By the way

Since everyone loves my shoes. You can get them here. Not only are those cute, but all of the other ones are cute too! Enjoy.

The Doctor Approved TV Regiment

A couple weeks ago friends of ours invited us over to their apartment complex to use their new fitness room. A fitness room that has a personal TV attached to every single piece of equipment. Since Mark and I only receive two channels here at the house I immediately saw my opportunity to get my daily hour of Stewart & Colbert. We agreed that we would meet over at their apartment just in time for The Daily Show.
I would now like to take the time to point out that our friends are all boys. So. This is me and four boys that decided to do this. Three weeks later I am the only one who still wants to keep this up. In fact despite trying to go every Monday-Thursday for the past weeks we have averaged about two days a week.
When we started this whole thing I thought I would be the one wimping out. Turns out all I needed to exercise was Television. I hate physical strain. It sucks and makes me feel like crap. With a TV in front of me Steven can make me forget that that my knees are killing me and my lungs are burning. The whole running thing. It sucks. But let me watch TV while I am running I'm good to go. Why? Because TV is mind numbing. My very own television on my treadmill is like my very own little brain washing station. There are absolutely no thoughts coming from my own brain. I guess that is why normally I never watch television, that, and the fact we only have two channels. But when it comes to exercising a good dose of nothingness in my head is exactly what I need.

Sunday Morning

Bathroom, Week 4
Self Portrait Challenge

Here's to you: Essenza girls

We went to pick up our wedding pictures today. We left with 600 3x5 proofs and a wonderful sideshow with music and everything! I have two exams on Monday and I have to turn in my portfolio for review for official acceptance in to the art program. I know I should be working on school work but I can't stop looking at our pictures. They are truly amazing. If you live in the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana Tri-State area and need photographers for anything. Weddings, senior portraits, family photos, new baby photos I highly recommend Essenza. You will not only love their work but the staff as well. If you don't fall in love with all of them you obviously have no heart.



We thought tonight was a good night to enjoy the left over champaign from the reception.

It's All Been Done

Lately I have been gathering everything that catches my eye. Books about Alphonse Mucha, images of European street lamps off of Google, old photos from antique stores. When I began art school I had no idea how someone else would teach me to create art? I quickly came to realize that a big part of learning to create art is all about creating yourself. Professors can teach techniques and principals but students have to be the ones to teach themselves how they work and what they want to come through in their work. Maybe this is why art students can be so wacky, we're all looking for something and none of us know what that is. Of course all of this applies to all college students. English majors, Business majors, Mass Communication majors. In college no matter what major you have decided upon time stops in between childhood and adult hood. A black hole of being expected to do what is right, but still being able to get away with immaturity. It is pretty rough on ones psyche. I still don't know if when we find that thing that we have been looking for it will be like a switched has suddenly turned on and *click* there it is. Dur. Or it will come in little bits every so often through out the years.
I'll let you know when I figure it out.

The Scrooge of Oxford

If you are an art student at Miami University you are well aware that there is but one art store any where near campus. While there are plenty about twenty minutes from campus its a little hard to drop everything Monday night and take a road trip for one thing you need for your 8am Tuesday morning. Can you say Monopoly? It's not so much that the dude who owns the store jacks up the prices like a Mother Fucker. You gotta earn a living and lets face it Miami University is not a place where there is a surplus of arty folks. What really bugs me about being forced to give the owner business is that while he is ripping you off he is a complete ass. He has not once smiled at me as I forked over 50 cents per negative sheet (thats a lot), or all those times I gave him 5 dollars for each roll of film that only contained 24 exposures. In fact he has been rather rude as if he is looking at me with total disgust.
I don't know if it is because he is a stuck up art snob who believes that you aren't a real art student unless you buy all of your clothes from Good Will, refuse to cut your hair, wear a crazy hat with some weird sun glasses, oh and also wear a scarf. Which I have plenty of friends who fall under this category of art student and I love them. Our fashion differences do not make me less of an art student then they are or vise versa. Of course it could be that the dudly owner is just your run of the mill pissy ass old man? In either case I would appreciate it if he could be visited by three spirits that will lead him in to the path of happiness and a full life.

Walt's World

Photo Friday
Fantasy

Lettuce Wrap please

School has been keeping me pretty busy lately. When I say school I mean my photography class. I spent all of Saturday shooting and all of Tuesday in the dark room. Not even close to being done. I took this in the bathroom of P.F. Chang's. Quick and easy.

Self Portrait Challenge

Puplic Satement

Please. If you are in a radius of 30 ft from me refrain from chewing gum, smacking your lips, drinking so as to make a gulping sound come from with in your throat, chewing ice, slurping anything, or chewing loud in general. Thank you.

Purple Party

In celebration of completely paying my credit card off here is my Photo Friday on Saturday.

