Home For The Holidaze

So i got into nyc last night at 6:30. Dad and Patti hired a car to pick me up which was very special. For christmas i got my dad this long-horn skull made out of barbed wire which was very difficult to pack. i wrapped it in about 12 feet of brown paper to keep the prickers from poking through and then stuffed it into this long, deformed cardboard box. it was v. awkward to carry that around the airport. merry christmas, dad!

It is strange to be home, to say the least. I was ridiculously excited to get back here, and it has been so nice to see dad and luke and patti. i started tearing up when i first saw little luke because he looked so much more grown up. Being around family love can just be overwhelming, especially because there is none of that (except with Jarratt and Dinah, but it's a little different) for me in Santa Fe.

i hung out with some oberlin people (younger kids) who i'm not super close to last night and it was strange. it's just difficult/weird to answer all those questions about what i am doing and where and why because those are questions that i ask myself a couple times a day. Desiree is right when she says i need to own it, which is something that you sometimes just have to play the part of and pretend you are doing to make the actual owning happen, you know?

what's hitting me now is a strange wave of out-of-placeness, or something. there are so many people i am excited to see, and i know that when i do it will feel amazing, but i was surprised to find that the New York that i thought i was missing all this time doesnt exist anymore. I dont know exactly what it was i was missing when i was in Santa Fe, maybe Oberlin, maybe the summer but I just realized that i was fooling myself to think that i would find it waiting for me when i got off the plane in LaGuardia. there's so much amazing stuff here, and tons of family and love and friends and new york is just an awesome place, but i am sortof finding myself having to re-catalogue it all, or something.

Halley called this a "Blue Christmas" and maybe she is right. i do feel pretty calm and happy for the most part. just pensive and as if i am missing a large chunk of something but i can't figure out just what it is.

it is so nice to be at 149 franklin street right now with dad and patti reading the newspaper and with some silly new clothes and toys to play with. patti bought me this book called "drawing on the right side of the brain" which looks awesome. i am very thankful for so many things.

Merry Chirstmas!

christmas time is here

it's weird how the whole world seems decorated all of the sudden.

Halley was here this past week and it was SO FUN. we hung out at the cowgirl a little, went to the folk art museum and the goergia o'keeffe museum, got wasted, saw glass blowers at Tesuque, walked around a sculpture garden, watched Alpha Dogs with Justin Timberlake, went on a hike at Ghost Ranch, ate lots of delicious new mexican food and drove all around Santa Fe. She got to meet everyone and everyone got to meet her. it was lovely.

Here is Halley coming out of the glass blowing place:

This is halley and John (this guy i met who just graduated from Brown. he went to Ghost Ranch with us):

These are pics of Ghost Ranch (Georgia O'Keeffe lived there for a while and did lots of paintings of it):




I have Amenity's (my cousin's) car now and my quality of life has skyrocketed. now i can do thinks like buy groceries or go to Albuquerque or a movie or dinner and it's amazing.

I'm waiting for snow so i can start work at the ski basin.

I went to a grant writing workshop on saturday which was kindof cool. i want to start making more art and putting my stuff out in to the real world and trying to get noticed. it occured to me that my comics might only be interesting/engaging to people who know/love me because they are the only ones i have ever shown my work to. this is a hypothesis i aim to test by creating some sort of collection of things i have done and sending it to people i dont know or putting it in stores like davi's and seeing what happens. i really feel strongly about wanting to share and communicate and be recognized for what i am doing/thinking so i want to start DOING and CREATING more. i need to research places where i can find things like scanners and fancy computers.

I am at Jarratt and Dinah's right now about to have dinner. It's nice when i come here because they both do their own thing and so do i so i get to check internet and just relax while being around family but with no pressure to socialize or perform or anything like that.

work has been SO SLOW lately. it's fun because i get lots of days off since barely anyone needs to be there since barely any customers come in but i am also making NO MONEY.

i am thinking about stopping drinking. at least for a while. it's just getting old. and expensive. but its also SO fun and liberating. i'm not sure.

i'm going to join a gym here because i want to feel better about myself and more energized.

i'm going home in 2 weeks. yeeee haw!

it's sunday night and i'm exhausted. elle and kevin were away for the weekend which was so nice. it didnt really make that much of a difference but just knowing that i could come home to a place that was all my own for a brief moment was nice. i had to take care of the dog and cat which was a little stressful, however. the cat has turned into a treacherous DEMON and the dog is so big and weirdly unresponsive that it creeps me out.

and im out.

