long term goals: learn to design a really fancy webpage. carry a sketch book and record ideas to create art that actually has some sort of meaning. meet a guy who is mature but can act immature and silly and is a feminist.short term goals: to not get sick. clean my room. begin packing up my room. study for psyc of women final. return overdue library books. do laundry. stay sane.
and: to write more next time.
posted by Emily Isaacs 5/13/2000 9:56:05 AM
I spent an hour looking at photographs in Davison Art Center today - part of an exhibition of 100 years of photography or something like that. I was the only one in the little gallery, and the air was so warm I had to take deep breaths now and then to make sure I was still concious. The photos were beautiful - Margeret Bourke White, Ansel Adams, Steiglitz. I felt like I entered some sort of dreamy trance walking around the gallery, entering a new little world as I looked at each photograph. And this evening my roomate Karen and I drew on the sidewalk with chalk as the air cooled down and the sky became pink.
posted by Emily Isaacs 5/7/2000 5:08:51 PM
I am making a BIG CHANGE in my life. I am switching from normal, Crest toothpaste to Tom's of Maine natural toothpaste. When I bought the toothpaste, I was unaware that I was making a major life decision. I was unaware that I have been misled all these years, coating my teeth with sacarin and other cancerous substances. I was in the toothpaste dark.
Oh, but Weshop rescued me. Thanks for Weshop being understocked, there were no "regular" brands of toothpaste on the shelf today. So my innocent little hands landed on the box for Tom's of Maine toothpaste. When I brought it home, I noticed that the box said that you have to give it a "five day taste test." Uh huh. My housemate Kerry explained this to me. "What sort of toothpaste do you use?" she asked. "Um, Crest or something like that...something that whitens my teeth I think..." I replied. "What! That stuff is so sweet! Do you realize that it contains sacarin? Do you realize that it causes cancer?!" Kerry was shocked. I, on the other hand, had never even thought about my toothpaste and its potential health hazzards. Wasn't brushing my teeth supposed to be good for me? After all these years of diligently brushing my teeth, morning and night, I've actually been risking my life to save my gums. Does this work on the premise that it doesn't matter if you get cancer as long as you don't have cavities? Hm. Should I worry about my dental floss giving me a diabetes?So I'm making the switch. Kerry, I must mention, also warned me about the dangers of anti-persperiant. I, unfortuantely, recently bought a new tube of "lady speed stick: shower fresh gel." Kerry told me to throw it out and buy a tube of Tom's of Maine. "Don't ever put anything on your body that has ingrediants you can't pronouce" she counseled. Sigh. I really couldn't trash four dollars worth of new deoderant. But next time I buy a new tube, I will try to find a product that will keep me smelling good and cancer-free. In the meantime, I'm getting a little suspicous of Kerry. I have a hunch that she works for Tom's of Maine.
posted by Emily Isaacs 5/2/2000 2:58:16 PM
Procrastination is an evil, evil, evil thing. It's not even that entertaining to complain and joke about anymore. It's so over. But still menacingly persistant. From whence does procrastination spring? Does it arise from some foul, dank cave of laziness and stupor? A den of doldrums and disobedience? A pit of petulence and pith? A hellhole of haggard hellishness? From an inkling of ignominious, odious opulence? (I have no idea what some of these words mean. And I realize quite well that many don't make sense.) But the point is, it tiptoes out on sneakly little feet and temptingly tells me that I do not reallyyyyyy have to start writing my paper just yet. In fact, there is a list of FAR more important tasks I have to do: such as:check my email
check my email again in case someone sent me something in the last 2 minutes
put an eggroll in the toaster over
check my email
type out my bibiliography because it's good to do last things first
brush my teeth
trim any split ends
forget about the eggroll in the oven
check my email
remember the eggroll in the oven, only becuase a strange smell seems to be wafting into my bedroom
panic and run into the kitchen
extract the eggroll from the smoking oven and begin the search for soy sauce
eat slightly charred eggroll
check my email, typing on the keyboard with slightly soysauced fingers
go to top of list, begin again. write paper only when I am truly pressed for time, say, at 1 am tonight.
