Procrastinating Creatively

Things I Am Dying To Do But Can't Because I Should Finish My Thesis First:

• Relearn / experiment with my Vivitar 3800N (a sturdy, all-manual SLR camera) from high school

• Make miniature granny square blanket with tiny crochet hook and sock yarn.

• Finish queen-size teal/gold/brown ripple stitch afghan.

• Blog make-over - new banner, new "bonus pages", new layout

• Buy and build new bookshelves.  (My IKEA shelf that I've had for five years collapsed on my foot this weekend.)

• Organize books by genre. Alphabetize within genre. Celebrate.

• Take pictures of completed blankets for Etsy shop. Open Etsy shop. Celebrate again.

• Bust out the sewing machine. Make whale and owl softies. Play.

• Finish reading Tao Lin's "Bed." (Update: Finished 06/16/11 at lunch.)

• Finish reading Arielle Greenberg's "Gurlesque."

• Research crafting, blogging and writing conferences for the upcoming year. Get excited about them, pick some, register.

• Apply for fellowships. Apply for residencies. Send poems to journals for publication.

• Respond to emails. Respond to Facebook messages.

• Write letters to my friends. Make them beautiful. Mail.

Oh, and did I mention that I also work full-time? Keeping busy is the best, but of course a few extra hours wouldn't hurt. 

What is your creative approach to procrastination?

Clothes Crush: Kreayshawn

Someday, I want to be Oaklander (Oaklandite?) Kreayshawn.  I want her ink and her ice and her rhymes. I want to ride around on the hood of a car in the East Bay with my posse. I want to wear a bow bigger than my head and still be adorable in a totally hardcore way.

"There were never such devoted sisters."

Subtitle: In Which I Expound Upon the Awesomeness of My Crafty and Adorable Big Sis.

Kelly on tour (plus one stolen dog?)

There is so much "crafty" going on in my family.  Quilting, knitting, crocheting, ice-cream making... My sister Kelly is pretty much the "Jill of all Trades" when it comes to DIY goodness. Her blog Stitchy Quilt Stuff is one of my absolute favorites... I get to keep track of her new projects and get exciting ideas for cute-ifying my apartment. 

Brunch at Kelly's. (See the quilt on the wall? She totally made that.)

Kelly also guest blogs over at Memory Makers (a great scrap-booking resource) and surprised me by doing a special post for my birthday!  (I actually haven't received this card in the mail yet, but the post will suffice....HINT, KELLY.)

In order to keep up with all of this, I've been honing my knitting skills (a new habit I'm using to replace a... well... bad habit I've very successfully given up recently.) Knitting is slow-going for me, especially after years of becoming a crochet master.... But I'm getting there!

Source: Lea Knits

This being said, I leave you now to go work on my thesis, clean out my refrigerator, and enjoy another rainy day in San Francisco.

Explosive Heart

Karin Dreijer Andersson's "Fever Ray" is the best thing I've heard in a long time. (Originally of The Knife, this was her solo debut in '09.)

Photo courtesy of Diafero Collective.

The album is embedded below, but I also had to post the video for "If I Had A Heart" because it's exquisite. And makes me have intense dreams.

   Fever Ray by Fever Ray

Trifecta of Happiness: Round 1

1 book + 1 movie + 1 song = heck yes.

I finished "The Chronology of Water" in about 48 hours (meaning, I couldn't stop reading.)  I become leery when I see "memoir" (a conversation that has been beaten and bloodied on lit blog after lit blog) but Lidia's work is poetic and charged.  (Not to mention, this was a lovely mini-vacation between last day of classes and first day of off-the-grid-thesis-writing.)

An amazing documentary about art, trauma, what "inner life" can mean... and Barbies.  I feel certain I will watch this again.

Dance it out with The Rassle.

School Supply Shopping for Grown-Ups

Today is my last day of MFA classes.  Read: Tomorrow it is time to start cracking down on the thesis in a serious way.  A love of school supply shopping has not dissipated since the days of new crayons, skinny markers, and trapper keepers.  What better way to get motivated and inspired than stocking up on one's Absolute Necessities for Academic Success?!

And so, I bring you my favorite (and absolutely necessary) tools for this summer's write-a-thon:

1) Itoya PointKeeper Pencils - They look wooden. They are mechanical. They make the finest, darkest lines a girl could ask for. They're sustainable.  Love.

2) Moleskine Ruled Cahier Notebooks - The only notebooks for me.  Stitched binding, back pocket for scrap-storage, sleek and clean, durable yet bendy.... Poetry perfection.

3) Rickshaw Zero Messenger Bag - Perhaps my most decadent purchase, but well worth it. These urban messenger bags are made exclusively in San Francisco and are ZERO WASTE! Check out their website for customizable options and more details on the company's amazing ecological stance. They're terrific for biking with, too.

4) Summer Reading Part I (all purchased at City Lights) - 

And we're off!

Songs for Writing Theses (Part I)