Tooo Funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVR1JunnuGE

Dear Everyone...

you guys should comment on my posts. it would be so fun!!

look how good i am at posting! i guess there's really not to much to catch up on considering it's only been a couple days and the only real thing that's happened is that i just fell into a little pit of depression. I'm blaming it on 1) coming out of work last night and realizing that my bike had been stolen 2) the santa fe postal service which refuses to work and 3) the holidays. last night i was just BUMMING and it sucked. i felt SO SORRY for myself but i really felt like i deserved all the self-pity i was getting so i was trapped drowning in my tears. i knew i just needed one or more of the following: internet, booze, a car, friendship, morning to come but those all seemd like very far away possibilities.

this girl i work with named jess called me and said she would come pick me up and take me to this dinner party that stephanie (manager from work ) was throwing at this house where she was house-sitting and i managed to raly and go to that whcih was a good move. it was chill and i ate turkey lasagna, drank red wine and made fun of christina (another manager from work) who was HAMMERED. literally, this is what happened:

[everyone is having a very serious converstion/debate about whether it is a moral obligation to spay/neuter your dog or if it is cruel and inhumane to rob puppies of their manhood. this is brought on by the fact that this girl Misha and her boyfriend just got a little black Chiuawa from the pound earlier that day]
Christina: FUCK THAT SLUT. SHE'S A STUPID WORE! [completely slurring her words, making no sense, spewing belligerent nonsense, everyone's ignoring her]
Rod [huge black body-builder]: Leave it's balls alone, man!
Jess [taking all of this WAYYYYY to seriously]: I am not going to let my Siberian Husky roam around impregnating other dogs, its just not morally responsible.
Christina: WHO CARES? WHAT IS THIS? IS STUPID. Here's the thing, you guys. None of that matters. JUST FUCK THAT SLUT. stupid whores.

et cetera, et cetera, until it was too much. i dont know if i can even do it justice. but holy shit i was on the floor in hysterics. sometimes there's nothing funnier than people speaking nonsense in the most heated way imaginable. haaaa.

i talked to my aunt today and it turns out that i just have to pay this premium and then i have access to amenity's car for 6 months. this is VERY awesome. now i just need to write a check, wait for the paperwork to go through and go pick up the wheels. then i can buy toilet paper and go to albuquerque and feel human. yee haw. one thing i am a little worried about is no having to chauffeur Dee and Annie around but i suppose this will be a good opportunity for me to put up some boundaries and stand up for myself, because seriously, i want to do things by myself and i dont want to get drunk and be stupid all the time.

ok im at this coffee shop that is closing. so i'm out 4 now but stay classy.



p.s. don't forget to comment!

A Shot At Love

I am watching A Shot At Love with my uncle, aunt and cousin right now and its the best thing i've ever done. HIlarious.

where have you been all my life??

Oh, Hello there!

it has been a while and a half.

I have been working lots of shifts at the old Cowgirl, which is good because of $$ but also EXHAUSTING. This crazy girl named Nicole got fired which was sortof sad but also makes things about 4,000 times less stressful. There have also been some new people hired:
This boy named Dallas (yes that’s his real name) who is 20 and pretty funny and cool, but also kiiindof cocky and too much attitude for his own good. He also has a serious crush on Annie which is funny to watch. I’m mad at him because he didn’t do his sidework and left early last night and I had to do it for him.
Another new hire is this girl named Melinda who just moved here from Cape Cod. When I asked her where in Cape Cod she said Wellfleet and I was like “oh SHIT, I used to go up there in the summers to visist my old friend Lily Rothman, do you know her?” and she was like “yeah I think I might.” And I was like “whoaaaa WEIRD” and than I thought of other people I knew up there and one was this boy named Sam O’Hara who I used to have HUGE crush on when I was about 15 and she was like “um, he’s my boyfriend. And he just moved here with me.”

