Shopping on a snow day

Last post of the day I swear! I have just been saving a few up I guess.

The other day...Wednesday I guess it was. It snowed so my plans for antiquing in Frederick had to be put on hold. I was going to resign myself to a day of watching Lost (how sad right?) when Jr suggested I come with him to Charlestown since he had to go despite the snow. Well...it didn't compare to the Antique Emporium, but nothing does. But! I did find a few cool things.

This locket was only 5 bucks and I have been wanting one for a while. When I picked it out I told Jr "I can put a picture of me and Pang in here!" As expected Jr rolled his eyes. He suggested I put one of Hibou and Cj in it. I dont think so. I hates CJ. Then he said "how about you put a picture of you on one side and the silhouette of a man on the other." gee fanks.



Also I got a few ugly ties for the guys at work.



Then I found this cute book that I gave to Pang because she collects kids books. Its called "My Dog's Brain." Here are some of my favorite pictures.









hehe I love this one



Remy drives me crazy with this one

Thrice- Digital Sea

Also, Eric introduced me to Thrice's newest album. It is four cds: Fire, Wind, Water and Earth. All four of which make up the Alchemy Index. I used to listen to Thrice back in high school. From what I heard of this new album though I was really impressed. I really only heard the Water stuff though and this was the best from that, plus a cool video. Im eager to hear the Earth album since Im an Earth sign myself and Im into the more folksy stuff right now. Enjoy.

I can has Vespa?

Alright so I haven't been able to sleep. Like lay in bed for hours thinking, daydreaming, scheming, whatever. I can't shut my brain up, and this is one of the things I have been thinking about.



I wants it! Im seriously considering just doing it but then the money factor kicks in and I think...well darn. Birthday is coming up :winkety wink: Daddy.



Yeah or this one below would work too...im not too picky



When I move out of Shepherdstown to a more city-like environment this will be a reality...give or take a little

Following Clues

Alright, I did a little more work on the series. Im adding a sense of mystery. There is something strange going on, something the "character" doesnt understand yet.

These next 3 are the first in the 3 picture series. I cant decide which I want to go for. Which one seems best?



I like the angle of the foot in this one



This one is the least dramatic



alright then this is the second



and the third



ps I will be cropping that annoying edge of the sign out of the final pictures



And Plus! A gratuitous self pic...Brittney would be proud

Visionary Art Museum

I had a few days off of work so I decided to go out to Frederick, to the homeland and hang out with some friends. Today I went out to Baltimore to see Eric and we went to the Visionary Art Museum, a first for both of us. I had heard a lot about this museum from Brittney and other people at Shepherd so I have been wanting to go for a while. It turned out to have a lot of really cool stuff in it. Unfortunately, you are not supposed to take pictures there so I only got a few and I had to get them on the sly. Here are a few pictures I did manage to get though.



vom vom :) any art that included vom is enough to entertain me



I took this one for Junior



This was a giant self portrait sculpture of a West Virginia native (yeah they kinda look like this) made completely out of telephone wire



For some reason there were funhouse mirrors by the bathroom

We ate at the Rusty Scupper (weird, unappetizing name right?) and traded stories about being single which is still kinda a novelty for me to be able to contribute. So then..in the lull of conversation Eric says with an ironic smile..."So is this the longest you've ever been single?" Damn...was that a zing zow on me? I tried to explain how I am monogamous by nature, how I get fiercely loyal to those Im involved with and just cannot comprehend the notion of casually dating several people instead of being in a love-based relationship with one person. He kinda just looked at me like I was crazy. Perhaps I am.

The Kills- Last Day of Magic

Got another cd from Jeremy (thanks buddy, without you I would still be stuck in whatever I was listening to before we met). So like I said before, it takes me a while to adopt new music. But! so far! I would say this is the one on this cd that is sticking with me. It reminds me of the Pixies "Cactus" which is pretty much IT for me. I realize that they are like beating each other up in this video but I still really like the words "my little hurricano" as a term of endearment. It's creative....Im just a sucker I think, that's all.

