and i was so excited. this is the first christmas in 3 years that i feel back to my old self about it.

doing some research. not sure where it's going to get me or why i started doing it, but it's shaping up to be a weirdly accurate (though not a common) argument with a lot backing it. god, maybe i can get someone to pay me to write it as a dissertation and get a phd someday. hahahhaha i couldn't even think it and not laugh.

spent 2 hours today at the library listening to people argue circularly and not actually get very much further than they already were. it was about the future of the youth services bureau and moving probation officers into offices in the administrative side of the shelter and the board of judges taking control of YSB and the shelter. i wanted to smack some of the people, others i wanted to applaud... not because i agreed or disagreed with them, but because they presented rational arguments and raised important questions, some even without a bias.

so here's the goods from the portland trip (at least the edited and nice looking goods)...
best of the denver airport long exposures:


waking up early the next day:


one has to carry around a hairdryer so that you always have flowy hair:


a stop on mount hood to do some picturing:




(the only good ttv photo i got there):


exploring portland...
hawthorne:


stop for some mirror pond, behind the penny mart (on stark i think):


selections from the 2 days of the US Gran Prix of Cyclocross:


(the molly cameron):


(knapp, killin it):


(barry wicks):


(knapp again, being pro):


(me looking sassy):


view from the top of the cemetary on burnside:


bye bye breakfast:




(so i like american gothic):


exploring:


house of vintage:












pittock mansion's epic view:






we love.