or maybe I'll start now.
posted by Emily Isaacs 4/30/2000 9:10:59 AM
When I was younger, and played piano, I had to cut my fingernails religiously. I remember a handfull of embarrassing times when I went to my piano lesson with long nails. My teacher promptly gave me a nail clipper and I stood out on the front step, cutting my nails. I felt a little sheepish for wasting a precious five minutes of my hour long lesson, but it is impossible to play the piano with ANY fingernails at all. Once they have begun to grow, they tap annoyingly on the keys and get in the way of under-three, under-four fingers pattern as my hands flew up the keys practicing scales.
Several years later, I was again chided for having fingernails when I went on my first real rockclimbing trip in Arizona. Apparently, the group leader could hear my nails scratching against the rock as I struggled up the climb. During the van ride to base camp, I brought out my swiss army knife and used the scissors to hack off my nails. And the next day, I definately had an easier time climbing.
I just clipped my fingernails down to the pink. My nails were only a few millimeters long - I never, in all my life, have had super-long nails - but they were getting in the way of typing. The length of my nails I must emphasize again. They've never been actually LONG; they have merely existed. But this has been enough to get in the way of piano, rockclimbing, typing. I don't know where I'm going with this. Obviously, I could rant yet again about how long nails are yet another ploy to keep women useless - long nails being a subtle version of high heels, or corsets, or bound feet. But no, I'm not going to go there. (did I already?!) My only message is to you, dear reader, is that fingernails are a frustrating, limiting thing if you don't keep them in check. So be aware.
posted by Emily Isaacs 4/28/2000 8:24:43 AM
Tonight at dinner I had a great conversation with my friend Justin about imagination and children's books. He was mourning the loss of his childhood imagination, and saying that now anything he imagines just seems like a conglomeration of movies and things he's seen on TV. I told him he might want to begin reading books again. Especially children's books - something you can pick up quickly, read easily, but get a great deal of enjoyment and imagination stimulous from. This launched us out onto the wonderful topic of our favorite children's books:
The classics: Narnia, Indian in the Cubbord (HOW do you spell that!??!), anything with King Arthur.
And the ones you hardly bother to mention - but it fills you with such amazement and joy when somebody else also knows them and loved them: The Westing Game, The Egypt Game, Half Magic...The Stupids (picture books)...
We used to have story time every night in my house until I was at least 13. My mom, dad, sister and I would all sit in a row on the big couch in the living room. My sister and I would always fight about who got to sit inbetween my mom and dad. Obviously, since there were only two of us, this should have been very simple - we just had to take turns each night. But this still must have been contriversial, because we developed a seating chart. We had a monthly calender and we signed our initials each day according to who was sitting in the middle. It's funny how complex and official it had to be.
The other great thing was going to the downtown library every weekend. I still vividly remember the smell of the children's room, the giant staircase in the front entrance, the other mysterious rooms of books on business and such that I sometimes had to go find my mom in. Everyone in my family had a library card, so between the four of us, we could check out at least 40 books. Each weekend we would pile our arms full of old picture book favorites and promising new short novels with shiny covers. The ride home was great - my sister and I would sit in the back seat and peruse our newest week-long collection of books.
I miss the old main library. The new one is shiny, glass, filled with computers. I have been to it many times but my memories of it really only include frustration with trying to do research, and doing "community service" in the children's room. I had hoped to read picture books to eager crowds of children. Instead, I got to sign kids up to use the computers, and help them find games online rather than play the educational CD-ROMS. Nostalgia at age twenty (ok, almost). What is the world coming to? And who are these kids going to grow up to be, without the help of the Stupids and The Egypt Game? I hope that E Nesbit wins out over the latest version of electronic emptiness.
posted by Emily Isaacs 4/25/2000 9:00:59 PM
There are many different sectors of life, and it is impossible to be on top of them all. For instance, right now, I am completly in control of:
my vitamin taking, my personal hygiene ( I just took a shower), communications ( I just had a great phone conversation with a friend from home), gym clothes cleanliness, bed making, outfit laid out for tomorrow, all phone messages returned, writing and personal expression..
