I've long resisted posting music on my page (I find it obnoxious a lot of the time), but have decided to give it a try for a brief trial period. Feel free to give an opinion one way or the other.

And it's mostly because I'm currently in love with Françoise Hardy.



*swoons*

So this last week I was reminded that funerals really having nothing to do with the dead, but are all about those still living--that it's not the loss that hurts, but rather the witnessing of those suffering that causes the deepest pain.

Sometimes it takes something "big" to snap someone out of a slump, and that's what happened for me last week. I'm glad I went home for the funeral not because I personally needed to grieve, and I was more than happy to serve as support, but being back and seeing friends that I love and haven't seen in far too long reminded me once again of why life is such a beautiful thing that needs to be savored. Funerals are meant to signify a separation, but so often they serve as a means of bringing people together. And I have to admit, I needed to be reminded of that.

There's been a song I've been listening to over and over lately--Cotton Crush by Kevin Devine. The lyrics in the second half of the song are nearly indecipherable, and so what I must have been reacting so strongly to was the sensation of despair and desperation the song evokes.

The day before I made the quick trip home with my family for the funeral, I happened to look up the lyrics of Cotton Crush and was blown away. In particular:

"The quiet can scrape all the calm from your bones
but maybe it should
maybe we need to be hallowed.
To get up and grow
and stop fucking around
to kick off our braces and start straightening out...

It was exactly what I need to hear at the exact moment I needed to hear it.

There's nothing I love more than life's little unexpected connections and coincidences.

I couldn't resist--I bought a scarf today.

Enough said.

Several weeks ago during an event spent with my friend Aaron, between pitiful attempts at playing a guitar video game and sampling beers, the topic of NaNoWriMo came up (among many other things).

Apparently last year Aaron took on the challenge of National Novel Writing Month--that is, write 175 pages (or 50,000 words) from scratch between November 1 and midnight November 30--and undaunted by failure, he's considering taking it on again. Now I've toyed with the daunting idea of writing a novel(la) in a month before, but always found an excuse not to (mostly academic in nature). As academics are not a concern this year, I have no reason not to at least give it a try, right?

So I'm going to. I need something to get me to start writing again anyway.

So have any of my friends taken on this challenge? And more importantly has anyone succeeded?

And feel free to join me in the challenge this year!


by noele lusano

Done in Eve style.


a night in kensington.









around the house.









More to come soon. And I need a damn paycheck so I can buy more film.

So as some of you knew (and many of you didn't), the item topping my to-do list upon arriving back from London was to find a means of employment for the next year or so. With the last of my savings spent by funding my trip to London I now need an income, and, well, I have to find something to do with myself for the next twelve months or so anyway.

I'd by lying if I didn't say that the job search process was one of the worst experiences I've gone through in a while--I was amply reminded that I still have issues with rejection that I need to deal with at some point. After a week or so of submitting applications and making phone calls I finally managed set up two interviews (within several hours of each other, no less), and long story short, it ended up what is reffered to in "Calvin & Hobbes" as a "character building experience." The first interview went extremely well, the other, well, let's just say if a year from now I'm doubting my desire to return to school, I'll remember those wretched, endless 40 minutes or so.

By the end of the week, after follow-up interview, I got the job that I wanted coming out of the interviews. And I'm happy to report that it's a position where I'm able to use my literature experience and that it's indeed not a useless degree...

Er, scratch that. I'm actually the newest "Guest Services Agent" at the Island Palms Hotel down on Shelter Island (which is a pretty nice area, for my non-San Diegan friends). And in my first three days on the job my eyes have been opened to the complexities of running a hotel, and a major one at that--it's actually much more difficult than anything I ever did at the cold storage, if only because people tend to be more temperamental than peaches.

