"Apparently, he was my very best friend. We spent wild summer days wishin' they would never end."

About a month ago I started working weekends at The House Cafe, an awesome cafe/venue I've mentioned numerous times in previous posts.  I've never worked in food service before, and the whole experience leaves me drained by the time my shift is over.  Despite that, I'm having a great time working there - serving coffee, food, and beer while I get to hear free music, poetry, and stand-up comedy.  Hellz yeah.

When I was working last Saturday night, I found out that one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Ted Leo, is going to be playing there on November 18th.  I'm so excited to hear him play and get the opportunity to meet him.  Ted Leo's song "Timorous Me" was on the first mix CD I ever received, and although that was 11 years ago, I still listen to that mix on a regular basis.  Aside from being the first mix CD I was ever gifted, it was also the best.  The two-disc set was entitled "160 Minutes of Good Shit" and the guy who gave it to me told me that single disc mixes were "for pussies."

The credit for that amazing mix (and the vulgar quote, which was funny only because we both new he was capable of phrasing things in far more eloquent terms) goes to MisterFlak.  He was the first person I met who was as obsessed with music as I was.  We both loved listening to music, and used it as a way to communicate a sincerity that our pleasantly loud social personae rarely afforded us.  Over the next 10 years we spent countless hours creating, writing, and laughing together.  As the story goes, life and love and the cowardliness they breed got in the way, and things are not the same as they used to be.  But it's okay, and so are we.



"There was an awkward pause, and something that should’ve began just passed us by."

I miss THIS.

Since I've last written, I moved out of the apartment I was sharing with Sarah and into a new one with another roomie who ended up leaving halfway through the lease. And, luckily for me, Sarah moved into this new place with me a couple weeks ago. Due to this shifting of space and roommates, a lot of reorganization has been needed on my part. So, I have spent many hours sorting through scattered masses of notes, diaries, travel journals, and other random scrawlings. This, of course, led to countless hours of procrastination in between, during which I decided to reread many of my online blog entries from the past couple of years. Spending so much time reviewing this blog (and all the writings that could have been a part of it) has made me realize something: I miss personal blogging. A LOT.

Why did I quit?

I suppose because I've been trying to turn my online efforts toward more professionally productive avenues, such as building my artist's website (nriceart.com) and a Tumblr account (nriceart.tumblr.com) to go with it. There were business cards to be made, artworks to be photographed, and even a QR code to be created that needed to lead my contacts to a self-made mobile site. With all of this artistic ammunition in hand, I attended my first SGC printmaking conference in New Orleans.

"It's For The Best" Litho by N.Rice (2012)

But that conference took place in March, and since then, outside of creating some awesome new prints, I was just doing a lot of Facebooking. (I also traveled to Amsterdam, started working on music with a new band, and dealt with all sorts of man-drama in my personal life... all quite noteworthy ways to spend one's time, but those stories are for another day.)

And so I'm back!! I'm turning 30 in 13 days, am about to start my LAST year of art school (yes, I will actually have a degree soon, and after only 12 years of on-again-off-again college attendance), and I'm not about to miss out on documenting the achievements and horrors that are sure to befall me over the next year. Riding on the cusp of thirty has me doing all sorts of reflecting, analyzing, obsessing, and promising myself changes in lifestyle and thought patterns. I need to share it all somewhere, or my life may as well be a tree falling in the forest, with no one to hear it.

So, can we take the next hour and talk about me?

My Favorite Quotes in 2011

"Truth is, I've always been thirsty." - Edward Bloom, Big Fish



"We're done with you. Go back to the golf course and work on your putz." - Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

"Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death." - R. D. Laing

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." - Mel Brooks

"Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering." - Paulo Coelho



"Whatever I did, I did without rules of other people. I did it because I wanted to do it." - Herb Vogel



"Maybe if I hadn't of seen so much hard feelings, I might not could have felt other people's." - Woody Guthrie (from "Another Man's Done Gone")

“Fate loves the fearless.” - James Russell Lowell

My Favorite Quotes in 2010

"Live very week like it's Shark Week." - Tracy Jordan (30 Rock)



“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I shall no doubt find pleasure in examining the etchings which you hold out as an inducement to call." - from The Erie Train Boy by Horatio Alger, Jr.