Photo Friday
Purple

Big News

Yesterday, or the day before Apple annouced that they will be releasing the ipod touch....... I have no words. Since the introduction of the iphone this is what I have been waiting for. Yes, I totally wanted an iphone, but really all I wanted it for was to be an kick ass ipod. I already have a free cute pink cell phone that gets crappy service from AT&T. I didn't need a $500 ipod phone that would get crappy service from AT&T. But I could totally use a itouch. The first ipod I bought was the third generation ipod (Sparky) back in 2003, and then last spring I bought a pink ishuffle (Coconut).

I always new that the day would come where I would be ready to buy a new ipod. The ipod video was pretty cool, but I new they could do better than that, the iphone confirmed my suspicions. Yet again Apple has created a material object that I feel I can no longer be complete with out.

Talkin' Bout My Generation

I am currently reading Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs* a very lovely break from all of those assigned readings my professors for some reason feel that I need. Along with a critical look at MTV's Real World, and why we would ever want to play The Sims page 42 has a couple very interesting thoughts about patriotism. He questioned a number of people before 9/11 and all of them viewed patriotism as a bad trait. One person responded by "claiming that any woman who loved America didn't deserve to date him, not because he hated his country but because patriotic people weren't smart". The one and only person who found patriotism to a be a good quality at the time responded with this, "You know how historians call people who came of age during World War II 'the greatest generation'? No one will ever say that about us. We'll be 'the cool generation.' That's all we're good at and that's all you and your friends seem to aspire to."

I read this while sipping my coffee in Shriver, the central hub of the M.U. campus. Beside me sat a fellow my age listening to his ipod catching up on his reading. He had obviously eaten dinner before I arrived because his tray of left over raviolis and disposable utensil paraphernalia had been shoved aside so he could rest his feet on the coffee table. The usual sight in the basement of Shriver. When he collected his belongings and left his trash stayed behind despite the fact that he had to walk by a trashcan to leave the building. This unfortunately is a common sight in the basement of Shriver too.

The World War II generation is "the greatest generation", eighty's children are "the cool generation", and my generation we are the "self absorbed generation" a.k.a the "ass hole generation". We grew up in a time where our teachers and parents were believed that they needed to give us self esteem, and boy did they ever. They blew sunshine up our skirts so far that now time has come for my generation to become the adults that they have always wanted to be, but they are lacking some very important traits of adulthood. Manners. Respect. They walk around treating everything and every one like they are royalty. Others should bow before them and clean up after them. They don't bother themselves with silly things such as others feelings. And everyone needs to hear and cares greatly about their current cell phone conversation.

I may look like I am part of my generation because of my age, but honestly I do not agree with their behavior and if someone would like to form a secret club where we sit around and complain about them I will totally join.



* A low culture manifesto (now with a new middle)

Me and my Catatonic State

Today started off like any other day. With me not wanting to get out of bed. But we got up and ready in time to make the bus. I felt perfectly fine. In photography today I spent all of my lab day developing film that I had taken of my father in a precarious lighting situation over the weekend. As I hung them up to dry the images looked nothing like what I had expected them to and my mood took a nose dive. While they were drying I went out with Mark and I could not shake my bad mood. It was a mixture between pissed off, sulkiness, and being so tired that I could barely hold my head up. After I dropped Mark of at work I did not want to be back in the dark room yet so I went home to take a short nap. Before I laid down I remembered that I had forgotten to take my medication this morning. And then it all clicked, I knew there was a reason this mood I was in felt so normal. I spent the entirety of last winter in this mood.




I took my Happy Advil as I like to call it and took a two hour nap and woke up feeling perfectly/wonderfully content and light. Light in the sense that I didn't feel like I was at the bottom of a deep body of water watching the world go on with out me through the diffused surface.

Yes. I am one of those many people who need a medicine everyday to keep them normal. I am O.K. with that. Mark is definitely O.K. with that because this means he no longer has to put up with my constant pissed off state, where, I yell at him and then burst in to tears because I yelled at him. So. Tom Cruse you can suck it. I love your movies. I just think you are a little fucking crazy. And thats cool. Whatever makes you happy.

Labor Day Weekend 2007

Mark and I spent our Labor Day weekend with our families. I love family weekends. It's a nice reminder that no matter what is going on in your life there is a place for you. A little place that only you know about where you can put your feet up and relax.


We spent Saturday night with my younger sisters in front of the computer creating Webkinz movies. All them older folks out there may complain that technology is turning our children's brains to mush. I say they don't know what they are talking about. Mark and I sat back as a computer game made it fun for my sisters to create a story. Plot, protagonist, antagonist everything that a good story should have. Honestly, them old folks, I bet a pencil and paper wouldn't have inspired them to create the story of Froginstine the creature created by an evil witch to make the Perfect Creme Brulee.

Sunday was spent with Mark's parents enjoying the small town of Augusta, Ky. Mark and I met at the bus stop and dated the entirety of his high school career. My in laws watched me grow up, they are still watching me grow up. But they are now two of my favorite people. I love the relationship that I have with them, and the relationship Mark has with them. We both realize how important they are to us, and that in itself is pretty special I think.