THE LOG BOOK

tonight, after the neighborhood dinner we've been planning for and having meetings about all week which served 40 people delicious soup in elsewhere's imaginary family restaurant, fancy bistro, and elementary school cafeteria; after the unexpected sing-a-long which sprung up in the kitchen by non-elsewherians and which puzzled and confused us all because it was so normally weird; after the game of CITY and a possum-busting theme song played with the only three chords i know; after the dance party; we went on a parade walk.

blanket, dan, ernesto, and lineberry and i made a parade down elm street. blanket played his cassette-player-boom-box hooked up to a tetris gameboy which was our soundtrack, and the rest of us pulled small wooden elsewhere dogs on strings, each of which squeaked a little when they rolled. we wore our CITY costumes, and paraded through the crowds of people out on the town for friday night, waiting in line for the clubs downtown. i felt especially beautiful in a yellow elsewhere dress which draped just right and had long pleats to the floor which made for especially regal parade walking.

it didn't matter that the dress didn't really fit or that i had just met these people four days ago, or that my desk isn't set up or my bed isn't quite right, or that i'm missing so many of my closest elsewhere family members, or that the parade itself was entirely stupid. i'm home. 

I am back at school (missing elsewhere of course) and moving onto my senior project! I've started a new blog to document my process through this intimidating undertaking...<<  http://aliyain3d.blogspot.com  >>... Bookmark it and check in often! I would love input, comments, criticism, and responses from the elsewhere community and beyond...

see you on the next blog-o-sphere,
aliya

1. The constant flow of people
2. Late night, spontaneous overhauls and re-dos and re-organizations of the most complicated and overwhelming spaces
3. Lily making that dance-y face.
4. Stephanie's crazy smile face
5. North Carolinian accents
6. Clapping for everything.
7. Saying, "Wow. What a great _____." and meaning it!
8. Having long serious discussions about capitalization.
9. Community dinners with 15 people nightly.
10. That one night that it was just me and Lily and four residents at dinner and it was like a tiny family.
11. Group complaining about the bathroom being disgusting.
12. George's dancing hands
13. Danna laughing uncontrollably.
14. The SmackDown with The Slaughterhouse and the Dannaconda. Tellin' it like it is.
    
15. When Mary's face and eyebrows go up and she asks if you have anything else you'd like to share or talk about.
16. J's giggling
    
17. General Gamble Giggling
    
18. going to the pond in the country.
19. Super Piano Bouncy Ball, and finding bouncy balls EVERYWHERE.
20. my lily bean
21. everyone hanging out in the log cabin with the lights in there and talking about middle school.
22. Everyone swooning over how cute and great Grant is.
23. Everyone swooning over how cute and great Chef Graham is.
24. Having Chef Graham come visit us each night after his restaurant closed. Why does he even like us so much?
25. Playing CITY.
26. Eating so much JIF and feeling like it's an ok thing to do.
27. Monday mornings
28. My amazing studio-mates
29. Absorbing new people into our community
30. Going to Coe's and buying Cheerwine.
31. Not showering for three days in a row and feeling totally fine about it.
    
32. Trying to figure out how Mary functions with her very picky eating habits.
33. Receiving mail art from my family!
34. Playing dress-up everyday.
35. Pretending to be a legitimate costume designer.
36. That everyone walks around with a billion projects ideas just like me.
    
37. Dance parties where everyone dances their hearts out.
38. So many small soft crawl-y spaces
39. Swimming and working out at the friendly clean YMCA.
40. The big waterslide!
41. So many ribbons
42. My tree branches and ribbon nests over my bed.
43. Laminating things.
44. How excited everyone gets to have pretzles and eggo waffles and pickles.
    
45. The endless massive race to eat food before it rots
46. Every artist conversation event. And all the future ones that I won't get to see come to fruition first hand.
    
47. Being in such a creative exciting community-based environment.
48. Having my daily "work" be sewing ruffles and seaweed and installing art pieces in a small nook in elsewhere.
49. Calling up places and asking them to give us things for free because we are a non-profit.
50. Working 11 hour days, 6 days a week for free.
51. Meeting and working with the coolest artists ever.
    

I guess this is a for-now-goodbye elsewhere. I will miss you terribly. I hope hope hope there is a future for us together next summer, because you are a beautiful place with a beautiful vision. It's so nice to know there is a place with open arms and delicious food that's there at the end of this final-year-of-school thing coming up, and to know that it's filled with beautiful people, even if none of them are getting paid.

Until then! Thank you Stephanie, George, J, Mary, Danna, Ian, Saralee, Lily, Eliza, Yuri, Colleen, Chelsea, Katie, Chris, Alex, Ellis, Shalin, Jona, Kaylan, Claire, Suse, Jason, Abby, Amy, Leanne, Les, Travis, Meng, Joshua, Chad, Brian, Grant, Chef Graham, and all the other people I heard stories about.

