Me & Clay

My friend Agata with her recently deceased pet rat Zuza

So sad and yet so creepy.

Coming soon...

Atlanta posts! I took a little blog vacation but I'll be adding several posts chronicling my trip to the ATL over the next few days.

Note the bumper sticker. It says "Honk if you love sexy Jesus".

Beep Beep!!

I'm getting a hero's welcome in Atlanta!

So Thursday I am heading south to Atlanta for the 4th of July to visit my best girlfriends from college (and frequent Aut, Colleen commentators) Kate and Chrystal. We plan to do all sorts of fun stuff like go to the aquarium, Margaret Mitchell house, the new Coca-Cola museum and probably some drinking and general merriment. Well, it turns out they are not the only ones who can't wait to see me! Check it out what K & C had to say about it this morning:

Kate: I think I can safely say without being overly hyperbolic that all of Atlanta is excited for your visit.

Chrystal: That’s true. Why just yesterday I saw someone on the street and they said to me, “Did you hear, Colleen is coming?” And I said, “Yes, in fact she is one of my best friends”. And I could see the jealousy in their eyes as I said that. They wanted to be your friend too. The whole city is abuzz with the news of your invasion. It will be just like when the Beatles invaded America.

Kate: Seriously, yesterday evening when I was sitting in traffic heading home I heard a traffic report on the radio. They were warning to allow a little extra time and patience during the commute over the next couple of days because extra people are on the roads, stocking up on party supplies in anticipation of Colleen. There is definitely an air of excitement in the ATL.

Who knew?

Just for fun check out the video Kate sent me this morning...

http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

SAVE THE DATE

I am having a BIRTHDAY PARTY on Saturday, August 16th! This will be the first party I had to celebrate my birthday since my 21st at Juarez, the token Mexican restaurant in Savannah. I decided to deal with my fear of aging like a big girl and grab 28 by the horns! Last year I spent my special day stuck in bed at my parents house watching t.v. with a bag of frozen peas so this year I plan to do it up.

Balloons in front of the house, goody bags, streamers, maybe a face cake...

Details and Evite to follow.

"i shuddered when i read that thomas kincaid anecdote>who would write a paper in art school re:that?"

"Just read your blog- very clever, informative, & entertaining. I had never read it before so I read the ENTIRE thing while Giselle was napping. We are in a hotel room in Cleveland-yes Cleveland. Tres boring. Every nite we go out for some sort of world experience dinner>tonite=ethiopian, but alas, the city is still mundane."

This is an excerpt of an email from Nicole who was my good friend, fellow SCAD grad, and co-worker at The Olde Pink House in Savannah (pictured above). You know the saying “two heads are better than one”? The opposite is true when Nicole and I are together. Case in point: late one evening while it took us an absurdly long time to realize the man with the long blond hair who reserved his table under the name “Allman” might just be Greg Allman who lives about 30 minutes outside Savannah. Aha! It was.

She now lives in Michigan now with her man and beautiful baby girl Giselle. The Savannah years were defining for both of us and she and I spent many evenings sitting on the porch of her house right off Forsythe Park drinking and exploring all the "how did I get here? What am I trying to do - what did I expect to find here? Will it ever make sense for us?" and of course we talked about art and being broke. She had a palm tree in her front yard which was something neither of us could get over. We would drink the $2.50 bottles of wine you could get at the Kroger and one time her weird pot head neighbor tried to give us this HUGE bag full of kine bud but for some reason Nicole wouldn’t let me/us except. It was like $400 worth of serious weed. We were both poor and could have sold it! Or smoked it. I wanted to give some to my Savannah obsession, Craig, who worked with us at the OPH. Hadass, gets it. She worked with him at Seasons and she had a crush on him but I was full blown in love. I could (and did) literally talk about him for hours at a time. I was 20 so my infatuation was kind of adorable and just a little bit pathetic.

Nicole and I were held up at gunpoint one night after we hit up Goth Night (also bottomless cup night!) at Club One. We were so scared we ran into what we though was a small corner pub but turned out to be gay leather bar. Another time we were on Tybee Island for her birthday where we got drunk on Margaritas at Skipper’s, then played in the ocean fully dressed. What happened next is still kind of fuzzy but I think we lost the person who drove us there and we had to walk from one end of the island to the lighthouse where my friend Maime lived so she could drive us back to the mainland. I remember we got lost wandering around an arboretum… Our bizarre misadventures are countless and we are in talks to taking on Thailand next year.

Nicole rocks. She is an amazing photographer and a kind, sensitive, complex woman. Best of all, she is raising a second generation Aut, Colleen reader. Welcome Nicole!

Keith's His Name and Movies are His Game

This is a reminder to check out my good friend Keith's movie blog to for all his funny and insightful reviews of the films showing at the Philadelphia Film Festival. If you don't know, Keith takes the week off work at highly stressful job at UArts to watch as many films as humanly possible - he doesn't mess around. This year he is a judge which is super exciting!

http://keithsmovies.blogspot.com/

Some of you might remember that around this time last year I ran into Paul Rudd at Starbucks when he was in town for the festival. (Smile and sigh...)

