is this real life?

My goodbye show went so amazingly perfect, I sold so many pieces off the wall and loved seeing which small prints everyone chose. Had such lovely conversations with so many people. Heart so full. It was amazing. & so nice to be sent off with so much support and reinforcement. I love my community so much it’s ridiculous. Sharing the experience of being from sf through my photography with other people born and raised here is the most special thing. To have someone say to me, “it’s wild to see my own childhood through someone else’s eyes” and just reflect on the collective haunts of this neighborhood and the light and everything… it just makes me feel like the work I’ve been making for all these years is important and does deserve to be displayed & seen & shared. Much encouragement to make a book and eventually I will <3 can’t wait for my first book release show haha. Outer Richmond literally forever this is the greatest place in the world, I said what I said, and I’m glad to go on an adventure elsewhere because it just means I get to come home when it’s over.

Just got back from NY, I have a lot to write about and wanted to take some time to write a long thoughtful post but I’m in like overdrive right now. Realized how hard it is to find a good car out there that’s not eaten apart by rust, and realizing again that I could get a cheaper and older but in good condition Honda in California and ship it for the same price that I could find a decent car there. I’m so scared to spend 10k on a car out there and have something mechanical go wrong with it. Would rather buy a reliable Honda for less $ in good California condition which would give me better resale value there as well. It’s fucking hard out here!!! I have so much do in three weeks.

Really I’m tempted to make a new blog just so I’m not so weighed down by fifteen years of archive. Or maybe it really doesn’t matter. Though I think something is unlocked when you know people aren’t reading something and if they are they don’t know who you are. A dark quiet corner of internet. Tumblr in a way (this is how I’ve always felt) dares us to be honest because it is discoverable. I think that’s the reason I gravitate here over regular private journaling. There’s an aesthetic element to it that’s enticing but also the fact that other people might see it… I want it to be reflective of something so deep dark and true. Just unabashed interior purging. Anyway,… sometimes I’m afraid that I’ve just wasted my youth wanting instead of experiencing, and that going to grad school will further trap me in the rat chase of life re: school loans/expenses. And I’m afraid to come home and go back to work at the cafe when everyone expects more of me. I know I can’t tell the future and I should probably stop thinking about it altogether, but yeah. I guess I’m afraid of never becoming anything. Of not truly wanting something enough to pursue it maybe. Ive just always felt behind for some reason. And I often daydream about where it all started to turn for me. Was it being regularly assaulted by a classmate in elementary school? Bullied by my “friend” in early middle school? Retreating internally and never being retrieved by an adult in my life? Adopting an eating disorder bc I had a best internet friend that had serious anorexia and I just kind of internalized it? That high school affliction of thinking being afflicted was cool. Loner stoner suffering from horrible social anxiety, thinking everyone was trying to make a fool out of me. And then how that all led to me dating the guys that I did in adulthood, finding that jump of leaving the small pool of high school and people actually acting attracted to me so fascinating that I thought it was all magical and meant to be in all these circumstances where I should have exercised way more caution. Going to Canada alone at 19- I wish my parents would have stopped me. Lol. But then it all led to me here now. You just have to accept your life. It’s just heavy when you actually start to look at the details of it and own it all. Lol. It’s always a bit different than the vague image idea you have of it all in your head before you start to really analyze it. I’ll definitely keep this blog and never leave it and keep pushing through the weirdness of keeping this archive because it really does mean something to me even if it is too forthcoming or embarrassing or whatever.

👁️👄👁️

i guess the answer is always that you'll make art about what you're going through now, whether it's confusion or not, and that will always be the truth if you let it be

part of the reason i've been disillusioned in dealing with my archive/aka doing any kind of photography work on the computer is because of how much adobe sucks. case in point I just decided to sit down and pick out the photos i'm printing for my show, and i've been stuck in an endless loop just trying to open my catalog. i'm sick of subscription services running the fucking world- i've paid out of my ass for the last ten years for a full adobe suite and it's so buggy and fucked up and the worst part of it is that my entire editing world relies on it. it's just depressing. i hate computer. not to mention the problems/cost of digital space these days. everything just slipping further and further into the most fucked up reality imaginable. i don't like the disorganization of my life right now. always so hard to get a grip on what the actual fuck is happening. like from which angle are we going to view life today? i don't always have control over that. i was thinking about being an artist and being honest and how it's hard to make meaningful art or feel fullfilled(obviously) if you're not being honest (with yourself), and it's like why is that so hard? like sometimes my life just seems to be slipping away from me, i feel this apathy populating my frame of thought, which manifests as like, not wanting to take pictures of the every day anymore. it's not important anymore. i've seen it enough every day. but it's also like, all it's doing is just taking up digital space. lol. idk

I went outside for a long time I saw some friends I feel better 😂 but that creeping self isolation thought… I guess we’re all trying to “right” our thoughts when we’re alone, it feels like a failure when we’re feeling like a failure.

This woman kept saying “I want a medium small coffee” and I kept trying to clarify that we have both of those sizes and she just kept saying the same thing with increasing intensity. this is just 0.01% of my daily interactions

One of my longtime internet friends asked me if I would photograph her wedding in August, only problem is that my semester starts two days after the wedding. Technically I could have made it work, and there are direct flights to where she’s at (which she would pay for and house me), but I said no because I don’t want to overbook myself. But now I’m still conflicted bc I’m like shit I could have made a couple thousand dollars and done something really cool. It’s probably better that I don’t overextend myself like that, but fuck!! I would have loved to do that job 😭