An offer is made

Alright, So I work just as much as I always did - 3 days a week - but now that I dont have classes I feel like the time between days I work is really really long. Proof of this is that when I do finally get back to work I act like a total spaz-job. Yesterday, after not working since last Sunday, I practically threw sushi at this guy. I dont know what happened. Everything was cool, I wasn't in a hurry or anything, I just took the sushi plate to his table and when I got right up to him 3 pieces rolled off into his lap. He laughed and said "This sushi is so fresh it's not even dead yet!" It would have been terribly clever if not for the fact that the sushi I dropped on him was fully cooked deep fried Shrimp Tempura. When I bring the bill later that night the father of the guy I dropped sushi on says "Oh that's ok, you can pick up the tab," talking to me of course. Time to break out the pouty smile and the sob story about being a poor student. He laughs and agrees to pay....pff...as if he had a choice. I come back to get the bill and he holds it out for me. I reach out to take it as I walk by but it doesn't budge. He's holding it out for me but he wont let go and he has the big grin on his face. "Leave the poor girl alone!" his wife says. He lets go and lets out a giant laugh. I dont get it. For the rest of the night I was pretty on edge (Wasan already doesn't have much love for me) and I just kept dropping things like checkbooks and calculators.
But! What I really want to talk about is this weird table I had towards the middle of the night. They seemed nice enough, and they were really nice but towards the end of their meal I came to the table to clear some plates and the man turns to me and says
"You want to know what it was that was the only thing that disappointed me tonight?"
Alright, I'll bite buddy, what's on your mind?
"We were disappointed that you didn't say you were a marketing major instead of a photography major. If I ask you again would you be willing to lie this time and say you are a marketing major?"
Oh boy, Lacey is in trouble.....where is this going?
I try to laugh it off while my mind is churning over the possibilities of what he is possibly trying to get at. So then he tells me. He and his wife own a vineyard and they are looking for someone to help them with marketing. Hmmm...alright well I can take your pictures, I know how to make brochure type stuff and I can build you a website.
"Well we just hired someone to make our website."
Alright now I am really confused. So I take their plates and go off on other business.
I come back a little later with their check.
"Alright, we planned out your life, do you want to hear it?"
Here it comes...he has been working up to this all night I can tell.
"You're going to move to Colorado and date an Engineering grad student. You'll live out there a while taking pictures and skiing until he graduates and then you will move home. You'll settle in Gettysburg, get married and then take over his parent's vineyard. How does that sound?
For real? What am I supposed to say. So I say, with a big cheesy grin on my face, "Alright, you buy me that plan ticket and we'll see what happens."
I walk away with the check and run it, all the while telling Pang what just happened. And she says "Wait a minute!! Did you just agree to an arranged marriage? "
Of course not silly this is all just an elaborate joke
I got back to the table and he hands me his business card for his vineyard. "My son is very handsome and intelligent. He likes to be outdoors. What religion are you?"
Kinda personal don't you think? "I dont have one."
He frowns, "Alright, well we can get over that. What kinda hobbies do you like? Hiking, skiing?"
"I snowboard and golf."
"Oh he's never even picked up a golf club"
"Well mostly I read." Seriously? Are you serious because you just keep going with this joke!
"Oh well that's just great! You guys would really get along! I have to warn you though, he's an engineer which means his social skills are pretty poor."
"What does that mean?"
"He has a hard time talking to girls and socializing in general. He stays in a lot."
Perhaps the reason why his father is hand-picking his bride for him?
"No problem, that's the only type of man I seem to attract. Im pretty much going to be an expert on wooing and winning socially inept guys."
He seems to like this because he laughs and gives me this odd little smile like he's picturing me walking down the aisle with his son as we speak.
"So can you leave tomorrow?"
"Nope, I work all weekend."
"Oh so not until Monday then?"
Think Lacey, think! So I just laugh...awkwardly.
I shake hands with him and his wife, tell them to have a safe trip back to PA and then make my escape to the back. As I had imagined...he left a fat tip.
After that I laugh it off in the back but Pang is convinced that the next time their son comes home for a visit we will be seeing them in Kazu again. Weirdest encounter ever...and there have been some pretty weird ones.

Inauguration Pictures

I only took a few pictures, I was pretty wrapped up in the moment and all that but here are a few



People warming their hands on the ambulance



Obama just came on screen



This was in the Native American museum when we were all starving and trying to stay warm



People going into the 3rd street tunnel



Pang thinks this is what a zombie looks like...nerd



Pang bowling at Lucky Strike

Mass Enthusiasm to Mass Confusion: The Inauguration

This is really long, sorry guys. Also, I will get pictures up as soon as blogger isnt being incredibly slow.
Disclaimer: I wrote this for the Picket so you wont find any words like buster or sonnn in here, strictly PG writing here. I had to be ladylike and patriotic and all that. I know this might be hard for some of you to believe but I can pull "ladylike" out of my back pocket at will.