If I forgot to...

Invite you to my latest soirée either I'm not that crazy about you or I don't have your email or you live too far away or I forgot so please let me know.

GreenReaper, I'm talking to you!

You can find me in St. Louis rollin on dubs

Seems like everywhere she goes somebody wants to know what Kate Ryan thinks about art and architecture these days. Nobody gives a shit what I think but that doesn’t stop me from talking and talking and talking about it. Maybe they can tell just by looking at her that she has her Masters from SCAD. Not me.
Nope. Not me.

Anywho, she emailed this to me this morning:

I was in St. Louis last weekend. It was a really, really cool town. We went to the Arch on Saturday (see link, turn on caption). We were also photographed at the 10th anniversary of the City Museum on Friday. This is one of the coolest museums I've been to. It has an aquarium in it, and a whole bunch of reclaimed architectural elements, from bank vaults to building facades to gargoyles, and a indoor carnival/circus, and a thrift store. And, it has this whole big maze of plastic and metal tubes and slides running throughout its many levels, kinda like a hamster cage. Anyway, We were interviewed and photographed, like, 4 times at different places we went to. I guess the arch picture was the only one that was used. It was nuts. They must be familiar with my American Folk Art Museum interview.

http://www.stltoday.com/mds/news/html/643

Kate is the new Sister Wendy. Remember her? No? Ok.

You all know my good friend Kate Ryan from her witty bon mot comments here on Aut, Colleen or you may remember her as the helpful sales associate at the nautical themed children’s clothing retailer Kids Ahoy! several years ago in Savannah. Well, now you can all see her being accosted by a roving camera crew and coercing her to articulate her feelings about the Museum of American Folk Art in New York. What a daunting task! Especially for someone with their MFA. Click on the link and she is Kate R (obviously) and as an added bonus click on Mike R and you can see one of the fabulous Ryan boys in action.

http://nwhyc.com/reviews.php?catID=4&vid=99

Sadly, Sheila the butt sex girl was not in attendance and therefore could not be interviewed.

Speaking of butt sex, I am reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and it is SO dirty! Like Marquis de Sade dirty. Its really good though...

Cute Kid Time

Send me pictures of your favorite babies!

Come on, don't be shy. You have such a pretty face.

I was just thinking that Perez puts pictures up of people who read his blog and so should I. My blog just as popular as his. So send me some pictures that have you in them and I will post it along with a personalized story about how this one time we got drunk and something funny happened. If you are friends with me there most likely is one.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Question for Discussion:

Should you date someone your friends dislike?

Please do not include anything about me and my unfortunate track record when posting your answers.

- Maybe I shouldn't use the word unfortunate since with most of the guys I dated I stayed friends.

Cheers Candace!

Lately one of my favorite neighbors is getting quite a bit of overdue press. Without the hot pink glow of her gallery sign it would be much more difficult for people to find my street. She also has the best gallery shows ever with lots to eat and drink!

Its great to see my friends start to get the credit they deserve for being so amazing!
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/08/16/candace-karch

http://www.bambiproject.com/

Guess Who's Getting A Kitchen Aid Mixer?

Its my Villanova roommate Carolyn who just got engaged to one fine looking Aussie accountant. Congratulations!

Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin!

Tonight I am going out for yet and another birthday dinner and cocktail thing. This time it is for my MMB counterpart Agata! Happy Birthday!

Sto lat, sto lat, sto lat, niech zyje zyje nam

Sto lat, sto lat, niech zyje zyje nam

Jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz, niech zyje, zyje nam

Niech zyje nam!

Enough with the Goddamn birthdays already! This is the last one before mine that I will acknowledge. Wait, Chrystal's birthday is coming up... Forget her, she got married last year and got enough attention then. Plus she is going to Cancun soon so I don't feel bad about not caring about her birthday.

Hey Chrystal - Deal with it!

Happy Birthday Corey!

Tonight at the Ugly Moose in Manayunk we are celebrating our good friend Corey’s 27th birthday!

Next up is the much anticipated Colleen & Ringo’s Birthday Extravaganza 2007!!!

I keep trying to plan for it but my friends keep trying to hush me up saying they have too many other things to think about right now. Assholes… Don't they realize how special it is that he and I were born on the exact same day? How can they blow us (me) off like that when Ringo and I are always in attendance at our group's famous birthday dinners. They should know better than to fuck with Leos!

Enjoy your special day Corey!

John Tucker Must Die

I didn’t see this movie but Kate did. She keeps referencing it when we talk about my most recent disappointment with the photographer.