Thank you very loyal blog readers. I hope you will continue on to my obviously more boring real-life blog when I make it. I feel like it's time for a new blog as I am obviously a new changed woman.

LOVE,
ALIYA

• 39: number of days spent elsewhere
  
• 26: number of times I lost and refound my shoes
• 38: number of hours spent at the YMCA (or walking to and from).
• 3: number of times I was mistaken for or asked a question as if I were an official Obama Organizer
• 3: number of times I cried
• 2: number of times I did laundry.
  
• 19: number of times I tried to wake up about 1.5 hours earlier than I actually woke up
• 8: number of people I stopped hating and started loving
• 2: number of community wall calendars I recreated
• 6: number of dinners I prepared for the community
• 19: number of egg sandwiches cooked for me and others
• 2: number of times I visited Wal-Mart
• 7: number of locopops consumed
• over 34: number of locopops purchased for myself and others (unsure how many I was actually reimbursed for...)
• 2: number of trips to the mall with Stephanie and Mary
  
• 10: number of late night or early morning sits on the fire escape / outdoor upstairs office
• 2: number of early morning bargain sales I woke up for.
• 2: number of CITY's played.
• 5: number of dance parties enjoyed
  
• 9: number of saffron dresses collected / made / altered / dyed / purchased
  
• 12: number of residents who I met during my time elsewhere.

I feel strangely lonely. I've left North Carolina! I am no longer elsewhere. I'm trying to sum up my stay there. And what I'm coming up with is this: being at elsewhere was like having a team around me supporting me (and everyone in the community) in everything we did, even eating dinner, even crazy stupid ideas, even in gluing hair to the floor. I could talk to anyone or take on anything new because I had this whole community of supportive creative people who are doing just as crazy and over ambitious projects themselves. I'm suddenly without them! It's like the day when the internet was down. No one remembered what to do without the internet! I'm sitting here without my internet and without my community. Elsewhere, I miss you. Elsewherians, I miss you more.

Last week was just out of this world. Here's some things we did:

1. Travis's artist conversation went amazingly. It was such a great event! He had everything together and it was smooth sailing for everyone. He led tours every 15 minutes up to the third floor to his bathroom installation, and there were a lot of rules. No one could speak until the end, you had to sweep the second floor as you walked through it and then put the dust in the corner, then only one person could go into the bathroom at a time, for 1.5 minutes each. I was the announcer for the evening. I sat at the station and announced the current time, and also announced that the “8:50 tour is now beginning, please proceed to the back alley for your tour orientation.” I was glad that Colleen sat with me for most of the night. Travis also read a piece he wrote about cleanliness and dust and dust mites and dirt. It was great and gross. Maybe I can find a copy from him and post it. At the end of the night, Travis led a really special staff tour of his installation. I went up and experienced his performance, and his wife was a part of it and really that was one of the best parts for me, seeing Travis interact with his wife Lisa. She was the timekeeper. Because we were honored members of the elsewhere community, Travis allowed us each to be in the bathroom installation as long as we wanted. It was great. The hair on the floor looked amazing and creepy but not, the bathtub was filled with dust but also strangely clean, the cupboard was filled carefully with little objects and bathroom items that were perfect. The noises and drips were beautiful. And the best part was when I came out and Lily went in, and Travis asked Lisa, “Timekeeper, how long was Aliya in the bathroom?” “2 minutes and 5 seconds.” and then Lily came out and the next person went in and Travis asked, “Timekeeper, how long was Lily in the bathroom?” “2 minutes and 5 seconds”. It was so perfect! We are destined to be best friends! we were in the bathroom for the exact same amount of time!
2. Colleen made an amazing fourth of July cake! It was so beautiful and professional. It was a round chocolate cake with fresh strawberries in the middle and covered in two layers of white frosting on the top – one so that the crumbs don't go everywhere and one to make it nice. And we all sat around the table and smushed in about 16 people in the booth and everyone ate this delicious cake. Also, Mary married Shalin, a hampshire alum who I guess is the person who highly recommended elsewhere and the reason why I knew that this place would be so great. She was just swooning over his 1957 eyes, divorced that jerk husband she fake-married previously, and shook her new husband's hand across the table. How official.
3. Speaking of marriages, on Monday, we built a chuppah in the front room. Inadvertently. We decided monday morning that today was the day that we were going to overhaul the front room store front. We moved Lily's desk to more of an angle so people would be drawn into it and not just pass her by, and then we built a tent over that desk so that it was more prominent, like a ticket booth. The color scheme of that front room is white because that references gallery walls, etc. So we made the tent white with white pompoms. It was beautiful! With lights underneath, and ribbons on the poles! But as soon as we finished, I realized immediately that it looked like a chuppah, a fabric 'tent' that Jewish weddings are performed underneath. We suddenly had a whole new more official place to have fake weddings! George proceeded to spend the night reading old copies of “The Jewish Times” of Greensboro aloud underneath the tent. Aside from that, we cleaned the whole place and really evaluated whether or not this stuff should be in that place, or if it was just dumped there at some point. And then Yuri tore down the front wall! So now, people passing in the street will look in the front window and see the store and amazing things, not just the empty (except for our friday events) front window space! Also, there is so much more real light in the store. It's just great! Lily and Chelsea and I spent Tuesday fixing the previously unused visitor's center which is supposed to make the whole thing more interactive and be a place for visitors to play in the space. And I think the whole flow of the space is just so much better now. I wish I were there to see how people reacted!
4. I went bamboo hunting. As part of the urban garden, J wanted to create some archways out of bamboo for over the swales. Or maybe this bamboo opportunity came up and so that's how it evolved into archways, or something, but whatever. We went on a bamboo expedition on Saturday. I rode with one of the artists, Joshua, and had a really great conversation with him about making art that is creating new worlds while also staying inside and acknowledging our own messy world right now, not trying to escape it. That was so useful for me to hear. And! The bamboo forest was so beautiful! we went in with saws and cut some down, and left some standing on their stumps to dry out and then come collect them later. It was like a magical forest because everything was smooth and made a beautiful sound in the wind and was so light and easy to cut. I also felt very important and strong cutting down a freaking tree. I love going for drives in the North Carolinian country and getting the chance to get out of elsewhere, and it was a beautiful morning. Also, I think I was a good encourager, to try and keep people on schedule, attempt to be back at elsewhere somewhat on time for the lecture that afternoon. Also, at some point, you're just so sweaty and buggy and just done being in the bamboo forest, even if it's beautiful.
5. I had my very own exit interview! I was really excited because I thought only visiting artists had exit interviews before they left, but Stephanie asked me if I wanted to have one too, and I said yes! So she and Lily conducted an official exit interview for me and recorded all I had to say and it was so fun! Just talking about my experience and how I ended up here at the end. I feel so different from when I first came here! I understand so many more things! It was just a special time with Stephanie and Lily, and productive too. And then we clapped. Because we clap for everything.
6. A new artist came who is just awesome. Grant has the best outfits and is just an all around great guy as far as I can tell and I'm sad that I'll be missing most of his residency at elsewhere. But I think we made a special connection, and he said that I remind him of his friend's friend, so I'm most familiar to him in his first week here, so he feels a special connection to me too. I'm so excited to visit all these new artist friends I've made. I can't believe how many friends I've made.
7. We had dinner Monday and Tuesday nights in the front window, in honor of knocking down the wall. We moved the kitchen table to the front window and even mic-ed it up to the outside sidewalk for some reason, and it was like a reverse reality cooking show. eating show? I just looked around the table and thought, wow, what a freaking group. What an amazing collection of people that I get to eat dinner in a front window with. 

