decided to mess up my railroad pin collection and turn them into rings

figured i’d get better use out of them

this weekend i went down to the central valley aka the midwest of california to visit my dad cause he’s had some hardcore heartwork and can’t travel for awhile. also it was my lil brother’s prom night? that was surreal. he’s about 10 feet taller than i remember. my dad gave me a tiny leo pendant which is his sign. not really the kind of gal that is into astrology but i was pretty touched

grampa grandma uncle uncle aunt dad

i can’t think of the adjective right now, but i love kids who are mature in stature and carry themselves like adults. i can’t fricking think of that word and it’s driving me crazy. it’s one of those words with few synonyms and is used to describe kids who are super cognizant and are wise beyond their years and it starts with a P. ugh, no wonder why i suck at scrabble.

anyway, i came across this pic of my nephew in a tux when my sister had one of those renew your vows 2nd wedding and he is so cute here that i almost can’t stand it, it breaks my heart. mainly because it scares me how time flies when you uses kids as a measuring tool for time and can see with your own eyes how much time has snuck by. after my 21st birthday, i’ve been completely oblivious to time and can’t recall any significant age-related milestones which i think is pretty common. 13 you’re a teenager, 16 you can drive, 18 you can vote, 21 you can drink and go to clubs and bars. i think of my 20s as one ongoing long year not punctuated by the standard calendar year. goddamn, sometimes i forget how old i am when i buy booze at the corner store and say i’m 27 when i mean 28.

looking at this picture is a bit of a shock because it didn’t seem that long ago, but i swear he’s like 8 feet tall now, has a myspace profile, and i suspect says curse words when i’m not around. holy moly! not that i’m mad at that. i’m just saying, wow & wtf. anyway, hope you stay safe and warm tonight and have a fantastic 2008. i’m gonna take this bewildered moment as a reminder to treat my time as valuable and make decisions that i won’t regret in the coming year. does that count a resolution?

ok, now i feel guilty that it seems like i don’t love my mom because i just hyped my dad really hard. sorry i was just really happy to find that pic of him that i thought i lost. i love my mom, even though she drives crazy 50% of the time, nags me always to change my “phone voice” and told me i sound like vincent price, and she is mildly twisted. once when my sisters refused to do some chores, she told them that she might as well have had eggs instead of children cause then she could at least cook them and they’d be of better use to her. that cracks me up so much as messed up as it is. she does show affection, although mostly through filling my belly. that’s about it. she’s not a hugger, she gives hugs through pork chops and bun thit nuong which i’m not mad at in the slightest. i respect her, my mom is an interesting person and has lived a life worthy of a book. and she has an amazing singing voice. and there is even one tape of hers from the late 60s that i would listen to even if she wasn’t my mom. so yeah my moms is cool too. plus, she was the parent who consistently had to put up with my stupidity.

i have tons more more vietnam photos of my family from the late 50s and 60s that i need to scan.

i must tell you that i have a strong urge to go fishing just so i can see if i can remember how to gut a fish. yes it’s completely disgusting.

oh my god. my dad is so handsome. i’ve had his passport pic at age 20 for a long time and i realize 2 years ago that he had a don mattingly harrison ford thing going on. i thought i lost this pic and then i found it when i was cleaning which pretty much made my week. i haven’t seen my pops in 2 years which makes me sad because even though my moms had custody all my life i’ve always had great times with my Hue (central v-nam) small town dad. we’d go fishing at camp tulequoia every year for rainbow trout or go shooting clay pigeons. living with a diva singer mom made me really appreciate my low maintenence salt of the earth pops. he treated me like a son, which i couldn’t be mad at cuz in vietnamese culture lots of folk wanted to have a son not a daughter as a first born (i have older sisters but they are half). i’m thankful he taught me how to gut fish and start a fire without matches and love the outdoors and other miscellaneous dude things. sure he was weirded out when they found out it was a girl, but that all changed when he met me (he says). i have a bond with my dad that my moms can’t even touch; they’re cool now but she’s been jealous occasionally cuz we’ve had so many adventures that brought us closer. unfortunately, it’s been a long while. i’m so so happy i found this picture. you have no idea

i bought a wayne thiebaud children’s book today. thiebaud is one of my top artists next ed ruscha and bill viola. he makes dessert look so good!

incidentally the last kid’s book i bought (in adulthood) was Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs food theme a coincidence? hardly.

this is my new favorite group on flickr: the c30, c60, c90 go!

not only did i enjoy putting together tapes for people, but i also loved making my own j-cards. why were they called that?

first, young showed me how to open and extend these cameras last night:

i like the lens and i think they take 120film.

anyway, i scanned and cropped about 30 of these found photos. it was a pain in the ass

this was one of the few color ones:

after looking at the expiration date on some of the film, i’m pretty sure these are from ‘91-92, which might explain the ‘losing my religion’ aesthetic on the first batch i took snaps of? anyway, i attempted to google the person for a contact email but it’s a too common of a name.

while going through the clutter bomb disaster that is known as the back storage room in my house, we came across many boxes of photos, proof sheets, misc. camera and dark room equipment that belonged to a previous tenant. my roommate has no idea who it belonged to, since he’s only lived here since 2001 and judging from the clothes on a lot of these proofs i’m guessing it was around the late 80s early 90s. some of them were really interesting, so i kept like 1/4 of it- about 2 boxes of proof sheets and full size photos, some film that i don’t know how to use and is probably worthless, some alien agfa camera, and a small box of negatives. haven’t had a chance to look closely at the lot, but here is a quick overview. i’ll actively scan and post good ones in the future

agfa pd16 folding camera?

box o negatives

i’ve been tripping over this since yesterday:

i don’t know christian paine, but i guess he likes the photos and retarded sense of humor on this site. he took this old photobooth snap of me with BFF/#1 enemy Young dorking out bigtime and made it into an awesome poster that i will cherish eternally.

here is his site christianpaine.com. if you want to skip the Ben Gazzara clip (um, 1000 style points for that) and go straight to his art, click to enter and there are all his illustrations, paintings, and films. i hope i didn’t blow up his spot by posting about this, but it is so random & weirdly uplifting that i can’t not post about it. so yeah christian paine dude, i like his style.

scanned some pics of my mom and sisters in vietnam

lily veronica & mom

veronica was the diabolical one. she once burned half of my mom’s bedroom by
throwing a lit match in the wastebasket cause she got frightened by the flame.

tessie blows out birthday candles

veronica and lily with their dolls

hello new category

*i posted this earlier but then flickr had some weird issues with linking random photos