"Gallery at the Belcourt presents The works of Caryn Cast & Casey Tanner

Upon arrival to this great country, Caryn Cast and Casey Tanner began to capture America as only these two minds can.  The rich colors, the blues, reds, whites.  "This is a country forged in the fires of hardwork", writes Tanner in his autobiography Teach a Man to Fish and He Eats for Life. This sampling of Cast and Tanner's work draws from Cast's distinct Second Period, in which many of her pieces can be described as paintings of people or things.  American ideals are captured in these works that are inspired by things and people you are likely to see around here. 

In a 2006 interview with Source, Cast states, "It is the working man and woman that produce the things that we see every day.  It becomes difficult to see the things that are done by those who don't work."

Tanner, in coming months, will be taking it to the next level while Cast will continue to keep it real."

I found this in the storage shed behind our house.  I'm trying to teach myself how to ride it, but it's so much harder than I thought it would be. I need to dedicate more time to learning, but I can also only practice when there's supervision around, cause I don't want to hit my head and then have to lay around on the floor, dying. I tried using Casey's motorcycle helmet, but it's way too hot and heavy and I think it screws up my balance.  Anyway, I'm really excited about it!

While browsing the day's headlines, I came across this funny quote made by Newt Gingrich, here:
''I was just in Atlanta yesterday. There is no gasoline in Atlanta, in Charlotte, in Chattanooga. It's like a Third World country.''

It's true - a day in the life of a Haitian consists of getting his twitter updates before leaving the office so he can fill up at the nearest gas station and still make it home in time to catch Dancing With the Stars.

oh, just listening to the mountain goats, feeling nostalgic. i can't figure out which came first.

i had a friend date today. the first social outing i've had in nashville that wasn't with casey. her name is mary. we met up for coffee in hillsboro village at this place called fido. it was very first-friend-dateish. i was afraid that she would be too interesting, pretty, charming and quick-witted for me, because i'm in a new city and feeling uncomfortable and out of place. but, she wasn't! she's a normal girl with problems, just like me! we talked and laughed and i was able to feel reassured that maybe i'm not dull and boring. maybe i'm not a patch of moss that lives on a rock. maybe i am a rock. maybe i can survive living in a new place and maybe i will go back to having a normal life with normal interactions one day. it's strange what vulnerability can do to a person's esteem, i swear.

yesterday was retarded. i was supposed to walk away from it feeling happy and excited and free from a job that i was sure i didn't like. instead i left my last day of work feeling heavy-chested(hearted?)and sad, and then got a call from one of casey's friends saying that he had been in a scooter accident. he's ok but is going to be in the hospital for a few days. i laid awake last night feeling anxious and scared and imagining the worst about everything. finding a new job, living in a new city, having a boyfriend in the hospital with broken ribs, broken leg, broken ankle and a collapsed lung. i'm going to go up there a few days earlier than i planned. casey was going to come down and help me with the moving truck, but instead i'll just have to smush everything i can in my car, then smush my dog in their too and go. i'll worry about the rest later.

I'm moving to Nashville in 2 weeks. I will live in a little house on the east side of the city, not too different from east Atlanta. I'm excited and I'm scared and sad. Mostly excited and sad. I love Atlanta and I'll miss my family and friends. I will miss Videodrome and the Dekalb Farmer's market and the trees. I'm excited for the change, the new people, and uncertainty. I'm too comfortable here and I've never really lived anywhere else. This will be good for me. It will!

the old guy that lives in my building is outside putting little reindeer on the mailboxes and taking pictures of them in the snow.

i forgot that everybody on marta takes craps in their pants before they get on the train. but guess what? today i took the gre and i got the score i need. hooray! i was so nervous that i was shaking all the way there and all the way back. they have cameras in the room to watch you and i guess the administrator lady saw the gum wrapper on my desk from her little observation post in her little room and thought it was paper with cheatin on it so she came in the room and snuck up behind me and reached her hand out to get it and i jumped and gasped and she jumped and gasped. and then she pointed to my gum wrapper and said she needed to take it and i was like whatever lady, do what you gotta do.

and then after the test, i was shaking on the train, and i look down and my fly is wide open. like, open and pulled apart. so i zipped it and got some stares. zips aren't so quiet when nobody's saying anything. i just smiled real big at them all.