"To put it bluntly, American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest." - Richard Dawkins



"I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch, he said to me, 'you must not ask for so much.' And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door, she cried to me, 'Hey, why not ask for more?'" - Leonard Cohen ("Bird On The Wire")

"The hours that make us happy make us wise." - John Mansfield

"It has been said that art is a tryst, for in the joy of it maker and beholder meet." - Kojiro Tomita

"I pray to be like the ocean, with soft currents, maybe waves at times. More and more, I want the consistency rather than the highs and the lows." - Drew Barrymore

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.” - Dennis Wholey

"Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love." - Wally Lamb

"My version of falling in love is borderline psychotic. Should be avoided at all costs. Get obsessed. Can't fall in love and function at the same time. All-consuming. Tunnel vision. Euphoric." - Graham Norton

Things That Make Me Happy

I had a damn good weekend. I spent lots of time with good friends, new friends, old friends, family... and after my stressful week of mid-terms, this was just what I needed. I was going to blog all about this weekend's events, as they were all pretty fantastic, but instead I'm going to share something I found the other day (and just in the nick of time, I might add). I found a list I made on February 8, 2010, of 33 things that make me happy.

I wrote it one day at Alexandra's house, after a rough couple months of boy problems and depression. At that time, I felt like I had been overlooking all the good things in life; I needed to remind myself that there were plenty of reasons to smile. It hung on my fridge at my old house, and now it's hanging on the fridge at my new house, right where it belongs. Here it is, uncensored:

1. music
2. coffee
3. sunshine
4. stretching
5. exercise
6. breakfast
7. Weight Watchers
8. bike riding
9. reading
10. cleaning
11. clean clothes
12. Sunday phone calls/emails
13. doing my hair & make-up
14. matching underwear
15. sex
16. parties (especially theme parties)
17. dressing up
18. drawing
19. singing
20. practicing instruments
21. watching movies
22. dinner with friends
23. museums
24. swimming
25. painting nails/toenails
26. going to the movies
27. Chicago
28. crafting
29. kids
30. car coffee
31. massages
32. painting
33. dancing
34. showering
35. going out for coffee
36. poetry

What makes you happy?

"Target Women"

Once again, some random internet surfing has led me to a very fun little corner of the web that I never knew existed. In this case, that fun little corner is "Target Women with Sarah Haskins." Its a segment from a satirical news show called infoMania, which can be found on CurrentTV (or YouTube, where I discovered it). "Target Women" delivers a hilarious take on current feminist issues involving the ludicrous, female-targeted ads and other media we're bombarded with on a daily basis.

I've been watching episode after episode of these 3 minute shows and laughing my ass off! I've posted two of my favorites below - the first is about birth control, and the second is about yogurt. "Target Women" covers a wide array of topics... :)

I always appreciate when a social cause that I'm so passionate about, like feminism, is portrayed in such a way as to make me think AND laugh.

Facebook Killed the Class Reunion

I read a great blog post yesterday at The Good Badger about the ways that social media if effecting our face-to-face social circles. I found it most interesting because I recently experienced an in-person event that was TOTALLY effected by Facebook - my 10-year high school reunion. I posted a comment on the entry and decided to share it here, as well:

"Last weekend I attended my 10-year high school reunion, and the experience was completely different for me than it was for my brother, who had his 10-year reunion back in 1997-ish. Why? Because his occurred pre-Facebook.

"Thanks to Facebook, I already know what most of my classmates are doing, where they are living, and if they are married/have children - even the ones I haven’t seen since the day we graduated. Apparently, so did everyone else, because only about 25% of our class showed up, and our small talk seemed dishearteningly redundant. Social media has practically eliminated the need for a class reunion. This might seem like an insignificant change, but it’s representative of something much larger.

