4 posts tagged “the spa”

Aliya and ATown.
we're in it to win it.
esteeemed members and co-founders of the Awesome Rat-Tail Club.
new roomies and future interior-decorators of the red room up front.
he can reach the top of the refrigerator, and i can grab stuff from under the sink.

We went on an adventure today and worked out at the Y, went on the water slide, brainstormed potential part-time-jobs in Greensboro that wouldn't kill my heart, visited our friend Kirsten at work and got delish coffee drinks, bought toilet paper, tampons, and deoderant, got lost and ended up talking to some really swell fire-fighter people and checking out these terrifyingly awesome crashed school busses and cars which I guess they use for training fire fighters for emergency situations? and then invited them to come check out Elsewhere and luckily I had some elsewhere august posters and cards in my car so they are gonna hang them up in the break room. Then we checked out a convenience mart which Anthony was sure would have awesome weird old sunglasses but actually they turned out to be way over priced but I did in fact get a really sweet North Carolina Facts ruler for $1.00 and then we stopped being lost and made it home at last.

 

Found this on the way into the YMCA to catch the end of the last half-hour slot of water-slide time of the day: I think it is now our TEAM BFFForever business card. I am the purple headed one. He is the orange headed one. This picture is a sign from above that our team is totally for realz. We might enter the olympics.

ok, peeps. here's the dealio.

First of all, for those of you who are still confused and for some reason not comprehending what the hell is going on in this blog, I am at Elsewhere, an artist collaborative, in North Carolina. It's amazing. People come here and make art all over the freaking place out of this huge collection of stuff that George's grandma collected between 1939 and 1997. see a few posts back for some more details. I'm here till the beginning of July, working as a production intern. Check out the website! come visit! Drop me a line and we'll talk a bit!

And here's the big news. I have to cut back on my blogging. I know i know, it's become a real important part of your day and life. But you'll just have to do with a bit less. Or start commenting. you know. But I've realized today that I've been hiding out and not making art because I'm scared it'll be dumb or i'm just an intern or this isn't really what I should be doing or I think it won't make a difference. So I haven't been doing anything, and making a lot of really great reasons not to. So I have to devote some blog time to art time. I'm gonna make sure I do at least one art thing - whatever that means - everyday. I'm still gonna update. Probably just more lists.

like this one.

Things I'm excited about in the very near future:

1. The UNC surplus sale tomorrow morning! we're waking up at 6:45am and leaving at 7:30 and I made a picnic breakfast and we're gonna run and grab tags of cheap supplies and it'll be so great. Like high powered tag sales. Exactly that actually.
2. Then! We have the artist conversation! After I make lasagna  -- with tomato sauce I made tonight -  and it' gonna just be great. I don't really know what's gonna happen tomorrow in the same way that I understood what was going on last week, but this week is going to be good too.
   
3. SATURDAY! is urban green, and then I'm going to get stuff done, and then! we play CITY! Which i've figures out is basically just a huge game of pretend. I love it! I can't wait to be silly and have fun. Also, George suggested that maybe I could do an audio story about city or the characters in it or something. I'm intrigued. I just remembered the power of interviewing. I'm gonna keep thinking about things.
4. I just have a lot of weird and random ideas floating around my head ever since I got upset and confronted about not making art. But I'm going to start doing this stuff.
   
5. I'm going to talk to the cheesecake store tomorrow and enroll them in hosting the obama party! I'm so excited about the ingeniousness about this combination of interests. Who isn't interested in cheesecake? or at least soy-cheesecake?

Things that happened today that were nice:

1. I made dinner with Danna and we made spring rolls and they were beautiful and delicious and it was so fun to cook with her.
   
2. We went on a group trip to the ymca. It was nice. and refreshing.
   
3. I cleaned the hell out of a room on the third floor. vacuuming up dust is so satisfying.

goodnight.

Yesterday was my day off. I went to a pond! And swam! Which was great because:

1. I got to wear my newish target swimsuit for the first time in outside life and it was awesome and passed the not-falling-off test when I dove in.
2. I got to hang out with cool Elswhereians
3. I got to hang out with cool North Carolinians.
4. It's so freaking hot and jumping in a body of water was(is) exactly exactly what I want(ed) to do everyday. I'm working on a mini pool in the alley still...
5. I got to wear this great elsewhere dress that is so fun and flowy!
   