first of all, i just want to point out this blog's feature of tags. I thought it would be really interesting to see which topics I talk about most, and I think it's hillarious and unsurprising that dinner is the largest tag there. i love dinner.

This morning a whole crew of us woke up early and went to breakfast at a diner for Danna's last day! It was Lily and my's idea. But it was mary, danna, stephanie, saralee, travis, j., lily and me! it was so fun. and so good. but now i want to throw up. everyone else seemed to go back to bed. and i kinda want to, but i'm also SOOOO excited to have finally woken up early! I escaped the pull of that cave monster bed! Even though I recently hung up a picture of cows being milked next to my bed. which I thought was really funny or cute when I first put it aside, but as I was hanging it I suddenly thought, what the heck am I doing?

Yesterday I spent the whole day with Travis in his bathroom on the third floor. I told him he really should take advantage of more bathroom jokes. Or just sign up to do the bathroom cleaning chores all week. It'd be just hilarious. But it was great and gross. First I sifted through dust, to pick out all the big pieces. Cause we got this dust from the vacuum cleaners. Then I sorted through hair and picked out the stupid fake red pieces. And then we glued hair to the floor! For real mom! I glued hair to the floor. It's kinda like the opposite of something you want to do. Like, "oh, be careful or you might glue that hair to the floor!" I felt like I was making a toupee. Which I was! for the floor! the end result is really cozy actually. and kinda gross and matted. but I've become somewhat of a hair-glueing expert. Maybe i'll go into the wig making profession. It was pretty great working up there though. The installation is really coming together. I'm so excited for his artist conversation this week. I think we should all dress up really dressy. like ties and dresses. But I love dressing up. and men in ties.

Some things I haven't posted about:

1. the Obama party I organized went great! 45 people came! and we had free brownies! and we all sat in the freaking 95 degree weather and no one passed out! In fact, we couldn't get people to stop talking about obama. It felt a little cheesy, like we weren't doing much, but it was exciting to get that many people together and pumped.
   