"Don’t you love being part of a generation who has experienced life on both sides of the internet invent? I truly do."

My reason for re-posting is that I am totally fascinated by technology, and I get a rise out of seeing the change it creates, especially when it's played out in real time, right before my eyes. Granted, there is nothing comparable to seeing a friend in person, and I had a wonderful time catching up with old friends at the reunion - Cindy, Staci, Christine, Steve, Jake, Allison, Lindsey, it was wonderful to chat with you all after so many years. But things definitely would have been different without Facebook in our lives. All but one of the aforementioned people is on my "Friends" list, and we could communicate on a daily basis if we were so inclined. Just a few years ago, that would not have been possible.

My family got hooked up to the World Wide Web when I was 12, I think, in about 1994. It was slow, clunky, restricted, and absolutely magical. eWorld was where it was at! I know me and my online boyfriend certainly thought so. ;)

How has your life changed since the invent of the internet? What was the first service you used? How has the connectivity of social networking sites effected your real-life interactions?

One more tech-related note before I go... did you know that cars can drive themselves these days? So cool. 

6 Movies in 2 Days

I have two rooms in the flat that I share with my roommate, Sarah. One is my bedroom, and the other is my art-music-media room, which I recently cleaned and rearranged. Since it houses my overwhelmingly large VHS collection, I created a cozy little video-watching area that's getting a lot of use. I've seen five movies since yesterday afternoon - while doing other productive things. I swear.

1. Half Baked
• It always makes me giggle.
2. Se7en
• Brilliant story, brilliant acting. "What's in the box?!"
3. Milk
• It was my first time seeing this one, and I loved it; a funny, inspirational true story that had me emotionally invested to the extreme. It even made me cry a little, which is tough for a movie to do. I highly recommend this to anyone who's interested in political activism, gay rights, contemporary history, and/or emotional biopics.
  
4. Office Space
• I watched this one twice in a row. Seriously. 
5. Friday the 13th
• Slasher classic.

...and I'm currently watching a 6th: The Squeeze, on VHS. It was still in it's original shrink wrap, which was pretty exciting to tear open. The cover sold me, with its classically corny 80s style and a tagline promising a "comedy thriller," starring Michael Keaton, no less. Unfortunately, I'm 10 minutes into watching it and can already tell it's not going to be as fantastically bad as I expected; it's going to be "mediocre bad," which is the worst.

Is that all there is?

My mantra song for the weekend:

"Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that's all there is, my friends,
then let's keep dancing!
Let's break out the booze
and have a ball!
If that's all there is..."

Peggy Lee is fantastic, but one should also check out Firewater's amazing cover of this song.

Vote for RAINN!

One of my favorite non-profits, RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), is in the running to receive $250,000 from Pepsi's Refresh Project. The money will help to widen the support they give to those in need of their services:

"RAINN operates the award-winning National Sexual Assault Hotlines and leads national efforts to educate the public and prevent sexual violence. Since 1994, RAINN has helped more than 1.4 million victims take the first step towards recovery, providing free support 24/7."

Vote now, vote often! You can vote everyday through September 30th, so make it a part of your morning routine. Good luck, RAINN!

Oh, the horror!

Over the last week, the temperature in my part of Illinois has dropped from 90° to 60°... basically, Illinois warp sped from summer to fall, seemingly overnight. Every year, as the weather starts to get chilly, I get a hankerin' for some good ol' fashioned horror movies. I began the cinematic descent into blood, demonic possessions, deep psychoses, and deranged villains last night, by re-watching The Shining for the umpteenth time. I'm not a big Kubrick fan, but I adore The Shining. I saw it for the first time when I was 13 or 14, and at 28, it still manages to give me the chills.

Here's the beautiful and terrifying original trailer:

And, just for fun, a romantic-comedy re-cut someone did with scenes from The Shining. Hilarious!