I am mildly aware of the fact that I need to pay attention to some other sectors of my life, such as:
Homework, drawing for my portfolio, my psyc of women research project, writing a thank-you note to my grandmother, going to the gym, doing more dirty laundry, investing in stock options, being career forward, accruing a small fortune, taking over an island nation, creating world-wide respect for women.
And let's not even get into the what-to-eat-for-dinner, will-that-cute-guy-be-at-the-library-tomorrow, when-will-I-ever-get-to-sleep sectors of life. Really, it's impossible to pay attention to them all, to foster and nurture every side of myself simultaneously. Thank god I can see the beauty in imperfection. Or should I have said chaos?
posted by Emily Isaacs 4/23/2000 8:21:46 PM
My sixteen-year old sister, Alison, just left. She was here at Wesleyan visiting me for the past few days - days that I spent trying to wrench some sort of enthusiasm out of her. Not that Alison didn't have a good time, or we didn't have fun. Really, just that it is hard to get her to be loudly enthusiastic. But Alison does tell it like it is. Here is her sixteen-year-old sophomore in high school assessment of college:
Everyone thinks that they are pretty cool.
She drew the same conclusions no matter where we were: my drawing class, a reggae show, a frat party. "These people think that they are pretty cool." Once, "These people think that they are in a Levi's commercial or something."
Yeah, I guess she is right. The more she said it, the more blatent it became - we all come to college and spend a lot of time dressing a certain way, talking a certain way, dancing a certain way, thinking, "I am SO mellow. I'm chill. I have it alllll figured out." (And if you are me, you throw in the word "RAD!" a few times). We wave our arms around listening to music that might be good, it might be horrible, we might not be sure of the difference. We wear clothes that are sometimes falling apart or a little ridiculous but we are very, very serious about it. Yeah, we are very funky. We are really, dyingly hip.
And I am proud to say that Alison said she liked my friends. "They don't take themselves too seriously" she told me. My friends do community service, protest against the world bank, organize recycling on campus, TA drawing classes. I think they are all incredible. And I've never seen one of them walking around campus and suddenly realized that they are pretentious, or think that they think they are in a Levi's ad. And more power to that.
And I think it would be great to ship in sixteen-year-olds to campus to keep on telling it like it is.
posted by Emily Isaacs 4/22/2000 10:30:09 AM
bound to be less boring than today...
bound to be less boring than tomorrow
-belle and sebastianThe power of music to transform my emotions is incredible. It touches me immediately and sincerely.
On another note, my roommate Karen is at home for passover and I miss her! A year ago I would never believe that I could survive with a roommate, that in fact, I would be sad to see my roommate year end. It feels so reassuring to know that I can live with someone, in one room, and not go crazy / or drive them crazy. It's very affirming. In a way, it feels like one of the most sucessful things about this school year.
posted by Emily Isaacs 4/18/2000 9:08:58 PM
On 4-13-00 I said "...if I want to wear my bike" but I actually meant "...if I want to ride my bike." Just in case there was any confusion.
(why does sarcasm read so POORLY in print?!?! what a skill to master...)
(then again, no one ever seems to understand when I am being sarcastic even when I'm speaking.)
This brings me to a list of some of my favorite words to say:
dude. (pronounced, "DUUUUUUUUde!" drawing out the "u" as long as possible)
tight. ("TIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHt" drawing out the "I" as long as possible)
rad. ("RAD!" short and punchy, when I'm excited)
oh shit! ("oh SHIT!" may seem like an exclaimation of despair, but I use it when I am suprised in a good, happy way)
I love these words. I think they are all ridiculous. Slang has such an appeal to me - punchy, no frills, to the point, expressive language. And it all sounds so dumb! I make fun of it, I use it sarcastically, I adore it. I just need some new words to integrate into my vocabulary of approval, surprise, and awe. I think that "BOGUS" is about to make it on the list...
posted by Emily Isaacs 4/14/2000 10:53:13 PM
