President Obama

I just can't help it.  I watched twenty online videos today about Obama winning the presidency, and I just want to watch more, and read the paper and congratulate my friends.  I know the picture below is dramatic, and I'm not even sure why he's crying (It's a pre-election picture) but isn't it GREAT!!!  When we heard the news last night we took a collective shot of tequila, and wandered into a spontaneous dance party on Central street in ABQ.  It was covered by the channel seven news and even though they somehow edited me and my friends out here's the link: Albuquerque Party!!!

I hugged several strangers, ululated, danced and shouted the word "Obama" rythmically with everyone else.  A crowd gathered around the drummers, car horns blared, and people took pictures with their cell phones. It was very moving.  It's a strange feeling to actually like the president of the united states of America.  Part of me wonders if I am just dazzled by his dashing good looks, and intelligent sounding sentences.  I think that could be it, but I mean, those aren't really bad things.

Looking Small in the Desert.

(A precarious and specific art.)

Up Up and Away

I must tell you:

  In two days I learned to walk on three foot stilts, and celebrated all hallows eve in a gallery show leaning on the walls, and drinking wine from my precipice.  The work wasn't at eye level so I just sort of floated around in my own world, occasionally inserting myself into conversations only to drift away when I started to teeter.  Being really tall is exactly like being a celebrity, and I will admit that I loved it.  I shook hands, cheered up children, posed for the camera, and made really dramatic faces.  I didn't however have any real/meaningful conversations while I was nine feet tall.  But it didn't bother me that much...

Then:

    Having challenged my legs to double in length I found my original height to be both stocky and limiting.  I got over it however as we watched the most amazing dance performance I have ever seen.  Les Angles Morts was the name of the performance and I don't know what else to say, because I cannot really get it to come across.  

To Mention: 

In Gallup New Mexico I won a ride in a hot air balloon.  There I am standing in the basket after we landed.  The man behind me was the captain.  Six Americorps participants got to go up in two balloons.  Two of us were from VSA, where I work, and afterwords they initiated us into the balloonists society.  An initiation that resulted in the earliest drinking I've ever done!

NOVEMBER!

 Obama is iconic and hip.  Graphic designers love him.

My sister sent me some links to Obama posters. I like em' I want to tell you about them too.

Try this

And this too!

I counted signs today and got 25 Obama, 5 McCain.  7-11 is polling with paper cups which leads to a lot of Obama cups laying around.  Both players came to Albuquerque last week and I heard McCain had a small crowd.  I stood in line for about 3 hours however in order to hear Obama speak.  The whole time I was in line people were still going to the end of it.  When I finally got in I couldn't even see stage.  I was clumped together with people of all ages and dispositions.  A baby behind me who was literally a baby was crying "Obama." Her mother looked proud. I think it was the first word they taught her. Today I found a big round flyer on the ground instructing people to please vote for Obama.  I attached it to my purse and called it a pin. "Just a little pin!"

So in about two days we'll know.  I'm going to vote on election day, then go to a bar with a television and watch this play out. 

Sing the Rock and Hum the Stone.

I got to go to the desert.  Gallup itself was similar to west 11th street in Eugene, but everything around Gallup was Beautiful, and really old, and amazing.  The images above are of Window Rock, in Arizona (HEY!)  as the sky is getting darker.  There is much more to it than this but: The rock was singing, and I heard it.  

Giddey-up!

Tomorrow I leave Albuquerque (BURQUE) for the first time since I got here!  I have been localizing and ingratiating myself into this city for almost two months.  It's practically in my bones.  Why, one small section of Central Ave. in downtown ABQ has almost become my stomping grounds for heavens sakes!  Tonight I went into the Anodyne (My absolute favorite bar in town --of the three I've been to) and the waitress actually addressed me by name!  I am used to biking without a bike lane, to the sun shining, and to those weird purple and green lights they shine on the bank offices at night.  I'm also growing accustomed to a preoccupation with designer coffee flavors such as "pumpkin spice" and "persian vanilla almond honeysuckle."  Today I not only learned what a pinon nut was--I also got to try a free sample, handed to me by an old man, on the bus!  I've been eagerly pedaling/bussing around town in order to teach kids art only to be reminded that I have no business making a syllabus at all- especially around Halloween! But I've found, all the same, that the kids are accepting me and pulling me into their world just as small mushrooms would accept and suck in a small and rather damp lake.  Although I principally identify as "artist" I am not "Picaso," nor have I "cut turquoise" as yet another old man on the bus unintentionally reminded me today.  But I wear turquoise, I talk to the old men on the bus, I seek out and cling to the organic food stores, I also eat tacos from sketchy little stands by the side of the road, I try to swear in Spanish, and I drink Shiner's instead of Pabst.  I think I've really melded myself in. 

Therefore, I am thoroughly interested in unsticking myself from the streets of ABQ and witnessing the much dreamed of desert.  I am equally curious to see what wonders await in the fine city to which I'll be traveling to post-haste, ...Gallup! 

A is for A

Recently my time has been spent working. "Working" by definition includes

1)Building a female robot with my young friend

2) Sewing extremely long pants

3) Discovering the word "Abecedarium" and using it

4) Making a zine

5) Perusing the children's section of the library, and

6) Eating a bagel.