The next movies I plan on re-watching are Rosemary's Baby and The Omen, two more of my favorite horror classics. Did you know that The Omen includes one of Hollywood's first, and, arguably, BEST, decapitation scenes? I have long been toying with the idea of making a VHS "Decap Comp" of all my favorite movie decapitation scenes, and this one from the original Omen would definitely open up the tape:

I have a list of some of my other favorites, and if there are any that you'd recommend, please leave them in a comment below. I'd also like to know what your favorite horror movies are, so I can add some more must-sees to my watch list. Some of mine, in addition to the few already mentioned, include: Dead Snow, Cabin Fever, 28 Days Later (I love you, Danny Boyle!), House of 1000 Corpses, The Good Son, Jaws, The Exorcist, Carrie, and Teeth (don't trust the shitty trailer - trust me). And the next horror release I'm really looking forward to is Hobo with a Shotgun (see the teaser trailer at the bottom of this entry). I found the link to this through a blog I just discovered this morning - Greatest Movie Deaths of All Time. Total Google score!

Happy horror-ing, guys and gals. I finally have a working internet connection again so I should be blogging more frequently. Subscribe. Stay in touch.

It'll almost be like you were there!

Wienerslav played a show on Wednesday night, and my friend Chrissy was kind enough to take some videos of our set. Below are the videos of our two originals. The videos of our covers are being posted to our Facebook page as I type, if you'd like to check out more.

Happy April Fools' Day!

In honor of All Fools' Day, I suggest you buy a metric clock to be proudly displayed upon your living room wall. I know I'm going to.

In 1975, an Australian TV show called This Day Tonight put forth one of the most clever April Fool's pranks ever. The show convinced many viewers that Australia would soon be converting to "metric time" and explained the guidelines for the new system. In fact, metric time (or decimal time) is a real system that has been explored, but not yet perfected for public use. Pretty good. Prett-ay prett-ay pretty good.

See also: Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time.

And one more thing...

Thank you, Chryssa.

A list of awesome things that happened in the last week:

1. My parents renewed their vows on a cruise ship, and brought me back a bunch of cool presents from Barbados. Congrats, Mom and Dad!

2. Bought a hideous on-the-hanger dress at Target that looked way sexy on-the-me.

3. Got my first sculpture assignment, and it's highly interpretable.

4. Learned to play Hank Williams' "Hey, Good Looking" on the keyboard (as well as a few random 90's techno songs).

5. Chryssa dyed my white trash roots back to beautiful blond.

6. Used velcro rollers in my hair for the first time, and, thanks to some helpful amateur YouTube how-to videos, got wonderful results. The video below was the most useful for me. I will try to put up a full instructional post of my own in the next couple days, as I'm assuming that using rollers to curl hair is as big of a mystery to many other people as it was for me.

7. Ate a phenomenal falafel pita at Pita Pete's with Jaime and James, and some damn good Qdoba with Chryssa and Alex; friends and food - need I say more about why these experiences were so exceptional?

8. Got a bunch of canvas and other art supplies from the VCBeast.

9. Spent lots of time with people I love.

10. Received an exciting X-mas gift: a beautiful polka dot corsette!

11. Made plans for the upcoming weekend that are guaranteed to bring me many smiles, much laughter, and maybe even some butterflies in my tummy.

Life is spectacular right now. I wish I could feel this way all the time. I know people say that you can't appreciate the good without the bad, but I find that really hard to believe. And, even if this is true, I think the amount of "bad" I've experienced thus far will keep me appreciating "good" for the rest of my life. Bring it on.