She said:
In that movie about John Tucker, John had several girlfriends. Then on an away basketball game three of his girlfriends teamed up and used the
unpopular girl as bait and embarrassed John by coercing him into
wearing a red frilly thong. Then he snuck into what he thought was the girls'
hotel room in nothing but the thong. Turns out, it was the female PE
teacher's room. She screamed and kicked him out into the hall where EVERYBODY was
waiting with their camera phones ready. getting even is totally killer!

Next:
Listen,
John Tucker is possibly one of the best movies I've seen ALL week. It entertained me, and with it on in the background, it didn't distract me from ANYTHING else more important that I was working on at the time.
It's tops on my list.

I know it sounds pretty sucky, but there's gotta be an upside. I mean, a photographer? yeah, like anybody really wants to be romantically involved with a photographer anyway. They're always evaluating the lighting at any given time. And think about how many times a day you would have to hear the word "juxtaposition". Who needs that?
I still have 3 single brothers........ just sayin.....

And finally:
Totally watch John Tucker....it has the girl from the WB/CW classic one tree hill in it.

So if you knew Kate you would find this completely out of character. I can’t believe that anyone watched this movie, let alone Kate. Apparently its about some guy who was dating 3 girls at the same time and took revenge. I'm not a revenge person but movies about it sure are funny. Also, the premise of this movie has nothing to do with my situation whatsoever. I think Kate enjoyed it so much she was just looking for excuses to talk about it.


About the comment about her three brothers; one of them gets all hot and bothered when he puts Mr. T’s face on the pictures of sexy ladies’ bodies. Another lets his sixty something homeless friend stay at his house and once left me a voicemail that entirely consisted of random words… “traffic jam peanut butter elbow door chestnut street kittens” you get the idea. The other is like 17 and looks too much like Kate to ever be considered.

Thanks anyway!





Oh, and I love Frank Zappa so the revenge part of the movie gave me an excuse to use this picture. I guy I dated in college turned me on to him. I must say that one of the perks of dating a lot of different people over the years is learning about a wide varitey of things from their different interests.

When Paris Suffers, We All Suffer

This was just sent to me by my favorite German-American, Tanya Niederhoff.

http://www.flabber.nl/archief/020510.php

vielen Dank

(Is that right?)

Villanofun Reunion

I know I have been MIA lately but I have a good excuse. The biggest being the 1st Annual Philadelphia Book Festival coming up and I have been reading up a storm to get ready for it. My mind is crammed with all this fiction it is the only thing I can really think about other then the basics. I don't think you want to hear about all the books I have been reading right lately. I will probably spotlight some in my next "suggested reading" post. There are a few authors who are going to be there (and Patti Smith!!!) whose books I have been meaning to read and since now they are coming to town I figured I’d get on that so I can prepare my questions for them and feel confidant when I ask them to sign my book. Yes, I am a major nerd. I know that and I have made peace with it.

The other reason is that last Wednesday I was in New York for my best friend Tanya’s birthday party at the Time Lounge in the Time Hotel a few blocks from where she works at Wenner Media or something like that. Her building’s security rivals the Pentagon’s and maybe because it is next to Radio City Music Hall but there were three checkpoints before I made it to the second floor. T and I had a crash gossip session and she loaded me up with all the free magazines I could handle. Isn't she a peach? BTW if you are into magazines then this was the party to be at. Magazine people everywhere. They are like a society or something.

The thing is when I looked back on the Evite RSVP list when I received my email reminder I had a mini panic attack. There on the list was my old Villanova roommate and several friends from when I attended Nova for two years. These are some fabulous people but I have some deep complicated feelings about that time in my life. I am working through the sense of failure and inadequacy that leaving left me with even though I do not regret the decision. I also hate that I essentially lost touch with them. It kills me to have people disappear from my life. Anybody I cared about at one time I can’t let go entirely. I always want to know what they are doing and what they are about. I had another Colleen dropout from this winter and even that makes me a little sad. All of this Villanova stuff I am working through in therapy and I think coming to terms with a lot of stuff and unloading some serious baggage. Baby steps.

Well, I had a fabulous time. I did. I loved talking to all my old friends and fell right into it. I am still not over my issues related to Villanova and the hardest part is that I don’t know why I even have them. Why I went there and why I left all makes sense to me but when I think back on it I remember how miserable I was and how bad I felt about myself. I listened to a lot of Tom Waits during those years… I am starting tear up a little (what is my problem? If you know please enlighten me) so I am done talking about it for now.

Tanya, Happy Birthday and I love you very much but am still recovering from when whoever it was who thought it would be fun to pick me up, throw me over their shoulder and run with me through a crowded block after I had several cocktails. Upside-down with the bouncing pavement below as the only thing I could see put the fear of God in me.

The picture is from Freshman year and that is me (everyone’s favorite girl) on the left, next is Kristen, Tanya's roommate who I am told lives in Brooklyn with her boyfriend, Tanya center, and my roommate Carolyn on the right. I don't know why we are flipping off the camera but I am sure we had our reasons.