And then we went to one of the Elsewherian's house in the country and made lunch out of the greens and root vegetables that we got from their garden! It was pretty impressive.

I really loved the drive and getting outside of this one street I've walked up and down. I really love the North Carolina countryside and it just feels familiar. And nice. I tried to remember as much of the bushes and grass lots that I could.

Then we bought ice cream! And sat in an air conditioned store for half an hour! How luxurious is that?

After dinner (lily and I made banana bread with 12 overripe bananas -- a quadruple batch!) a group of us went to play darts and it was so fun! I am pretty bad at darts. The first round, I threw the darts in a perfect circle around the board. Imagine the board is a clock, and I threw it outside 3, then outside 12, then outside 9. Great. But Claire was on my team so we won! She's the best. Oh! and, last night she figured out I was wearing my dress incorrectly and fixed it so it now was truly amazing! I was wearing it like a halter, but in fact you were supposed to snap it on the sides and cross it in the back! brillz! now I felt way better.

This morning was hard. I just felt all crappy when I woke up. Like sad. For the first time since being here. I had this really serious dream that I can't really remember but it was really serious. And important. I might have been undercover. I was searching, with trained cats and this electronic toy thing that actually looked like a wedge of wood. And we had figured out that the thing was either under this heart shaped stone in the floor, or this other normal looking one that I had suspected might have the thing under it. That's all I can remember. But it was really serious.

I decided I needed to go work it out. I went to the Y and just loved everyone. I love the Y. It's just filled with healthy people that are working out or getting clean or being nice to each other. I think. It just feels nice. It did not smell nice but that's because I hadn't showered in like 3 days and I just stunk. I almost couldn't workout with myself because I was so stinky. But luckily, they have showers.

So I was an hour late to show up for work, but I think I needed that time. I spent all afternoon in the clothes closet. This is the epic clothes closet of a ton of old and sometimes hideous and sometimes amazing clothes that were in this old thrift shop and now are in this closet on the second floor. In the application, they said to "not bring too many clothes because we have a huge closet of vintage clothes you can wear" So I had the task of going through this closet to find costumes and props for this play (in Greensboro) that we are working with (as a way of bringing in some extra money for Elsewhere). I had to find a simple saffron dress (size 14/16) that could be hidden completely under the conservative black dress I had to find and be appropriate for a 70 year old woman. I had to find a navy blue dress (size 14/16), a blue pinstriped double-breasted jacket, a brown fedora, a blue hat (lady), a ocean blue scarf, brown suspenders, and a burgundy tie. I found everything except the ocean blue scarf. And in the process, I found a ton of cool things for me to wear. I'm gonna try them on and Danna said she'd take me to the laundromat tomorrow. Good. The bad thing is that I had my computer in there so I could play some music (my ipod needs juice) and now it's covered in dust! I hadn't realized till I came out of that place.

Mom sent me a package. Thank you mom. It has some awesome magazines, some flip flops (she knew because she reads this blog! how useful!) and this bandanna cooler thing. I'm not sure how effective it's being, but it's kinda nice.

I think I've just decided I like being short, despite having to walk around with a step-stool most of the time.

Also I would like to wear some clicky clacky high heel shoes right now. I'm just in the mood to hear that sound when I walk.

I kinda don't want to do anything. I just want to sit around for another day. But not have everyone leave like they did yesterday. Everyone, please stay in Elsewhere. I can't have my community just up and leave on their days off. It's too confusing. We'll play a game. Like "Bonkers" or "Survive" or Sardines. I love sardines. especially in Elsewhere.

Wow. So guess where the hell I am. Yeah. In the treehouse. It's above the kitchen wash room. I climbed a real live (well dead now) tree to get up here. and I am surrounded by fabric leaves and some stuffed animals and windchimes, and ---- best of all!! ---- above me is the bottom of the wishing well room! Which is a place I've been wanting to update in and talk about for like everyday, but it's kinda scary and I doubt it has an electrical plug. Let me tell you a preview: Its filled with beautiful glass bottles and things in between the ceiling of the first floor and floor of the second floor, and they're organized by color! And with the light shining through, it's beautiful. And a little scary. Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow.

