seems to me..

that money is the worst friend you could ever know. you know, you would think that money would owe you: after all that you did to get it, surely you rightfully deserve a bit of
+respect
+prestige
+happiness
+comfort
for slaving to accumulate so much of it. yeah, ah/ funny thing...

money doesn't owe you nothing.

and you better believe i meant every word of that double-negative as emphasis. the hard, cold reality is that:

money doesn't owe you, it rather owns you.


let me tell a little uninteresting story. so in college there was a girl i knew...

i should clarify 'knew' in the very loosest sense of the word (i.e. invariably happen to see a thousand times more than i would like to in a week, and hear her loud conversations with her groupies in the lab, and may/may not have stumbled upon her daily style blog by unscrupulous googling? of her name (don't ask).

okay rambling aside, the point is: there was this girl. and i don't really "know know" her but i had aloooot of exposure to her. let's call her *britney.
*googling works both ways, even i know that.

britney was a particularly mean girl. snarky laugh, chiseled upturned nose, 6ft tall legs.. (and that's not even counting how tall the rest of her was): she was the whole shebang. but apparently her perfect exterior, posterior, and all other super-ior aspects did not make her a very happy camper. i think she chanel-ed quite a bit of her unhappiness into buying a lot of designer clothes, shoes, handbags, accessories. we're talking a lot.

any remaining negative energy i suppose was fueled right into her second largest passion: malicious meanness. ah yes, not a student, professor, nor cute visiting foreign-exchange family escaped her cruel sneering comments to her inseparable friend-pack.

one day in the lab, i was writing a research paper and per-usual britney and her driveling friend-pack decided the lab was the perfect place to socialize and be loud.

**i typed their following exact words into my email at school when i heard them so as to not forget

britney: "my super freaking rich step dad just sent me diane von furensburg luggage for my trip to itallyyyyyyy. he even signed it with a little heart.  omg omg, im like seriously 'i love you so much' right now in my head."

friend: "omg, we can't be friends right now, i'm totally serious. my target luggage is going to look so bad next to yours."

it was then... that i felt bad. no more for my poor little self. 
unbeknownst to my cackling adjacencies, their boasting was making me very sad for them. :/
i know they meant something else, something surely more glamorous, but all i could hear was:

-no dad
-new guy whose one claim to fame is being freakishly rich
-traveling halfway across the world, and all someone can muster to write to you is a 'heart'?
-"i love you so much"... but in your head? you can't say it to him?
-you love someone only for what cowhide/leather high price item they can give to you?
-a friend doesn't want to be your friend anymore because of how they will look next to you?


that's all that there is for them... things. 

owned by money. 'owned' by an unmistakable thirst to matter, to mean something by what they have. 


For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 1Timothy 6:10


in my Bible, for some reason i wrote beside that verse exodus 21:6 about a master piercing a servants ear to show ownership. money also has a way of piercing into your soul and controlling you.


note to self: don't buy the chanel earrings. ;)

arbitrary chronicles

do you ever see new things?

no, i'm not talking about the new "fastest, slimmest, sleekest, lightest, best-est" new iphone that's out;

the stupid new it car; the new movie; the new hit sitcom; the new chewing gum, really anything like that..

maybe the question was poorly worded. i'll try again.

do you ever see new things-- that are assuredly not new, but you have just never seen them before?

ok. yeah that was even worse.

the other day in lecture i witnessed something that was just new and interesting to me. i know it shouldn't have been-- (i blame the incredible dryness of professor H.) but well,

so it's this giant lecture hall with hundreds and hundreds of people, and due to the particular subject this class features... only complete and utter nerds sit in the front up by aforementioned blowhard professor.

oh and me. i sit there too, but... i'm an exception, and i don't really know what i am ;) 

regular people just come in way up in the back entrances and sit close to all the exits.

anyway, one day this super cool kid comes and sits right up in the nerd section! no joke. this is crazy town, folks. mixing up all regulated social norms!? we just cannot have this. let me explain this a bit: this kid's "coolness" was not merely of my own arbitrary judgment, rather i use this term to describe someone that would be universally recognized as your classic all-american, star of the highschool football team, mr. popular, too-cool-for-school type, a.k.a. the kind of kid that never comes to class, except sometimes on exam days... you get the picture.

