leaving gram's nest?

so today my mom called to say my grandma was upset about my new house in san antonio. she's nervous because it's kind of across town.

since the age of 5 i've lived about 4 miles away from my grandma [minus being away in new england]. she picked my brother and i up from elementary, middle and high schools for the majority of our time there. even since i've moved up north and my brother's started college, we're always in the neighborhood on weekends that we're home. the church we go to is directly across the street from her neighborhood so its a guarantee we'll be nearby on sundays. if we were ever locked out or in need of a ride, grams has always been 5 minutes away.

now me, my mom and bro are packing up and moving west. we're staying in san antonio but definitely switching zipcodes a bit.

i think grams thought our move was partly to get out of the family net [never mind the fact that the majority of time i'm thousands of miles outside the family net]. that was totally not it at all. we just found a nice house that met all the requirements for a great deal.

it's cute and sad that grams was upset about the move. i know she loves us a ton, and this just emphasizes that. but also sad that she thought we were leaving her with our minor move across town. she's worried she'll see us less. oh gram.

[yes. my family is far closer than most other families i know. considering i talk to my brother, parents, cousins, and grandparents on a daily to weekly basis and see everyone at least once a month - we are special.]

and back again

i was in san antonio for less than 12 hours. but i got to have some of my grandma's fresh tortillas and meet bunny, my family's newest pet. also got to hang with momma and gram.

great to see them, if only for a few hours.

the flight back sucked but eh, what can u do. i signed up for this.

sleeping in a hotel tonight. no roomates to chat with and make fun of dumb tv with and no yoshi to pet and chase around the house. boo. miss that roommate life already.

the road home

my week ahead is scaring me. again, a list:

my dad gets into boston tonight.

tomorrow my car gets fixed and it's my last day in the office as a 'local'.

thursday and friday will be spent packing and cleaning.

friday night or sat morning we'll take off, headed south to texas.

drive for 3 days and land at home by monday.

kiss my momma and grams and rest for 10 minutes.

tuesday morning i have to get up at 4am and head to the airport to fly back to boston.

ugh.

sweaty and salty

packing and moving is one of the most annoying things in life.

i know this is exactly what i asked for. what i've been working towards.

but ughhhh.

trying to organize a 2000 mile move plus keep things under control at work... it just is a lot going on.

plus it's toasty and humid here in boston. which i know is exactly what i'm moving back to in san antonio... but ughhh. i just dont want it now. i'm not in the mood...

yeehaw.

got the final approval today.

i get to move to texas.

and by move i mean fly there on the weekends and then back to boston every monday morning... yeah.

more family time for sure. that's whats important.

yay!

moving on and on and on

moving out of my place in 12 days. i've been packing on and off for the past two weeks and it still looks as if i haven't even started.

this is not going to be fun.

i didn't even go out today except to go to mass and the grocery store. i actually did spend the day packing. and still... so much stuff all over the place.

i hate moving.

beyond the accumulation of 'stuff' on such a grand scale is the somewhat significant issue of figuring out where i will be 'living' per se come sept1. i can only last on the couch of ex-roomies for so long i think.

so stressful.

and i have amigos that are planning on visiting in the coming months. visiting 'me'. of course, when visiting me, it's important that they have an actual placeee to visit. a physical location where i live and they can stay for a night or two. i don't know where that is. eek. i need a place. soon.

this sucks.

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went to a concert yesterday. the day was pretty beautiful out, feeling like fall in new england (though it's still bloody summer!), with sunny skies and nice breezes. only once the sun set it was freezing cold and my fingers began to turn blue.

musical highlights of the concert were band of horses, yeah yeah yeahs and modest mouse. my first time seeing each and they were fantastic. seeing karen o. in person in her total rockstar persona with crazy dancing and theatrical makeup and was so awesome.

seeing guster again was also great, only cos it took me back to bc days. i remember sitting on the windowsill of our mod on the last day of classes to watch them perform in the mod lot. ahh. bc memories. :p

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my mom/bro are on the phone giving me update on people from my elementary school that she sees around town. two more girls are engaged/married. seriously. i cannot move to texas under these conditions. all other girls my age are married or engaged. all decent boys are already taken. there will be no girls for me to hang out with and no boys for me to date. fantastic.

not.

so depressing.

nyc graffiti and flickr and moving

i went to nyc this past weekend to hang with my girlies, maria and kel, and just wander around manhattan. and we went to the bronx and astoria. lots of traveling. walked a lot, did some minor shopping, and mostly just hung with the girls. we were all kind of tired and poopy but just laying around maria's place petting sphinx is fun. almost like the mod... only not.

anyways. during my wanderings i took some pictures of nice graf in soho. and now they're on flickr...


i've been digging graffiti for a quite a while and my interest has increased significantly in the past few years. i now constantly scope the streets for new pieces and point them out to my family and friends.

walking down a city street (and even driving down a country road) can always be interesting and art filled. for me graffiti is a great modern art form. i'm sure people have been tagging up walls for ages, scratching their names in trees and under desks. since the 1980s tagging and wall art has flourished across the US, both legally and illegally.

i appreciate it every day. each morning on my drive to work through allston, ma i'm able to graffiti-spot for a couple of blocks before i get on the highway. on trips away i spend time wandering around neighborhoods just looking for something different. graf is totally public art in its rawest form.

when i find these interesting pieces and i take pictures of them. i have gigs worth of pictures of street art. pasteups, tags and stencils. if i see it, i like it and my camera's handy i like to catch a pic before it gets painted over or washed away. another great thing about street art is it's limited lifespan. because these pieces are thrown up on walls allover the cities, they come and go at the will of the people. so communal. even if the community police try to wipe them out... all part of the circle. by taking a picture i have that piece captured on my hard drive even if someone else eventually/inevitably paints over it.

so anyways.

i take a lot of pictures and i like to show them to people. so i've turned to flickr as my website of choice for sharing my pictures with people i know and people i don't. opening up my graffiti archives for the world wide web to see.

flickr is a great place for tagging and searching pictures. through this foto-friendly community i've found pages of some of my favorite artists. the fact that i can take photos of these seemingly anonymous pieces, put them up on the site, and then have artists wander around and claim them as their own is fantastic. another benefit is that i'm able to wander around the collections of my fellow graf-lovers and see where they've been and what has caught their eyes.

it's like a team effort to photo and id all these artist around the world. a giant easter egg hunt, if you will, on the streets and on the sites. surprises around every corner, and yet sometimes, nothing interesting at all.

now i'm rambling.

whoops.

anyways. i love graffiti. flickr is a great site for fotos. and my new camera add-on's are in the mail. yay! new filters and a hood by the weekend - woohoo! i'll be back on the streets and snapping away asap.

right after i pack up my house. my tons and tons of crap.

our move date is 3 weeks away and my room/house is a dirty disaster. i need to get my booty in gear and packing. really. cos i'm moving. out of this house on aug 31. and to texas... sometime... semi-homeless for that middle part but no worries. no worries, no worries, it'll be ok.

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i packed 3 boxes worth of books today. actually, rach packed one for me and cracked the whip to make me pack the other two. dang. 3 boxes of books packed up and still SO much stuff to go. this sucks.

why i need to move, reason #89734

it is april 4 and it is snowing in boston.

it's 80 at home in south texas.

just sayin'. there are differences. and who would actually pick to have soggy, slushy snow in april? after 6 years, its ENOUGH!

i thought of a new way to judge when it is finally decent weather - i won't have to wear sweatpants and a hoodie to bed anymore. yeah, that'd be great...