2. I forgot to write about CITY when we played it a billion weeks ago. it was so fun! I loved the dance party part. My dancing name is Tina LeRue. For City, my character's name was Rose Candyland. And I sold cake, because I made cake that day. two buttons per slice, an extra three for delivery. It was basically just a big game of pretend. and there was a bizzare plot involving keeping all the fans hostage in the log cabin, and the state regulating circulation because it was potentially hazardous. i got held hostage at one point because I found out about the fans, and they took all my buttons. Then they let us go and we started a gym (Gymerobia) in front of the log cabin to watch who got to go in or out of the cabin. Lily had a great character. She was looking for her husband, whom she may or may not have killed, and her businesses were to fan you, find her husband, and kill hussies.
   

Right now we are listening to the knife. I love it. such a great morning beat! Sam, get on that on emusic so i can steal it from you. It's really making my morning come alive.

Today is Danna's last day. I'm really sad. but she says that I'm a part of her life now, and I can't help it. so we have to see each other again. It's gonna happen. All of a sudden there's like 10 times more reason for me to visit Chicago.

Last night Stephanie excavated her bed from all the stuff in her room, and had a raffle party. I acquired pointy brown high heels! I can't even walk in them. I don't know how i feel about pointy shoes. my toes aren't pointy, so should my shoes be pointy? I just feel entirely different wearing pointy high heels. Also, lily and I found more inner liners to make more liner art out of.

I re did the community calendar for july. I think it did a much better job this month than last month. I added more cards and more color coding, and also added staff arrivals and departures, because I think that's important. I was a little sad that I wasn't up on that calendar when I came. So now the new people can feel special! Although, I told lily she can't like them more than me.

I also redid the kitchen chandelier. The christmas lights burnt out, so I had to dismantle the whole thing. But I added a zipper fringe! I really love it. I really have been wanting to use those zippers for something. Pictures forthcoming (when my camera starts working again)

Also, yesterday me and mary and lily talked about our feelings. Mary said she is trying to implement a way that we can all talk about our feelings in a general way about how we are doing here because they are important and maybe in all the rush it can get overlooked. You have to make time for feelings. I felt better.

Onto homework! For a real class! oh man, school work is bringing me down. enough of this lala land art world. i have to take TESTS for this online class. weird.

Aliya's action plan to stop wasting so much time sleeping:

1. start sleeping in other places that are possibly less comfortable/dark/sleep-inducing than my bed
2. start going to bed earlier? (nah)
   
3. get an alarm that can't be turned off by pressing a button and then stashed under my pillow for the next snooze alarm.
4. drink lots of water so i have to get up and pee more often
5. become a robot.

Aliya's action plan for today:

1. get my stuff together. think, email, log.
2. go to the ymca. hopefully the big pool slide will be open. swim. exercise. shower.
3. go to the witherspoon art museum! free! supposedly really cool!
4. go to a baseball game. go grasshoppers! organize the crew to have a rockin time with elsewherians elsewhere.
5. go to bed early-ish and wake up before sunrise!
6. install airplane artwork piece

Aliya's action plan for the rest of her time elsewhere:

1. record sounds
2. take pictures (and post some here... sorry my posts are always so word-heavy)
   
3. finish that stupid media contacts list endless database
4. make more things hanging off of the fire escape
5. get the sewing machine working
6. overhaul the fabric workshop
7. talk to danna about coming back here for real some day
8. make more division III proposals
9. show my work to the artists here who have asked to see it and talk with them (and take their comments seriously!)
10. journal more
11. make art out of the old june postcards which are now defunct. I want a dress, lily wants a hat, eliza wants some shoes (she said socks, but that's crazy).

get off my butt.....

Wow. What a dirty day. Filled with black, dust filled boogers.

Today we (resident Brian and I mostly) tackled the last of the stuff in the way (i.e. everything that was obstructing the way to the second and first floors four years ago when the elsewhere project began and they had to start organizing/ clearing somewhere) on the third floor and moved it around so it was more compact and cleared a space. And then we went to this warehouse and picked up some old industrial shelving (think home depot orange), disassembled it, brought it here, brought it up three flights of stairs (with some help of some really great volunteers and haulers), busted holes in the ceiling because the shelves were too tall, and then reassembled them. Then, tonight after dinner, a crew of guilford college students showed up (george and yuri, another intern, kept calling it "the crew will roll in" "they'll roll from this bbq and then roll out to this person's party after and then the crew will all roll back here" everyone's rolling everywhere.) and we just hauled ass! We picked up all the wood that was put in this room on the second floor that for four years has been called "the wood room" and we brought it upstairs! Right now it's all over the floor, in piles. But tomorrow Brian and maybe me too will keep moving it around and organizing it and putting it on the shelves! So exciting! Then Brian can start his installation in the former wood room! It's going to involve this really old fabric (I guess they all are technically) which is shedding it's fibers, making this sticky-ish (it must be polyester or something) beautiful red dust. It's just amazing. I'm so excited to see what he does with the red dust.

