i'm coming back. i promise.

Y'all, I haven't had a working computer for the past 4 months (I'm typing this from work). It's been rough (talk about understatements). So much has happened -- all of which I plan on telling y'all when I amend my no-computer situation. Don't give up on me. I know that's a lot to ask, but I'm cute and hilarious (right?), so don't do it.

xoxo,

This Karen

dear diary: my manifesto (of sorts)

I cannot tell you how many times I have thought about writing this post, started to write this post, stopped writing this post, came back to write this post and stopped again... I just haven't known what to say -- "hey, I'm sorry I've been gone so long" or "long time, no write." Too trite. I've done this before. I know me all too well.

It's not that I don't enjoy blogging. Quite the contrary actually. It just scares me a little. The kind of blogging I want to engage in anyway. You see, I like to write. Which in and of itself is not the problem. The problem is that I like to write what I know strictly and unadorned. I suppose I could write fiction, but every time I do, my overly deprecating self tells me it's a little too far-fetched. This is not to say those who write fiction aren't writing what they know; they're just more imaginative with the telling of it. I don't have that knack. Or if I do, it is dulled from disuse.

The point is, the things I know these days don't lend themselves to easy writing. They're heavy and somber and generally lacking in that ubiquitous escapism feel of lifestyle blogs. And so I've stayed away.

I thought about apologizing for not having much "sugar and spice and all things nice," but I'm not really sorry about it. I'm not a generally morose sort. At least I don't think so. But at this time in my life, melancholy has a certain draw on me. I mostly hate that I'm largely gloomy these days, but if I'm being completely honest I should be a tad devastated without it too. We've been together for so long.

I think it's supposed to be romantic, you know, the whole tortured, long-suffering artist thing. Mostly, though, I feel like a huge cliche for it. But at the same time I don't want to reduce my very real anxieties just to escape being branded typical. You see my dilemma.

I went back and read this post I wrote a while back when this blog was just past newly minted. I think I needed the reminder. Here's the thing (and this is more for my benefit, so pray you don't take offense): this is my space. I carved it out consciously. I cannot get hung up on keeping up appearances. All that does is stay my hand, my mind from creating, because if it isn't there, I won't fabricate it. The good, the terrible, and everything in between gets represented here. If you're still following, that's great -- I cannot adequately express how much that means -- and if not, I'm sorry to see you go but I grow tired of editing myself just to please unknowns.

I've been typing and retyping this manifesto-of-sorts for several hours now, playing this song aggressively during that whole time, and playing virtual Sudoku intermittently throughout. I should get some sleep. Thanks for reading!

some of what i've been up to and other stories

Some of what I've been up to:
Top left: this was taken during our farewell dinner for Selene, who is presently away at vet school in beautiful Grenada. I was experimenting with weird angles or something like that.
Top right: those roses were preening for attention outside of church one Sunday, so I obliged them by taking a photo.
Bottom left: I'm knitting my second pair of socks. I've completed half of this pair. I mean to begin the other half one of these days.
Bottom right: IHOP was giving away pancakes for free (how long ago was this?!). So I showed up. Naturally. With my 1500 page book.

And other stories:
I've been a barista at Barnes & Noble for the past 4 months (oh, did I forget to mention that? I'm so sorry), and a more genial one you've never met.
Although, that's about to end soon because just today I got offered a big-girl job working for a grown-up health corporation, which I have accepted. I have not the slightest clue what I'll be doing there, but I will soon have benefits so everything else might as well be moot. Oh my giddy goodness, BENEFITS!
I'm also toying with the idea of writing a book of essays about my fabulously mundane life. I don't know... But isn't it quite possible that there's a rare someone sincerely interested in the digressive internalization of a confused 22-year old, given to protracted fantasies and near misses with wit? It's possible, no?

yes, no, maybe?

My sissy enlisted me to help with her Sadie Hawkins dance invitation, so that's what I did tonight. It was the most productive thing I had done all day. Anyway, working on it took me back to high school, and now I'm feeling all nostalgic and whatnot.

And what's up with that anyway?! It's not as if I was particularly fond of high school. I didn't have a terrible experience or anything, but those years weren't my glory days either.
I blame it on all the introspection I've been doing lately. Growing up does that to you apparently. It turns you into a brooding mess. But I have it on good authority that it passes; you brood, you're spurred into action; sometimes you triumph. It passes.
Cam better say yes 'cause I worked very hard on that shirt. For all of 15 minutes, but still. Very hard.

par avion: simone + priya

Exciting things you guys -- I've been getting some mail lately that I didn't send myself. Okay, that made me sound a little pitiful. What I meant is that most of the mail I get is useless (boat insurance ads), or boring (bills), or standard (magazine subscriptions). The only time I get excited for mail is when  I've ordered something online. But recently fantastic things have been turning up in my mailbox, namely postcards from friends, and I'm just so thrilled by them.

Two of them are from my fabulous, globetrotting friend Simone. The other one is from Priya, who is seriously the sweetest.

 Priya's card (Priya, if you're reading this, you should know how happy I was to finally get this in the mail. It's very possible I squealed when I spotted it among the other stuff in my box).

This one was sent by Simone while she was sashaying her way across China. That's the Great Wall looking all golden and -- ugh! why am I here and not there. :-(

This too is from Simone. She was in South Africa this time, self-actualizing on the daily. I wish I could link you to her blog. But alas! it is set to private. I'll work on her to make it public, because she's seriously awesome, and the tales she tells of her travels are so captivating. I want to be her when I grow up. You hear that Simone?! You're awesome-sauce and I love you!