it was just really strange. no crony bros around anywhere. no earbuds in. no texting under the desk... no leaving after 5 minutes, it literally did not make any sense.

what was interesting to me though is how every once in a while during lecture he would look very slightly to his left and then slightly to his right and then very slowly reach into his jacket pocket all subtle-like. i of course thought it was your basic classic phone move. instead, he would pull out a pair of broken glasses.

just the left side frame was broken. he held them up on his face to see the powerpoint. after a few seconds i think he would get embarrassed by holding them on his face and he would hurriedly slide them back in his pocket before he thought anyone noticed.

i had never seen anyone do that before. it kind of reminded me of the days of the old-fashioned spectacle.

it was very definitely not a thing a "cool" guy would do.


and... well mr. monocle man, you'll never know this,

but,  i for one, thought that was a good thing.

old hands and long thoughts

i ride the bus a lot. every morning to school and every evening back. i guess i've never calculated it, but probably more than an hour is spent in the function "passenger on a noisy big bus with many people."
it's really okay. not really a big deal.

i just think a lot when i'm on the bus. oh and stare off into space-- two days ago, i was riding the regular route, somehow had managed to snag an actual seat on the bus, for once. tall sweaty people were mashed right up to me, standing, arms holding onto the metal bars over head. it's really pretty awkward to be six inches away from all the generic huge farmer-boys. so anyway i tried to purge my head of disgusting, imagine the smell away, and stare out the window. in the car next to the bus was an image that really intrigued me. it was these hands.

okay not really those particular ones, but so similar.

suddenly, i was lost. they were so beautiful to me. so strange. they were all i could see driving that little beat-up volkswagen with little sunflower on the dash. just those old hands.

mine don't look like that.
i glance down at my own. the bus pulled ahead, and made a wide turn down the next street. sunlight filtered in thorough the window on me. so smooth. so young. they really were a lie. my hands don't tell my story. they don't tell my life yet.

...they say that the first place you can tell a woman's age is by her hands. centuries of hand creams and lotions haven't been able to stop times progress on little wrinkles and furrows, made as the body looses it's natural fat stores there.

it's a sign you are dying.

i mean, not that you are going to physically keel over in the next five minutes, just that that you are following the natural order of things. an external sign that we aren't here forever. it is strange to think that you start to die the minute you are born.

i love old hands, they are so textured and crinkled and carry proud stories of life in another time. age spots and veins are like growth rings on a tree to me, telling quiet reflections of life.

i guess that they just remind me of eternity.

though they remind me we aren't here forever, they remind me that there is a Forever. though there is death in me, there is life in Him.

Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole Matthew 12:13

He knows my name

it's nice to be called your name.
it's nice when people know your name.

funny story-- yesterday one of my professors mentioned that scientists have found that humans' favorite word is their own name.

i believe it. across a crowded room, you can hear it, or being whispered about next room over by a roomate, your ears naturally perk up.

earlier today on campus, i was talking on the phone and pacing back and forth the sidewalk. two cute guys walked by me, up the sidewalk. then out of no where, i hear my name said. i turn around, way up the side walk the guys have stopped and are looking back. it's very strange. they said my name? i don't know them, do they know me through someone i know? then the guy walks down and pulls out my uid card. ohhhh! i dropped it!!

haha though it was totally unintentional, best pick up line evAR! lol all's left is for shining knight to write me on craigslist, and then we're set! hahahaha

anyways, back on topic, i guess it's nice when people know your name, because you're important. you matter to them. the thrill you feel hearing that the people you interviewed remembered you, or your internship supervisor gave you a good reivew, a wow moment of "huh! they actually knew my name!"

even greater to be known to God. God of the universe.

He knows my name. 

seriously.
knows everything about me. i like hearing that.

still working

ha, pandora, sometimes you are so ironic considering what i'm working on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t-I-Lqy06g

well

i'm in the lab, again. and shh! it's after hours, but no one is in sight. will probably be here the rest of the night.

...i'm not sure why i had to write that, just to document my life as it dwindles away, i 'suppose.

this happy little song came on my pandora:

reminds me of summer and france.

back to this totally extensive illustrator project.