People have inevitably been asking how it's all going, and I can honestly say it's going well. I really like my co-workers, my supervisors, and the work atmosphere in general, and I really like how there's rarely a dull moment during an entire shift (I also get to see Beth at least once a day, which is also a big plus). On the flipside, the job is so detail-oriented (several computer programs, multiple departments to forward calls to, questions from guests so out of the blue I can't even begin to answer) that it's rather overwhelming even for this rather detail-oriented person. If I'm exhausted after 8.5 hours, it's not because the job was particularly hard, but because there's so many mistakes I can potentially make that I'm functioning at such a heightened state that after a while it's, well, exhausting.

After a week or two I expect the intensity to diminish and the job to become enjoyable. I think it's going to be a great job for a year.

But I also can tell that by that time, I'm going to be ready to go back to school.

One of the unexpectedly memorable aspects of this trip was the sky--we got some rain nearly every day, but it was worth it because the sky never looked anything less than amazing. My photos don't do it justice, but I tried.









Trafalgar Square.





Tower Bridge.





At Tower Bridge.





At the Notting Hill Carnival.





The Parliament Buildings.









The National Gallery.





Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square.





And once again.

So the long-awaited return to London has come and gone, seemingly in a flash, but a scrapbook of photos, a few hastily-scrawled sketches, and countless good memories remain to attest that it actually did occur.

I wasnt sure what it would feel like to be back--would I be sad? Nostalgic? Surprisingly, I felt neither, rather, both Kirsti and I agreed that it felt like we had never left in the first place. But more than that, I was almost instantly able to feel some kind of closure in regards to my semester in London and to college in general. Waking the rain-drenched streets of London and sitting on the tube, I could sense that the chapter of my life that encapsulated college has been closed once and for all--and simultaneously, the new, next chapter, is finally beginning. Being back, more than ever, I was able to recognize to what extent my time in London two years ago changed my life, and how it allowed--forced me?-- to finally take a look at myself and try to figure out who I am and what I want from life, setting me on the path that has led me to where I am today. And for the first time I can honestly say that I prefer to be where I am now, and wouldn't go back even if given the opportunity to do so.

But in between the personal revelations, what times were had! Hours spent at art museums, cups of coffee consumed while writing in journals, constant pilgrimages to Pizza Express, £10 tickets at the National Theatre, tea at the National Portrait Gallery with one of my oldest and dearest internet friends, silver-spined Penguin classics bought in bulk, a tiny Fringe production that left me glowing for days, and late-night talks filled with laughs... it's really amazing what we were able to compact into a mere twelve days!

And now real life--finding a job, figuring out schools, studying from the dreaded GRE--is set to begin. But now, finally, I feel ready for it.


A few photos, with lots more to come in the next few days:



First day, in a state of utter bliss.












My favorite photo of Jane.



Fun with phallic symbols.

So the long-awaited day has arrived at last: tomorrow morning my best friend and I board a plane bound for London.

That Heathrow is about the most difficult airport to get in and out of these days only means that the excitiment will begin from the moment we arrive at the San Diego airport.



I can't believe it's been over two years now. And going through my old photos...I see photos of a little boy.

Or maybe a little boy in transition.

Whatever it was, it was amazing. And I can only hope to capture just a little bit of that once again.

Earlier this summer I inherited several dusty boxes of old photographs and a whole bunch of slides from my Grandma, who after showing me several off the top nonchalantly informed me she didn't know what do with them anymore, so she might just throw them away (it's a long story...).

Needless to say, they were the photos from my grandparent's trips to Europe in the late 50's and early 60's, and it's been a kick going through them, but it whenever I was able to recognize a location that I'd also been to, it made a new connection not only to a past time, but to my grandparents as well (and trust, me, that's a good thing these days).

Here are a few of the highlights (I couldn't resist):



On the Queen Elizabeth 2. The story goes that my grandpa almost dropped my mom off the deck(!).



My mom, the original London traveller.



Apparently I'm not the only one who's content to turn a loaf of broad into an entire meal.






This one is my favorite--it looks like a still from a French New Wave film.