Today during dinner (omg. such a great southern dinner. Collards, fried tomatoes and fried mushrooms, black-eyed peas and coleslaw. It was just so delicious) Brian gave his informal artist talk, where he introduced himself to us and showed us pictures/talked about his previous work. It was so great. I just loved seeing his work and it got me so excited to work with him and also to just start making work again. All day I kept bothering him with a million questions, asking about how he ended up where he is right now. And we talked about Harrell Fletcher and community art and artist residencies and how it took until grad school or an artist residency where someone was refering to you and looking at you as "the artist" and not just some person who might be doing art for him to rise to the occasion and become the artist and stop thinking that he's just messing around or doing whatever. So that was exciting. Exciting to think about my division III (like a senior thesis at Hampshire college) as my time to think of myself as "the artist" and just be that. I'm so excited.

My parents suggested another way I can use my last two weeks here. They suggested that I come up with a new division III idea every day and test it out with the people around me or talk to them about it or get feedback from this great artist community around me who's doing such cool stuff and has mostly been in this kind of boat before. So here's my suggestion for tonight: (oh man, i might not post them all because then I'd feel they have to be important and good. so don't judge my first one. I thought of this during Brian's artist talk)

I could make a ton of stuffed animals and then place them in mass quantities in places there aren't really usually lots of those animals. Or they could be made up animals, or weird versions, not dead, but maybe really small or really big. Also, maybe they could be hanging. or have a lot of parts inside. I like the idea of people holding the stuffed animals-things. or taking them around and taking them on adventures. or adding stories to things that have their own stories inherently.

I feel self conscious about posting that, because it doesn't seem involved in community enough or involved in a specific cause, but i think I just need to stop stressing out that i wont make a difference or that my project will be dumb. So I'll just keep brainstorming and generating ideas and hopefully they'll get better. Hopefully you my faithful reader won't have to hear all my stupid ideas before I get to some good ones.

This just in: I have some misinformation in one of my earlier posts. Danna just told me that she is not in fact certified to teach pilates anywhere. She's on her way to be certified in Raleigh, but not yet. So, if she teaches a class here (yes she will. before she leaves. next week. ahhhh. she's leaving next week) it won't be official, but she has a book. So it'll be amazing.

Another important update: I tried, yet again, to have a plain white shirt (got one at the big hospice sale last week) and what do you know, I end up dying things saffron, and now I have a saffron shirt and no white shirt. But I really like the saffron. It's just so pretty and vibrant. Not as good as onion skin dye, but whatever. I didn't want to do the creepy weird artist thing again where I go from grocery store to grocery store sweeping up the onion skins from the bottom of the onion display into a plastic bag and leaving.

Dental hygiene update! Yesterday I just felt the urge to floss. Yes. I did. So I flossed, and brushed my teeth, and then Eliza walked into the bathroom, and so I inspired her to do a face mask, and then she brushed her teeth, and we just had a great little mid-day hygiene break! better than a cigarette break! I just felt great afterwards. I love impromptu cleaning.

I feel so excited! I'm so excited for my last weeks here! And art making! I think that sitting here on the fire escape makes me feel like I'm flying. I'm not scared to be up here anymore. It just feels nice like flying. So I think my stuff hanging off of this thing will involve flying.

I think danna is making biscuits right now. That sounds so good.

tonight, a mysterious person added to my art installation over my bed! They put little nests of blue ribbons on parts of my trees which already have red ribbons tied on it. I love it. I love sleeping under random branches stuck in the corners of my bed. And these blue nests make it so much better. Thank you mysterious ribbon distributor. You are amazing.

I'm sorry I haven't updated as regularly as before. It's been crazy in a weird way. A way I haven't really understood why I'm so busy because I feel like I have a lot of time still. Last week was taken up a lot by trying to finish these play costumes and props. What a freakin ordeal. We found out that the saffron dress I made was hideous (which it was because I didn't have measurements or a dress model or a working machine or whatever) and so we had to find another one quick. Danna and I spent all of Wednesday driving around, getting lost at literally every step of the mapquest directions, thrift shopping for this stupid dress. We didn't find a saffron one, so we got a white one and then got dye and dyed it saffron. And then, we stopped at the laundry mat to finish drying the dresses because I had just dyed them, and we made it to the rehearsal before it ended, and SHE DIDN'T EVEN LOOK CLOSELY AT THE DRESSES WE'D SPENT ALL DAY ON!!! It was crazy. I presented her with four dresses - one that I altered a bunch, and two that we thrifted for and then I'd dyed. And the last one was some yellow dress I just threw in there at the last minute, an Elsewhere dress. And that's the one she liked. One of the ones I'd pulled from the closet the week before. So crazy. Commissions are so much work. I guess I learned about how to make it seem like you know what you're doing. And how to work with impossibly specific and difficult considerations.