i'm still going to retake it because i screwed up on the first section and opted to completely not remember the time limit. i was re-reading the reading comprehension essay on some crap about ancient chinesewhatever for the third time and still not really comprehending any of it when i got the warning that i had about 4 minutes left to complete the next 80 questions. so my verbal score ended up sucking and i'm totally taking it over because that was supposed to be my strong point. i made flashcards for that crap, i learned words and root words that i didn't even know existed and then i ended up getting a score so low on verbal that i'm surprised i even speak english. fuck that. i'm paying the hundred and something dollars and i'm taking it again. plus i might end up applying for a clinical psych or phd program in which case i'll need to raise my score by a million points anyway. bye!

i like my roommate a lot, i do. he lets me eat his dinner often, he always asks if i need to get in the bathroom before he takes a shower, he's never loud or annoying, i usually have to wash his dishes but i mostly don't care because he gets me into shows for free. and i
use his tweezers to pluck my eyebrows, but shhhh. as far as roommates go, i can't complain. as far as character goes, i can't complain about that either. as far as alone time goes, i don't have any. i'm never here by myself, ever. i'm mostly an introvert and i value my alone time tremendously.

on most days i leave the house between 7 and 8am and return home between 7 and 8pm. all those hours in between i'm dealing with all sorts of people in all sorts of ways, from doctors to coworkers to bosses to sad people with sick or dying animals, people who are angry, who are in a hurry(everyone is always in a hurry. what the hell for, i'll never understand, we're only gonna die), who have questions and then some more questions(and they have to say it out loud too- usually in a slightly higher than normal tone- "hi,um,i just have a question" like they have to announce it, like i won't be able to gather from the actual asking of the question that they have a question), people who don't want to fill out forms, who talk down to me, who need perscriptions filled now, need charts faxed, need doctor x on phone now, need you to take their dog now cannot be late for meeting, emergency bee sting, ate underwear, ate socks, ate rattle, chocolate-frosted donut, condom, gorilla glue, large plastic container, has fleas, hot spots, diarrhea all over the place, anal glands spraying, vomiting, line 4 ringing owner wants to know why dog tries to roll around in worm on concrete when goes for walks - has meeting please hurry with answer, don't forget to note in patient chart and must write initials! stress levels go way up high and then come back down again, emotions wax and wane. comic relief happens often because it has to. the alternative would be to have breakdowns. lots of them and all of the time.

seeing people cry doesn't make me feel uncomfortable. seeing people irate doesn't phase me. the quickest way to find out a person's true character is to deal with them when they are in a stressful situation. strangers that take their anger out on me only means that i have to deal with their unhappiness for 3 minutes at most, they've got to deal with it for a lifetime. reminding myself of that will keep my tongue bitten in most cases.

when i was young i thought that all grown ups are smart and they know the right answer and they have their shit together and they tell the truth. then once i met a large enough sample of them i realized that they don't have their shit together and they will lie in a heartbeat to get what they want, and they are often times full of the most ridiculous shit fathomable. it's hilarious unless it catches me at the wrong time, in which case it's disappointing and makes me feel like crying for the bright-eyed little kid i used to be.

so then i leave work and i either go sit in a class for two hours and learn about the roots of words or i blow off some steam on the elliptical and some more steam on the treadmill and by the time i get home i could easily sit down and stare at the wall for 45 minutes to an hour. but that seems like an unusual pastime and i prefer to be judged favorably by my peers so instead i turn on autopilot, i make small talk, i flip on the television, i open my laptop.

i love wednesday nights because brian leaves around 10:30 and stays gone for roughly 5 hours which means i have about an hour of complete not-sleeping alone time. this is the only hour out of the week that i have entirely to myself and it's the time of my life, every single week. except for tonight because all of a sudden i'm going out for a drink. on a schoolnight!
here's to looking forward to next wednesday alonetime. hooray.

i hurt all over the place. i pushed myself too hard at the gym. but still, if for nothing else, this is the reason i own an ipod. because when you are on the treadmill, and you are dripping sweat, and the song changes to stadiums and shrines by sunset rubdown, and you get goosebumps, and everything around you is blurry, and you can't feel your butt, and ahh. everything will always be ok.

These are some pictures from the North Georgia State Fair a few weekends ago. It was a nice reminder that I really do live in Georgia. Like, right in the middle of it too.