My Favorite Quotes in 2009

“Forgiveness has nothing to do with the perpetrator. It has nothing to do with any religion. It has only everything to do with the way the victim is empowering himself or herself and taking back their life.” - Eva Mozes Kor

"We have a whole life to live together, you fucker, but it can't start until you call." - from Me and You and Everyone We Know



"It takes two to tango, only one to sin." - from Sam Kinison's "Mississippi Queen"

"The world makes you into a bitch, no matter how quietly you go, so you may as well go kicking and screaming.” - Roseanne Barr

"Mountain. / Peaks pierce the green sky, unblunted. / The sky would fall / but for the columns of mountains." - poem by Mao Zedong

"A man would rather have another man's jealousy than another man's respect." - from Sex and Death 101

"When the owl cries, the indian dies." - ancient Mexican saying

"Love does not divide, it multiplies." - Robert Heinlein

"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The kindest words are often spoken; never heard." - from Ben Folds' "The Last Polka"



"We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves." - Lynn Hall

"Existence precedes and rules essence." - Jean-Paul Sartre

"We could plan a murder or start a religion." - Jim Morrison, from "Angels and Sailors"

"Being humble is so 2007." - Erykah Badu

Student Life

I've been back in school for three days, and as of right now, I'm predicting that this will be an interesting, relaxing, and fulfilling semester. I'm taking Art 102 (a 2-D art studio class); Fashion, Modernism, and Modernity; Beginners Sculpture; and Art History I, through ca. 1400. I like all of my professors, I don't have any classes that start earlier than 11 a.m., I'm taking the fashion class with two of my besties (Chryssa and Alexandra), and I have three day weekends all semester! What more could I ask for?

While sitting in my last art history class this evening, I found myself thinking, once again, just how lucky I am to be back in school and working toward a degree that, only a couple of years ago, I never thought I'd be able to pursue. Up until two years ago, I could have never guessed that, at 27 years old, I'd be focusing the majority of my attention and time on art, especially in a scholarly context. I am currently headed down a life path that is soooo different from what it was when I worked for all those years at the newspaper. I enjoyed my job in advertising sales, and, for quite some time, firmly accepted it as the best opportunity I would ever come upon to make a decent living; it just seemed so solid and practical, and the money was great. At first, when my newspaper started to fold right in front of my eyes (no pun intended), I had no idea what I was going to do. But, with the encouragement of friends and family, I am now aiming towards true, long-term happiness, and not just a paycheck and a good retirement plan. This is my fourth semester back in school, and every day that I attend class I have to pinch myself just to make sure this is real... and even when that pinch is felt, I'm still in disbelief.

How the idea of an emotional enema can turn into YouTubing:

I woke up today and read She's Come Undone for two hours; it's one of my favorite books, and I have spent much time over my winter break re-reading it for the millionth time. I'm not a giant fan of fiction, but I relate to the main character so much that I find myself reading her story as my own, crying when she cries and learning as she learns, no matter the fact that I know exactly what's going to happen on the next page. Unfortunately, reading this book first thing in the morning is apparently not a good idea for me, as it can set the tone for the rest of my day as one of despair and longing.

After getting out of bed, feeling depressed and empty, I looked around my newly rearranged apartment at all of my stuff (which there is A LOT of) and noticed how many items have been made for me, or presented to me, by others. From what I hear, my tastes are both distinct and affordable, making it easy for my loved ones to randomly pick up little gifts for me. The only con to this? Finding remnants of past relationships, either extinguished or smothered, all around me, on a daily basis. This morning, I had an idea that I would throw away all of these things, or, at the very least, pack them up and hide them away in a closet; give myself a clean aesthetic slate, one free of hurtful memories and long-lost inside jokes - an emotional enema, if you will. People do it all the time in movies... destroy boxes full of ex-boyfriends, leaving themselves feeling liberated, the dead weight of decayed intimacy removed from their shoulders.

But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Instead of wallowing in my self-directed disappointment, I did a little Googling to cheer myself up. Follow the link below and you will see exactly how I got here, three and a half hours later, feeling so much less guilty about my heavy accumulation of outwardly meaningless, yet inwardly invaluable, material possessions.

Let me Google that for you...

I'd like to specifically point out a great YouTube video I watched, featuring psychologist and author Sam Gosling talking about the theories behind his book Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You. The video is an hour long, and worth every minute of your time it will occupy.

Enjoy. In the meantime, I'm off to do some actual, rather than emotional, cleaning. Chrissy and Liam are coming over tonight to drink a couple of brewskis, and my apartment is a mess. Happy snooping...