I spent a lot of time in the car with Danna talking about elsewhere and how the staff works. It feels like it could work better, and I think everyone knows that, it's just about figuring out how to actually make that happen. It seems like Stephanie and George and Mary and Danna do a ton of work all the time, and then there are a bunch of interns hanging around that do important things, but also could be taking some of the slack off of everyone else. At the same time, there is something really nice about doing data entry into this big database of media emails with Lily and George - it makes it feel less like mindless work and I get to interact with people really in charge of this whole operation, not just someone who's my supervisor or delegator. At the same time, that's not the best use of George's time. I've been feeling really weird and upset because I realized I'm leaving in about two and a half weeks and that just seems way too soon. I wish I were staying all summer. I feel like even in just the last week I've found my place here so much more and really settled down, like I could figure out what I'm doing here more now or how I could work better. But I'm leaving! Because they said the internship ends July 9! But now everyone's saying I should stay forever!

I realized I was worried that I'm not important or no one will care when I'm gone. Which is totally my own thing and not the fault of the internship length or elsewhere or whatever. I know that my job here is to support what's going on and do what's needed to make this thing run or make it so that other people have more time to do jobs I can't do. So I do other things like cook dinner on the busy night or make the saffron dress or really scrub down the dishroom. I think because i'm good at a lot of little things and I don't complain about doing some dirty work I end up doing that stuff a lot in situations I'm in and then I feel dispensable even though I know I'm appreciated and I'm making a difference somehow.

So today I overheard another intern (from Greensboro) Chelsea talking to George about ways to make elsewhere run better and so I stepped into that conversation and it was really great to talk about it and make concrete ways for the intern system to run better and be delegated. And George sorta saw what I was saying about someone needing to do the actually work but me also wanting to take on more responsibility and he said that there was something in me being the chef and having all those things taken care of so that other people can make the events happen. And that that role could be the whistle blower, or the person who starts things like the all-staff event clean or right before the event gathers everyone together, is the person who declares it begun and everyone on the same page. I sorta feel like that's throwing me a bone for what I already do, but it's also just re-framing it and it makes sense. That's more of a job that I feel inspired by and about doing, and something that I could really make into something. More than just being the person who picks up whatever slack, instead I could be the person who's generating the whole staff working and that mostly could include picking up slack. Maybe i'm making this all sound too grandiose. But I've just been thinking a lot lately about how my role here could grow, and how I feel limited even to decorate my room because I'm leaving so soon, and how I don't know how I fit in in most organizations I'm in because I so often take roles which support other people -- which I'm good at -- but maybe I need to think about how I could support others in a way that doesn't always have me cleaning the dishroom? But maybe that's just what I need to be doing right now. man, putting things up on the internet really makes it seem forever and like it has to be important. I hope those last three heavy paragraphs didn't weigh anyone down too much.

Because I'm really not just doing lame stuff around here. I am really taking on this week making some of my own artwork (waking up at the crack of dawn!) and also working in the space in a way that is exciting AND supportive. Today and yesterday I worked with Brian, a new artist resident who arrived last Thursday, in clearing out the third floor pile of crap. He wants to do an installation in a room on the second floor that is currently filled with haphazardly piled wood. So we're going to build a new wood organization structure on the third floor and then he can make his installation in that room on the second. But that meant attacking "shit continent" which is a pile of stuff moved out of the first and second floors five years ago and piled in half of the large room on the third floor and literally held back with chicken wire and disguised with blue fabric (if we can't see it it doesn't exist!) So it was just really great to really attack something and find all this great stuff and just be on a discovery tour and make clear progress in the space. I can't wait to keep going, and to start clearing out the wood room, and just have all this creation going on around me.

As part of clearing out the stuff on the third floor, we found a pile of disintegrating army surplus supplies. One of the installations on the third floor took all of the army surplus items in all of Elsewhere and the artist inspected each piece and labeled it "serviceable" or "unserviceable" based on real military standards, and then numbered each item, cataloged it, and placed it in this one room. It's a really intense and awesome installation (and super creepy at specific times of night) and has a log book for taking out or putting in any items from the room. So part of clearing the third floor was entering in this stuff we found and putting it into this other installation.

Also, Travis was working on the bathroom he's clearing out and then adding dust and a whole installation to and so we kept hearing great dripping noises and all other noises while he's sitting in the room next door, next to a bathtub and sink that he spray adhesive-d dust that I collected for him from the vacuum and it was just really cool. I can't wait to see how it keeps going.