( fried crap )

I went to see the National on Saturday night and like usual when seeing a band I like, I drank some beers and had some great epiphanies that I don't remember.  They're usually gone by the time I step outside and the rest of the world kicks in.  When epiphanies escape you it just means they are recycled into outer space and will reappear in some other form at a time when you don't even exist.  Fleeting epiphanies, as they were known to the ancient Romans.  

I'm trying to work on my affection towards people.  Mostly my friends and parents and brother, but also everybody else.  Like, it would be nice to naturally want to reach out and touch a person's arm when they say something funny or when they're feeling upset.  It sounds creepy when I type it out, but some people can pull it off really well.  I have a really hard time showing sincerity sometimes and I'm also horrible at expressing gratitude for things (and while I'm at it, I've found out that I'm completely not detail-oriented so I really gotta take that one off my resume). I'm trying so hard to get comfortable with casual hugging.  I've always been against it, but that's really a childish and unbecoming way to go about things.  I like most of the people I meet and surround myself with.  I feel like I need to start showing it.

When I say I like most of the people I meet, this doesn't include boys at all.  I mean they're fine as far as people go and everything but I haven't found myself attracted to one in so many months.  Having crushes makes social situations tremendously more exciting, I've found.  I've also found that it's hard to find other people interesting when you aren't even interested in yourself(I think that's probably a basic in most self-help books but it's hard to realize the truth in something if you haven't experienced it).  I kept telling myself I was in some transitional phase, but really I've just been fucking depressed.  For two entire years I've felt like some sort of fungus, stagnating, completely miserable.  It's showed every single day in every way possible. 

Well anyway, one day last month I woke up and I was 25 years old.  The world was different.  I'm only partly being dramatic.  The world actually started to look different when I was still 24.  Nothing really clicked until I was a few weeks into 25, blow-drying my hair on a Sunday afternoon.  I've decided to go back to school.  It's a competitive program and I might not get in at first, but I will eventually.  I'm not stagnating anymore and I think I might start finding myself interesting again pretty soon.  Things are ok here on my side of the earth.  Slowly but surely.

I just registered for a GRE prep course.  Step 1 to getting into grad school complete.  Hooray!

I'm in the process of moving into a new place with a new roommate about 2 blocks up the street from where I live now.  Change is good I guess but I'm sad that Beverly and I are splitting up.  I never got around to mentioning that for no reason at all we stopped speaking to each other for 10 months.  Can you believe that?  In our tiny apartment we somehow managed to avoid saying anything to each other for 10 entire months.  It was weird and I didn't get it and whenever people asked about it I just shrugged it off and said it would all blow over eventually.  And then one day it did.  We started talking on a Sunday morning in June and didn't stop for almost two hours.  We stood in the kitchen and had the kind of conversation that you only get to have with your best friend.  It was like the previous 10 months never happened, except her hair was longer and I had a few new pairs of shoes.

So later this week I'll be living with this guy I know only as an acquaintance.  He seems cool and I think we're similar and easy to live with so everything should be great.  Plus he knows all about computers and networking and wires, cables, modems and ports which is perfect because I find most of that crap to be nauseating.  I'll be in charge of furniture placement and organization, lucky for him.  I'm also good at taking things apart and putting them back together.  Moving is such a pain in the ass.

I'm taking a career course at Emory on Saturday mornings.  I know it sounds blah and it sort of is blah.  We take a few aptitude tests which are bullshit but there's a lot more to it than just that so I'm trying to be optimistic and get whatever I can from it.  This has been wearing on me for the last two years of my life and I don't feel any closer to knowing what I'm doing or where I want to go or whatever it is that I swear everyone else has figured out already.  Except they haven't and I know this because the class is mostly made up of people in their 30s who are 5 years into their careers and completely miserable.  You can hear it in their voice and see the blood pressure in their face when they talk about it.  It's like a collection of the rock-bottom, most lackluster, ready to die group of human beings you've ever seen.  And our desks are arranged in a circle so we all have to sit there and just stare at each other in the face.  It's so awesome. 

 I have lots to say.  One of these days I'm going to start utilizing this thing again. 

This is unrelated, but the internet continues to blow my mind every single day.  What is it?! I mean, really.  It's fucking nuts.