I've added all three to my burgeoning wall of mementos. I'm so about them, y'all!

happy new year!

A little belated, but all the same -- Happy New Year! The last time I was on here I was a little mopish. But no longer!

There's no rhyme or reason to the collage above. It is simply random bits and bobs I threw together to commemorate a year that was infinitely revealing. A year in which I:

attended my first college football game (it needed to be done before I graduated). consumed massive amounts of chai (even more than usual). got coaxed into joining my church's worship team (one of the rare times succumbing to peer pressure worked out for me). played fast and loose with my heart (one of the many times peer pressure did NOT work out for me). tried my hands at documentary making. became acquainted with rejection. photographed people in their sleep. took the shortest cross-country trip of my life yet (a little over 24 hours in L.A. to see Ben Howard in concert). was consistently broke (not a good time. AT ALL). became a barista. learned to cry. graduated from college...

2012 was quite the year, but 2013 promises some pretty intense self-actualization. I'm excited. Cheers!

Now Playing: My Dear Acquaintance by Regina Spektor

dear diary: sorry about the doom

On this day I was wearing my favorite red sweater and acquainting myself with this incredibly awesome-sauce vintage shop in my town. I was having the time of my life all by my lonesome (but really).

Anyway, can I be real with y'all for a bit: I graduate in exactly 10 days, and I am TERRIFIED. <-- That right there - that's putting it mildly. I'm happy about the part where I don't have to go to class or do homework or study for tests, and the fact that I've accomplished something a lot of people only dream about if at all, et cetera, et cetera.

Mostly though, I'm freaking out.

Because lately, all my best laid plans have been falling through at a rate that's just alarming. And I'm having the hardest time finding any direction at all.

Up until now, I haven't had to face rejection much. Everything huge and important that I've ever applied for or truly wanted has happened for me. I wanted to go to UGA - I got in; I needed a scholarship to fund my higher education - I got that as well and then some; I was even able to go to France for spring break all those eons ago, when by all intents and purposes I shouldn't have because it just wasn't fiscally feasible for my parents. What I'm getting at is that God has been gracious and things have mostly worked out for me.

That's not to say He isn't now. It's just been kind of bewildering and humbling lately with the amount of rejection I've been facing. I don't think I'm equipped to handle any of it as is evidenced by the fact that I've completely retreated from my own life. I'm in a perma-limbo state. I feel insulated and detached from my reality. Everything is so unreal and kind of awful. I feel like every fear I've ever harbored about my potential and capacity for succeeding at life is being realized.

I CANNOT become a deadbeat, and yet... I don't know, I feel myself becoming one. I'm moving back in with my parents. I'll be living in their basement (and I don't mean that figuratively; it's a fact). No one's offered me a job yet. I can't even find a sub-leaser for my apartment. It all seems a little too... Bleak. Or maybe I'm crying wolf and not all is as grim as I'm making it out to be. I honestly don't know.

But I'm sorry about the doom. This self-pity, it needed to come out somehow. And because of my little problem of being generally uncommunicative with the real people in my life, y'all are the unfortunate listeners to my sob story (assuming you've read all of this). I'll come back when I'm a little less woeful.

miss efficiency over here

Y'all, efficiency has been my middle name this evening. I'm on a bender of productiveness -- like, if I met me right now, I wouldn't know me on account of how effective I'm being presently. I have written 3 pages of my 20-page paper on feminine agency in Shakespeare's The Tempest, which is due on the 19th. I get how this might not be such a feat for some of you. But for someone like me, whose bed-mate for the past 8+ years has been Procrastination (notice how it is personified with a capital "P"), this is grander than grand! I need some caffeine, though.

as they lay sleeping: fiona + 1

I've been doing a conceptual piece on sleep for my photography class lately. Presently, it is titled as they lay sleeping, but that name might change yet. Fiona and her boyfriend were the first people I shot for it. Basically, I come over and set up in your bedroom then allow you to sleep with the lights on (that way when I come back to photograph later, I don't interrupt your sleep by flicking on the lights). I lounge about your place as I wait for said sleep to come over you. Then once I'm satisfied you're asleep enough, I creep back into your bedroom and take portraits of you in your perhaps most vulnerable state. It's creepy and it borders on voyeur, but so many exciting stories have come out of doing it. So for now I'm okay with it.

oh, hi there!

I was in a photo shoot yesterday where -- for the first time in a long time -- I was not the photographer. It wasn't nearly as nerve-wracking as I had anticipated. Truth be told I kinda enjoyed being in front of the camera for a change. Kensie (the photographer) covered me in Holi red for the shoot. I wiped most of it off after, but I left just enough to cause a bit of a sensation on my drive home. It was fun!

Wanna know what's not as fun though? Flickr. Can you believe a week after I bought a pro account for near $25 I can no longer access my photos? What's more, the Flickr team has done nothing to help with this problem despite many emails I've sent their way! Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I'm very upset.

two songs

I'm just gonna ease back in here and pretend like I didn't disappear. Ok? Ok. But anyway, look what I made for my intermediate photo class.

 

It's my interpretation of Adrienne Rich's poem, "Two Songs". There are others, but I like this best.

Now Playing: Youth by Daughter

what i'm reading: anne of green gables

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first in the series will forever be my favorite. It characterizes my childhood not because I grew up in the same way or fancy myself to be just like Anne, but because of all the times I spent re-reading this series in all of my favorite crannies and dreamscapes. This is probably the 4th or 5th time I've re-read this book. It's different every time (I know that's a really trite thing to say, but it's the truth). And I suspect this is so because there is just so much scope for imagination in this book.