So THAT is crazy. Sam just called me today to see if I wanted to get a drink this weekend. Weeeeeird. Except I think he might think I am someone I’m not… like I actually cant remember if we dated or made out or if we really even talked because I might have made the whole thing up in my little teenage imagination. Although, I do have a distinct memory of talking to him on AOL and saying “Sam, do you want to go out with me?” but I don’t recall what came of it. Hilarious.

Let me see what else has been going on in my life…

Davi came to visit and that was awesome. Except for the fact that she was violently ill for the first 24 hours. We thought it might have been the bloody mary that she had on the airplane, or maybe a stomach flu but then decided that it had to have been the altitude. It probably didn’t help that our first activity was to drive with Annie up to the top of this huge mountain outside Santa Fe to see the Aspens changing color. Dav was a sick little pup in the backseat and then we got out to go look at this fancy spa and on our way up the Japanese-style staircase that seemed to go on forever Davi leans over and starts to vomit in the perfectly manicured lawn. And then we turned around and went home. The perfect end to a perfect day.



For Halloween Annie and I dressed up as these two bussers from work. I was Ramiro and she was Alfredo. In the kitchen they still refer to me as Ramiro. Work was fucking insane that night though. Everyone was in masks and it was soooo packed. This is Ramiro:



I moved to this nice house in this really pretty residential neighborhood near the capital building of Santa Fe. I live with this couple named Kevin and Elle. They are getting married in 8 months but have already begun interviewing caterers and florists and mapping out the seating chart using construction paper. They are nice but I really never see them. Elle works for a hedgefund and has to be at work during New York business hours so she is out of the house by 7am everyday. Kevin works on a ranch and takes their huge (HUGE) dog (named Nanuck) with him everyday. I sleep late and hang out with the kitten (named Gizmo) who is getting bigger and more annoying everyday. Here is a picture of Elle and Kevin on the couch and the dog and Davi on the floor:



I hang out with Annie all the time and Dee a lot of the time. We are all good friends. The other night we played this very fun game while Annie was bartending where Dee and I would pass pieces of paper back and forth and she would write the captions and I would illustrate. Doing that made me happy. This is Dee and Annie:



I am feeling more and more at home here. The Cowgirl is a nice place to be/work but I need to be careful to remind myself to leave because it is so easy to stay ALL THE TIME.

Dad and Patti just came and visited me which was sweet. We hung out and walked around and took drives and they stayed in cute hotels. They visited me at work and hung out and Dad made me cry, in a good way, as always. His new thing is the SLR camera that he bought as a hobby and here are his pics from the trip:

http://picasaweb.google.com/TrippEvansNYC/SantaFe2007

I got a job up at the Ski Basin and have been going to orientation all day for the past couple days. Brian, Johny and this other boy named Brian from work are all doing it with me. Johny did it a couple years ago so he hooked me up, which was sweet especially because I couldn’t find a car to drive in order to drop off my application or go to the job fair. It’s so chill though, the guy who runs it is named Timothy and is super relaxed. I am going to be working in the Rental Shop and we spent all Monday and Tuesday watching dumb videos about customer service and sexual harassment and rules of the slopes and learning how to adjust skiis. So now we are all trained and just waiting on the snow to fall, which could happen at any time but probably wont happen until xmas time. I think I’ll be working up there 2 days a week and doing the Cowgirl thing 3 or 4 nights. I have to figure out a way for it to make sense tho because the rental shop opens at 8am so I cant work there on days after I close. So there are some kinks to work out and schedules to set in stone but I am really excited about working up there. It’s just going to be sweet to have something else going on in my life besides the Cowgirl and the people there are chill and I get a free lift pass so I can ski or learn to snowboard. I tried once when I was about 12 and it kicked my ass but I think I’ll give it another shot.

Right now I am at Jarratt and Dinah’s place which is so nice. I woke up this morning feeling sick for like the 10th day in a row. I thought I had a cold when dad and patti were here but then I started feeling better, until I got this cough and started feeling way worse. Jarratt heard me on the phone this morning and convinced me to go to the doctor. I got insurance info from Dad and took a cab to this walk-in Urgent Care place. They took blood and put me on a nebulizer and it turns out I have Pneumonia and Bronchitis. Just greeeeeeeeat. But actually I really don’t feel that bad. I have a killer cough and I’m sortof exhausted but I FEEL ok. Dee was nice enough to cover my shift tonight and Dinah came and picked me up and we got my prescription filled and then I just spent the day here on the couch playing online and drinking ginger ale. It’s nice to be sick like this because I do feel like I am being taken care of and on vacation or something – I haven’t felt that in a while.