First let me complain a bit. I can't ever seem to charge up my computer, so I'm severely constricted as to where I can update because I only have like 25 minutes of battery. It's cause I'm just doing and making all the time! And I can't just leave my computer out because this place is a freakin MUSEUM and we have STRANGERS walking around all day, watching me sweat. Whatever. Just know that I want to explore more places with you, but I have to figure out this whole electricity thing first. Also, internet doesn't work on the second floor.

Today I kicked ass on the front window. Tomorrow is the big first artist conversations event of the summer! We're all working super hard to get things done. So I put a third coat of paint on the back of the facade window thing in a very official color that Danna says is forever. Which is why they picked me to do it. Cause I rock at painting. And then I put up fabric on the ceiling and wall to cover the collage so that everything is unified for this event. And I swept and cleaned up and everything. It took me all day. I have run out of This American Life podcasts (and episodes in general. geeze. they need to crank them out faster). I must move on to RadioLab. Any other suggestions are welcome.

Also, tomorrow I'm in charge of dinner. I'm totally second guessing my curry chickpea stew. It's just so damn hot and sticky, who wants to be eating more hot and sticky things? There's so much in the fridge (wednesday is shop day) and I'm overwhelmed. Plus, I have to make something totally awesome for 18 people and then they'll all think I'm the shit.

Oh! and this morning, before Lily and I went to the spa (the ymca) we made my bed into a treehouse! I have to think of another name though, cause that name is already taken I guess. But I pulled in some tree limbs and tied them into place and tied red ribbons in the tree! it makes me really happy to be in my room. I also cut out a silver headboard out of contact paper and it looks so great. Now I just have to figure out how to use the gold fabric I found which is sosososo pretty. Curtains are useless in this case, and draping it in the trees would look dumb. like when I tried to tape the fabric to the walls. duuuuuumb. maybe cut out and in frames. oh but i hate to waste it. ooooooo I would loooooove to make a golden dress. ohohohohoh. but no. kinda goes against elsewhere's rules.... but maybe not....

Omg. I love this tree house! Although, I just dropped the cord to the light into the kitchen so it's kinda dark and a little bit more scary. but I'm done being scared. poof. done.

I made cookies tonight! everyone loves me. I added CINNAMON (which I add to everything) and rolled oats. After the first batch turned out looking like pancakes I added way more oats which was awesome, but maybe a bit too oat-y.

There are about a billion people here tonight. I have no idea where all of them are staying. Two new artists came in today, Meng and Travis, and then Les, the visiting artist from last month, is here because his show is tomorrow and then Eliza, the other intern is supposed to come maybe sunday or something and wow. I really like Les. He went out of his way to introduce himself to me and I helped him make elsewhere t-shirts for tomorrow's event. Maybe it's just cause he feels more comfortable in the space whereas a lot of the other artists here are more new.

Some upcoming/ non-scheduled-yet plans:

1. Go to the airport with Danna to pick up her friend and then stop in Durham to get A BILLION AMAZING POPSICLES FROM LOCOPOPS!!
2. Figure out something to do for about 5-7 minutes while everyone else smokes to give me an excuse to sit out there and chill too. Danna suggests drink a glass of water. I like something that gives me a line to ask people like, "hey, wanna go out and eat a carrot with me?" but, neither is really quite that intriguing so far.
3. Make ginger-ale. last night we didn't make it cause we didn't have a 2 liter container to make it in. So, whoever has the bottle of orange soda, drink it fast.
4.  get shower shoes next time someone goes somewhere corporate. I'm sorry now I didn't take up kerianne's persistent suggestions of Old Navy's 2 for $5 sale...
5. at some point, hopefully inspiration will hit me about my desk. it looks kinda lame right now. Oh well.
   
6. go into the clothes closet and pimp out my wardrobe (new "frocks" as everyone here calls them)! so excited.
7. Figure out the ymca's (from now on called "the spa") class schedule! Pilates here I come!

Ok. enough for tonight. Start posting comments so I know who's reading this random crap.

goodnight!
aliya

p.s. !!! I'm official. I'm on elsewhere's website! check it out! it's on my link's section on the right. Once you're there, look under "artists"