La Petite Morte

So, it is the death of Columbus for me. Brazil was amazing - it was such an adventurous trip! Rio was beautiful - Copacabana beach was sparkling and full of fruit juice vendors, havaianas flip flops, and coconuts. The favela was full of drug dealers and AK-47s (literally). Sao Miguel was full of stars, red dirt, and peace. Porto Alegre was full of cockroaches, caipirinhas, and design charette. Sao Paolo was full of taxi rip-offs, expensive dinner, and sickness (great way to end, if I must say). However, getting home was less than thrilling. We got home the day before classes started, and I felt like I had no break at all. Classes started up, and I feel less and less enchanted with this place. I love architecture, but I do NOT love architects. I have never met a more arrogant, self-absorbed, snotty bunch of a-holes in my whole life. These people make lawyers look like fuzzy bunnies and kittens. Moreover, I am tired of trying so damn hard all the time to get nowhere. I just want to impart knowledge - knowledge of something I enjoy, like architecture. Sadly, that can't happen anytime soon. Also, Columbus is full of no dates. Not one. Not one person here is worth dating in this lifetime. And I miss my friends and family like you wouldn't believe. And being myself. I constantly feel the need to censor here. Because these racists, homophobic, conservative REPUBLICANS are driving me f'ing crazy! Sigh. Is it terrible that I wish I'd never come here? I don't know what I'm doing here. I need to get the heck OUT of this place and go home. I can't wait to be in Boston (or at least the Boston area) again...

Brazil!

So, I don't think I've mentioned this, but in just 16 short days, I'll be winging my way to Rio for spring break! I'm taking this studio next quarter about rebuilding a Jesuit Mission (see: The Mission, starring Robert De Niro, for a view of our site). So, my professor got funding to take us all to Brazil to visit the site and to see Rio, etc. Should be a fun trip, and cheap, since the travel is all paid for. All i have to pay for is my food and a hotel (which we got for like, $35 a night on Copacabana Beach)!!!!! Normally, I despise multiple exclamation points, but I feel that Brazil deserves it. I'll take lots of pictures and post them on my facebook account. :)

Once again

Slightly toasted and posting to the blog. So, it took my dad almost two weeks to speak to me after my grampy's funeral. Turns out, not many spoke or had anything specifically nice to say. Also turns out my dad took it harder than he thought he would. Shocking. In other news, there's this boy. One of the ones of which I spoke in an earlier post, but there he is. I'm sure I'll screw it up, but I like him. I really really like him. He's so sweet, good looking, and he seems to like me, but I never know about these things. We talk a lot, and I find him fascinating and engaging. I just wish I knew how to deal with boys. I never know what anything means or what to do about situations. I think part of that is getting married so young, and divorced at a fairly young age. Or, that I'm a little drunk. I get so insecure. And I start to wonder what would have happend if I had fought harder for my marriage. I loved Derek, no doubt. I said a lot of things that I didn't mean, but was confused and didn't know what else to say to justify how I was feeling and behaving. But, in the end, I guess it wasn't meant to be. All of this is rumor from peeps in the Hartford area, but I believe D is remarried now and has a child. He always wanted to be a dad, so I hope he's happy. He'll make a good father. Ugh - no more of this, or I'm liable to waste a perfectly good Proseco buzz by crying about spilt milk, as it were. :) In other news, I think I'm coming home(ish) in a year. If you have friends in admissions at RISD, Mass College of Art, or the MFA School of Art, please let me know. I think it's time for an MFA in sculpture. Can we hang out when I come home? I miss you guys....

The Last Day

Today, my Grampy passed away. It is a hard day, in many ways, but I will remember him well. The way he answered the phone in that "Maine" way by saying "yeeeellow" instead of "hello." They way that he sat patiently and taught me how to use every tool in his wood shop. The way that even when I was a princessy 8 year old, he cut out shapes out of wood for me to make crafts out of and let me sand them and chatter away. The way he was always so excited to tell a story about the museum where he volunteered. The way he would be sound asleep in his chair, but claim to only be resting his eyes. The way he always had a jar of peanuts beside his chair to snack on, and would hand them out. The way he liked mince-meat pie (blech), and not cheesecake. The way he let his cereal get soggy before he ate it. The way he would read stories to my brother, and not point out that I was trying to listen in too, because I was WAY too old for stories. The way he was difficult and hard to know, but somehow never made me feel unwelcome or unwanted. The way he cared about his craftsmanship and tried to produce a good product for a good price. The way he always had his camera ready to take the pictures that are visual reminders of memories formed. The way he taught me to pick out wood in a lumber yard. The way he taught me how to remove a bow from a plank. The way he would let my brother and I take over the TV for video game purposes without complaint whenever we came to visit. The way that the last time I spoke to him on the phone, I said "I love you, Grampy," and he said, "well, I love you too!" back to me. These are all small things, but together they make big memories for me.

90 grit

So today is a little on the rough side. My Grampy (dad's dad) had a major stroke yesterday, and no longer recognizes anyone. He's talking, but it's slurred and garbled, and he doesn't seem to know where he is or why he's in the hospital. The bad part of this is that his body is just fine, it seems. He can't move much, but he isn't having any organ issues or anything. This is bad because the one thing my grandfather never wanted was to be in a state where he wasn't aware of the world, and just lived like that in a nursing home for a long time. And the family dynamic is such that dealing with potentially losing him is very difficult. He wasn't the most engaged person with his family, so there is some resentment and hostility, but duty and love as well. To top that off, my Nan (mom's mom) found out that her breast cancer is back, and she has to have a mastectomy. She's really upset about it, but sees that there's really no other choice. At the age of 31, with all four of my grandparents living, I think I just have to come to terms with the fact that the window of this being true is closing quickly. They've all lived full, long, and happy lives, so it's not like anyone is being taken in their prime - not like my step-father, for example. But, it's still hard, and it brings my own mortality into focus a bit. Sort of starts the clock ticking on lots of things I want to do. Oh well - just another step on the journey. Good thing I roughed up the bottom of my shoes, so I don't slip.

:)

I really hate when people speak in up-talk all the time, and I find that in young academia, it is rampant. Ugh. If there is one thing I am glad about from law school, it's that I kicked that nasty habit. So today was the end of the first phase of my studio project this quarter. It is entirely group/partner work this quarter, which is quite the difference from other quarters. But, sadly, today I got thrown under a bus. Much of my group kind of let me down, and for some reason, I ended up taking the fall for it. But, c'est la vie. I shall persevere. As for other things in life, there's a boy that I kind of like. Well, there's actually two boys that I kind of like, but only one is within dating distance. But, I'm not sure what to do. I'm seriously putting the vibe out there, and he's responsive in a friendly way, but I never know how to read these situations. Sigh. I wish boys would just do the approaching. It would make life so much easier! Also, small observation, when did it become fashionable to do smilies backward? Like: (: instead of :)? This random change makes no sense to me. It seems arbitrary for the sake of being arbitrary. But, what do I know?