At 5 in the morning my alarm went off and I mumbled and groaned and hit the snooze. But this was no day to drag my feet, no day to linger in bed. On this day, January 20th 2009, President elect Obama would be sworn into office, making him the first African American president and also the first president I personally had voted for. There was no way I could miss this historic event. Despite the warnings of the clogged subways and the freezing temperatures, I was bundled up tight and departed for the metro with a groggy smile on my face. My two room-mates and I drove out of Shepherdstown around 6:00 am expecting to be met with heavy highway traffic and insane parking ordeals at the metro, but we didn't encounter either. Were we late? Was everyone already there? Or maybe, all the hype had scared people into not coming. In either case we joyously jumped a train from Shadygrove, easily finding empty seats to occupy, smiling to ourselves because we had somehow managed to miss all the terrible lines we had read so much about in the days prior to the inauguration.
We smiled, that is, until we got to the Metro Station. It was here that we began our hectic long day of standing in line and being jostled and pushed by eager Obama supporters. There is something about being completely surrounded by strangers, whether its at a concert, a carnival, or an inauguration that reminds you that you're part of a much bigger thing. It also reminds you that a lot of people have no manners and will push and shove their way through you. We waited at Metro Station through 5 trains going by before we were finally able to do some pushing and shoving of our own and make it onto a fully stuffed train. The excitement was obvious on the faces of my fellow passengers. We had made it, we were going to be let out at the National Mall in just a few short minutes! As we came out of the metro station and the first icy gusts of wind hit our faces it became a reality. We were going to see Obama sworn into office and one day we could tell our grandchildren what it had been like to witness the history firsthand.
At 8:30 we walked out onto the Mall, weaving our way through the crowd, pushing closer and closer to the Capital. We were still over 10 blocks away when we hit a wall. People stood shoulder to shoulder densely packed and huddled together for warmth. We found our crack in the wall and pushed through it, hoping to get a little closer. Pretty soon we were totally surrounded with no exit in sight and it felt like the crowd was simply shifting rather than moving in any particular direction. A moment of panic hit me when several people around me moved and I felt myself lift off the ground just slightly and get carried along with the direction of the crowd. We headed for the edge of the crowd and after a few minutes of squeezing and apologizing we broke free.
The cold soon set in and we quickly realized that we had hours ahead of us before Obama would be sworn in and we had no activity planned. We decided to head out of the cold and into one of the galleries. We chose the Smithsonian Castle and joined the already daunting line. Ambulances were parked everywhere on the ready for disasters, and one sat idling in front of the Castle. People had gathered all around it with their hands pressed to the hood trying to suck the warmth into their frozen hands. At 10am the Castle opened to the public. The crowd surged forward pressing towards the door but a lone officer stood at the top of the stairs and held everyone back. He let 5 people pass him. 5 minutes later he let 5 more people in. We stood in the unbearable cold like this for close to two hours, with 5 people at a time being let in. Little did we know that the line for the Natural History museum across the mall was circulating without delay. But we stuck it out for almost 2 hours and just 15 minutes before the start of the inauguration we were let into the building to stomp our feet and store as much warmth as we could before heading back out into the cold.
We hurried out to the jumbotrons just as Bush and Cheney were walking out of the Capital. We carved ourselves out a little nook in the crowd and settled in to watch. When Michelle Obama came out into view the crowd went wild. The sound when the camera caught sight of Barack Obama was like the sound of a football stadium on Superbowl day. People frantically waved flags and we raised our voices to blend with everyone else's. The swearing in was over and done with in under 10 minutes. We started heading for the metro station to beat the crowd when the sound of Barack's voice came over the loudspeakers and he started his speech. Drawn in by his eloquent voice we stopped to watch and listen. Like all his speeches, this speech was beautifully written and carried out but this speech took on a whole new meaning as he stood before us as our president. Tears started to swim in my eyes and as I looked around me I saw the same expression on almost every face. We all felt proud to be Americans.
At the end of his speech the crowd started moving as a mass towards the different metro lines around the mall. We headed for the Federal Triangle stop where we had come in. As we got closer to the street though we saw towering over the heads of the people in front of us large chain linked fences. As we approached the fence we realized with a sickening clarity that the entire street between the metro and where we stood was blocked off from us. When we asked a police officer when the fence would be coming down he replied that it wouldn't be coming down until after the parade. We were stumped. All of the other metro stops around us, like the Smithsonian and L'Enfant Plaza stops, were closed. The closest open stop was all the way up on 18th street close to the White House. With no other options in sight we decided to walk up there and try our luck. We didn't walk far before we noticed the huge streams of people walking in the other direction. When we stopped someone to ask he told us that there were gates down on 18th street too, that is was impossible to get out that way. We looked at each other in disbelief. Then, through the noise of the masses we heard that L'Enfant might be open afterall. With a sigh of relief we set out for L'Enfant. But as we neared the station our hearts fell again. There was a solid wall of people blocking the entrance and everyone we talked to said it was down for repairs. We admitted defeat. We were trapped, literally, in DC. Every way of escape was either blocked by gates and police officers or was off limits because of the parade.
Tired and hungry we decided to go to the Native American gallery and get some food. We hadn't eaten anything since 5:30 in the morning and it was now coming on 2pm. This too proved to be impossible. The line from the cafeteria went out the door and up the stairs to the third floor! Exhausted and grumpy we slumped onto the floor with 50 or so other people in a small gallery room. That feeling of being part of a much bigger thing only intensified when I looked around and saw the hungry faces of the children and adults who had braved the weather to see our new president and were now locked into the inner city just like I was.
Once we felt warm we went back outside to try again. This time we walked towards the Capital down off the side of the mall. We came upon the third street tunnel and were amazed to see people, tons of people, walking through the tunnel on the highway. We checked our map and saw that the tunnel went under the Mall and came out on Massachusetts Ave. With nothing else to try we decided to join the others who were braving the tunnel. Walking through the tunnel with everyone else, all bundled up and confused, I had a strange feeling of being in a movie. Like we were survivors from some sort of apocalypse, and we were moving as quickly as possible through the city before darkness fell and the zombies came out of hiding. It was, without a doubt, one of the strangest things I have ever felt. The tunnel started to slope up again and we could see daylight once more. We all let out on giant sigh of relief when we realized there were no fences or gates or police officers waiting for us on the other side. We had made it through an exhausting, stressful day and now we could finally go home and tell our experiences to others.
We ended the night by bowling at Lucky Strike (at which I did horribly but had lots of fun) and got some tasty burgers