Another exciting thing going on is this Obama Unite for Change House party I'm organizing. It's going to be at the cheesecake store down the road because Elsewhere is a nonprofit and can't really hold those kinds of things, and I put my fingers out on the internet and have all these people I don't know confirming that they're coming and that's really exciting, and then I also made a rockin poster (using some elsewhere solar system phamphlet I found and my signature tearing the words out and scanning-- I love the scanner) so I'm gonna pick that up and distribute it tomorrow before the staff meeting. I'm so excited! I'm gonna wake up early, make some art out of movie seat covers, bike to the copy shop with Lily, have a staff meeting, clean the space, and then haul some more shit with Brian! What a great life! And I even get to wear a great dress while doing it all! I found this sorta scout-looking dress with red zippers and pockets all over so I thought it would be a great big cleaning day dress.

Even more random things that are exciting:

    * I had a hairwrap! in my hair! for about four hours. It was so great. Danna put it in my hair in the back behind my ear, the longest pieces of my hair (about 3 inches! wow. I hadn't really measured or thought about it in a while. I remember now when I was pinching my hair and calling it long...) And it was great. It was red and golden-yellow and saffron ribbon and a grey light blue and she put in a white feather too! But really my hair's still too short, and it fell out when I took a shower.
    * I gave a tour with Eliza (another intern) to a real outside person! It went well. I feel like I learned a lot about some rooms I didn't know so much about from Eliza, and it was just really exciting to talk about Elsewhere to someone else. You should come visit so I can give you an official tour too!
    * Travis (one of the residents) and I made dinner last friday and it was so good (wow, I think this list could be renamed, "I did this. And It was so great.") We made pizza in three flavors: spicy garlic-y mushrooms and onions, spinach artichoke, broccoli, and bean feta tomato and cilantro (inspired by Amherst's Antonios pizza!). A real morale booster on the end of a crazy week.
    * Danna's best friend, Aaron came to visit and he went to Umass and so we had lots to talk about about Amherst. And it was funny to be talking about Hampshire and Amherst things here-- also refreshing. I miss my mod 4squared sisters and everyone around Hampshire! Oh what am I saying. I miss everyone. I have too many people I love who are all over the place.
    * When Danna and I went to Raleigh to pick up Aaron, we got to go to locopops in Chapel Hill and OMG! I got locopops for everyone and it was quite a production. Mango Passionfruit was amazing, as was the Thai Rice Pudding. And the Chocolate Sesame Wasabi flavor had some kick! I love locopops. Locopops is the reason why I will always return to North Carolina. And because I love it here. This is my crush state. As a little kid I figured out I would end up here because Texas and Florida were too hot, and Pittsburgh was too cold, so I picked a state in the middle. Also, I had this rule in my head thinking that once you lived in a state, you can never live there again. So my options were a little more limited.

Ok. No more hating, no more complaining, no more feeling insignificant or small or worthless here. I am on a mission! I am so pumped! I can't believe I have to go to bed and lay comatose for upwards of 7 hours! What a waste of time! at least I get to sleep under my newly embellished trees.

Goodnight everyone.

we (me, mary, and travis) have just decided that here at elsewhere we meet all the time. Meetings all the time! (I LOVE MEETINGS AND I CAN'T HIDE IT!) and working all the time. or art making. Right now we are meeting at the kitchen table. I feel ok about that because I cleaned the kitchen table so I know it's clean. I have a thing about dirty tables. At school, I'm always the one to really scrub down the table and make sure it's clean. At home, I'm the one that really scrubs the cutting boards. Because I really like surfaces to be clean. maybe that should be a theme in my art.

I have been art making! I started with drawing. coloring. With the markers and crayons that I found in the bear-bee bag. I feel silly saying "coloring" but that's what I was doing. And it felt good. Just to sit on the floor and draw. Made me less uptight about all this art making. Then I went on to some collaging. My dad loves when I collage. I'm not sure why. When I was littler we used to do a lot of hardcore collaging with my babysitter. The same one that taught me to make that chana-masala indian chickpea dish. She's the best. I forget her name. Mom, do you remember?

Yesterday I was the Fan Communist. I thought maybe it was the Fan Fascist, and that had some alliteration, but really I was more of a communist. It was in the interest of the state, in the interest of equal circulation distribution. Mary and I took an inventory of all the fans on every floor. We took notes. Then we assessed all the rooms and places that needed fans. And thoughtfully placed the fans in those locations on our maps such that each would be best used. Then I made labels on the type writer and finished it off with a great ladder stamp. Then I cut each label to size and stuck it on each fan. Then I redistributed all the fans. The whole thing took me all afternoon. And I ran into one confrontation, when I had to take a fan from someone, and tried to give them another that turned out to be broken. Hopefully it's fixed. I didn't follow up on that. Loophole in the bureaucracy. (I think you all should know, as my mom does, that I keep writing "label" and "table" like "lable" and "tabel" by accident because I can never remember which way it goes. So frustrating)

Today we went to this really really big hospice sale in Burlington and it was freaking insane. I kept being anxious the whole time and telling myself to calm the hell down because it was really over nothing, I was just freaking out with all my lists and trying to keep track of money and time and things we need and things I need and things I really don't need. I made myself only buy things I really loved, and so I only ended up buying I think 3 things. It was weird. I could tell I just wasn't in the best mood for buying stuff. But I did get some great plain shoes (keds), a great plain white shirt (because even though I bought 3 before coming here, by the time I got here they had already become other colors because I'm so scared of having a boring white shirt. Must refrain. Must embrace plainness). And then I got some really sweet red upside down "jewish grandmother" (as Eliza called them) sunglasses. My Jewish Grandmothers will probably think they're silly. Because they are classy ladies.