Luke and Mom and Bob are all in London right now to spend Thanksgiving with Katie and Liz (Luke’s girlfriend who’s there abroad for the semester). Mom offered to get me a ticket a couple months ago but it just seemed like too much at the time and I didn’t know my work schedule and it would have been such a long trip for such a short time so I didn’t bother to make it happen. I sortof wish I were there, like I’m sorry to be missing out, but I’m also glad to be here because I wouldn’t have been able to get the ski basin job if I were gone and also I feel sick and it would have sucked to feel like that on the plane. I do miss my bro and Katie though. I would probably feel super depressed if Jarratt and Dinah weren’t here to sweep me up in their arms.

Growing up is weird. Annie is freaking out because her family is selling her childhood home and she’s in Philly for thanksgiving to spend the last holiday in that place with her fam. I am sure I would probably be devastated in her position but I actually can’t imagine being that attached to a place right now. Maybe its because my mom moved out of my childhood home in high school? I remember being SO MAD at her.. or maybe its because of growing up in a broken home? Who knows. It’s hard to know what traditions to let go of and which ones to hold on to. I do think traditions and family and nostalgia are important things, but I would rather have control over them and make my own than ascribe to arbitrary Hallmark or fake patriotic ones, you know?

I’m going to try and blog more. Its just lame because I really never have a chance to go online since we don’t have internet at my house. Also I’ve started seriously looking for a car because I really cant do anything without wheels, especially now that its getting fucking COLD out. Not having internet OR a car is just too frustrating. Jarratt mentioned something about Amenity lending me her car while she is abroad which would be so perfect. Then at least I would be able to go look at cars to buy for myself. That’s one thing I miss about NYC – being able to go anywhere anytime. I have really never felt so trapped or frustrated with lack of transportation as I do right now.

Also, I just bought my ticket to come home for the holidays!
December 24th through January 2nd, save the dates!!!!!!!!
I’m so excited. I miss the big city.

Ok that’s a lot but it’s all for now. I gotta get over this crazy sickness.

Dayum

oh MAN i have had an exhausting week. I have been working a LOT and not sleeping very much AT ALL. I worked Tues, Weds and Thurs nights and then I just finished my Friday day shift. I am pretty much completely burnt out. Here's what else has been going on:

1) I went to this bar called Willie's after work and totally stupidly left my backpack and vest with my wallet in the pocket hanging over the back of this chair while i went up to get a drink. When i came back to get my shit, it was nowhere to be found. Granted, i had been getting drunk for about an hour before i came to look for it but FUCK. that really sucked. I was with Annie and she was wasted and not being that helpful and i was kindof freaking out but i just had to suck it up and her friend Mark drove me home which was nice. Having my shit stolen was probably the worst part of this week. Besides being a total nuisance, it also put me in a really dark place for a while where I couldnt stop thinking about how i shouldnt have come to Santa Fe and that the world is full of villains. I'm sortof getting over that but i still feel a little saddened and betrayed by this place.

2) I drove drunk last night which was retarded and i feel very guilty about it. Maybe thats not such a big deal but to me it is and i sortof told myself i would never do it but then i did and everything was ok except i feel retarded and terrible about it. I think i just had to get that off my chest...

its weird to be coming to terms with how much power i have over my own life. i feel like i am only just realizing that i really can do whatever i want, or at least chose whatever i want and then do everything i can to make it happen. it sounds kindof retarded but i think this just never occurred to me before because i was so busy with school and just riding all of that shit out. It was mostly easy and obvious and often fun but i never challenged it, or really took responsibility for it. I guess i am trying to do that now. It is both scary and exciting to own the past and the future, but ultimately that is what makes the present meaningful i think.

ok i need to take a little power nap so that i can decide if i feel up to hanging out tonight or not at all :)