Wicked Wisdom- Of Montreal

This is what I look like singing in the car :) just kidding, im not this bad. To be honest, I can watch like a minute of this video and then I have to let it play and go do something else because it starts to get to me...like dude..this dude is crazy! Sorry this video is totally lame.
So I was kinda disappointed by the new Of Montreal cd, as most of us were, but there are a few on the beginning of the cd that I like and this is one of them. PS why is this cd so blatantly sexual? I feel like Im listening to the soundtrack to a space-age porno.

The songs that I love by Of Montreal always have certain lines that stick out and make me crave the songs at the most inopportune times. For this song it is these lines:

My goat, my crab, my scorpion
You're my icons 'cause your different
You're different

And of course

When we get together
It's always hot magic

I find myself singing that at the weirdest time...under my breath, of course, im no green bean

Also! Even though this isn't my favorite song I love this video for An Eulardian Instance. It is growing on me though, the song that is.


Of Montreal ~ An Eluardian Instance (2008) Dir: Jesse Ewles from jesse ewles on Vimeo.

A Few More From Florida

These are pictures that either didnt fit into a series or were not meant to.



Does anyone know where I can get one of these up here? I wants one!



Isn't it cool how the sand does this? Well...i suppose the water actually does it to the sand



During the week we went to Blue Springs which is a hot water spring like an hour from St. Augustine. I tricked my grandparents into taking this cheesy picture with me...man I wish I had had sunglasses, I look ridiculous



See those grey blobs under the water? Those are the manatees that live in the spring during the winter! I kinda geeked out over them...



Those birds let me get really close to them

January Book Club - Then We Came to the End

Here is our book for January picked by our newest member Becky at This Chickadee. You can pick up a copy here.

Here is the blurb on the back:

No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurt. Every office is a family of sorts, and the Chicago ad agency Joshua Ferris depicts in his exuberantly acclaimed first novel is family at its best and worst, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.
With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells an emotionally true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment- the one we pretend is normal five days a week.

So there you have it..hopefully this will be The Office in book form. You have all of January, sorry I am late, ok go!

New Work..finally

So I just spent a week in Florida which was lovely and relaxing but best of all it inspired me to start a new series. Much of my previous work deals with themes like isolation and separation so it seemed natural to continue on this theme but bring it to a more personal level by using myself as the main "character." I can't wait to push this further and do scenes in shepherdstown or DTF. It started with this sequence:







I did this the first night of my trip. I love all my grandmas old furniture and lamps and things. I envisioned this shot in my head days before coming to Florida. I always stay in this room. That's how I usually work, actually, I see the photograph in my head when I am trying to go to sleep and then I try to reproduce what I saw. And this is what I ended up with. Then after this series as I was going to sleep I started thinking of beach scenes and ended up with these:






and this one:







and then there is this set that I haven't made my mind up about just yet..i dont know if i like it enough to include it








I think it just has the wrong feel for the series perhaps...what do you all think?