Anyways, it was freaking intense. And a bit picked over. It is the second to last day of the big sale. So I think this was a good day to get a lot of bag deals, but stuff like the clothes was way picked over. But like I said, I'm ok with that. I am satisfied with my and elsewhere's purchases (I got an ice cream maker!!!!!! Also, I bargained for an air purifier that said $10 and I got if for $2. yep. Just call me up. I'll work for you too.)

Anyways, after that, the rest of the day was just freaking weird.

Things I've accomplished:

1. registered officially for an online art history course later this summer. To get it out of the way so I can focus on Division 3 this fall and not have to do an art history class then. I am officially a Lake Tahoe Community College student!
2. Ordered the books.
3. Ordered the book again when the freaking seller decided they didn't actually exist.
4. Make some mail art
5. make a calendar of the rest of my time here. Got really sad about how short it is. Only three more artist conversations!!! Also, a new person moved into our room when Claire left yesterday (very very sad), and they have all these ideas to make it different and are probably going to stay into the fall, and it makes me a little sad. Because I came here thinking that there were these specific dates that I was allowed to be here, and then I had to leave. And my bed was going to be given to the next intern. And now this other person just gets to come in and be here forever. And I know I have other things now, but it just makes me a little sad. Mary said it: I realized I'm a little scared I'm going to be replaced. Even though I'm not the most important person around here, I want to be more important! Everyone wants to be important and missed, right? On that note, Stephanie told me the other day that I can definitely come back and talk to her about post-graduate work when that time comes. I'm not sure if the people reading this will be excited about that or not, but I am. for now at least. It's really comforting to know I can come back and will be wanted. I hope.
   
6. I used Sam's employee discount at Office Depot today! I felt really important.
   
7. I made a four layer cake with strawberry sauce in the middle of each layer and a freaking chocolate mess on top. It was in honor of Claire, and we all ate it on Saturday. It was beautiful. And hideous. It looked like a pile of chocolate something on a giant plate. I used a giant spoon to serve it out for everyone. But it tasted great. Four freaking layers! Erik, if you're reading this, no one was poisoned or even made sick by my cake! I thought of you while making it.
8. I started using my journal I bought for Elsewhere and Division III.
   

Art projects in my head/on the (metaphoric) table:

1. Bathing suit liner pouches
2. studies on sagging (a meditation on how the denim log cabin is sagging only one and a half weeks after it's completion. A look at aging I guess. But not in a sad way really)
3. studies on loneliness. I hope this doesn't turn into another stupid cocoon project
4. mail art (send me your addresses! keep your boxes checked! Pray that postage doesn't go up anymore!)
5. something hanging off of the fire escape. It's maybe my favorite place in elsewhere so far that is pretty accessible and not quite an art installation yet. I just love being there. And imagining slides to other roofs or something. Even though I would be terrified to use them if they existed. Also, this is probably not an ok place to have art, but I think if I call it a part of the Urban Green Alley way community garden project, it'll be totally cool.
   
6. painting. I am imagining rolling out a big piece of paper and just painting some stuff.

Workshops I am going to rally up people for and do at some point I hope:

1. Shoe decorating (hopefully not tackily)
2. website making (maybe a bit more ambitious. But I'm just so inspired by Mary's website. It's beautiful.)
3. music swap
4. hair wraps with feathers (danna says she could do a sweet hair wrap on my hair in the back! How freaking cook would that be! I'd be like a real live art crazy then! oh, today, someone told me, "Do you know that you really do look French? And that's a good thing!" Would a hair wrap with feathers make me look more or less French? And what does that even mean? Do I look like a french fries? Or like the Eiffle tower?)
5. mending/ adding pockets to things/ adding straps to bags without them circle. Hopefully the sewing machines will be fixed????
6. still life club. Danna wants to do this. I'm excited. More drawing practice. But we were thinking of a better name: The Non-Moving Objects Club. I can't remember the others.
7. Pilades class. Danna is a certified teacher in Chicago! And you know what kind of standards they have there. Also, it seems that I always end up in situations where I am organizing dance/aerobics/exercise classes.
   

Goodnight! tomorrow Lily and I are going to the Y early in the morning and she's going to work out with me! and then the big clean and all that shit. I get so pumped to do things late at night, but then I'll be dead tomorrow if I actually don't go to bed. I'll just have to wait till tomorrow I guess.