Ink on a pin

Color.

I was wondering about it.

Here are my thoughts:

How do you know that the colors you see aren't completely different from the ones your friend sees, for example? I mean, how do you know if you see the color orange as your friend sees the color green? Because you both point at a color and say "this is orange" but to you it looks 'orange' and to your friend it looks what you would call purple, while what you would call purple your friend would call yellow. Isn't that crazy? There is no way to know if we all see the

 same colors for a color, or something completely different, unless you could see through someone else's eyes, which you can't. I mean, what if the way you see the

 world is equal to all neon colors, or negatives, through my eyes? It really shakes you up sometimes. 

You see, my grandfather is color-blind, and he's an artist, so often when I'm at his house he pulls me over to the computer and asks me if his photograph is a bit green, or that spot o

ver there has too much red, or so on. He's green-red color-blind, which means if there's a big green tree and a small red cardinal sitting in it, he can't see it at all. That interests me a lot. I've also heard of people going through strokes or getting an eye replaced and seeing only black and white and having to train themselves to see color. It's funny, but when you see pictures or movies in black and white, it's almost as if you can see the color of things. On my links on the sidebar here, I have a spanish castle illusion which is in black and white, but does this thing that makes you see it in color. It is the coolest optical illusion I have ever seen. That your brain can trick you like that is amazing.

And then there's synesthesia, which is a disease where the people who have it get one sense when using another, like when talking, they taste, or when feeling, they smell, but the most well known case is when you are speaking or reading or listening, basically having to do with words, and you see colors, shapes, or images. I do not have this, but I do like to listen to names, and without judgement of the person whose name it belongs to, think of an image. But it doesn't come immediately, like to someone with synesthesia, I guess. I read a Mango Shaped Space, (which is DIFFERENT from the house on mango street) which was about a girl with synesthesia, which is what got me interested in that. Imagine that each number had a separate color, each name a separate image. And everyone with it have different images. Because they are not really sure (the scientists) about what actually causes synesthesia but they think that it has to do with something about the rewiring in the brain of babies. You see, as newborn babies, or so their theory goes, we all have synesthesia, our sensory nerves are wired together, so they all connect. But as we get older, they rewire, or most people's brains do. The ones who don't, supposedly have the resulting synesthesia. Interesting, no?

Ok, I have no idea how to end this post gracefully and smoothly, so just pretend I did? 

Coloring away,

Lola  Bellybutton

Title Quote: Joni Mitchell, Blue

Happy talk, keep talkin' happy talk,

Ok, amazing waffle stuffs.

I don't know why, I am not especially obssesed with waffles, but I seem to be a waffle magnet. Here are some interesting...tidbits. heeheehee!

here are the most awesome..penguin waffles! yum...

and then the most illustrious...typewriter waffles! unfortunately not for sale...

and then there are the yummy treats that everyone else will think are disgusting and weird and don't know how I scarf down but I do. 

courtesy of  www.brothers-brick.com

You see, I love waffles, the day after they have been made and they are cold from the fridge, just not frozen. So you have cold waffles, and the only thing that makes them even better is to put a dob of peanut butter in each little square, and break them off and eat them with a glass of milk. Then it's just like eating these little mini peanut butter cups!

:-):-):-)

ok, I think i may have freaked you out enough for the day.

*retreats into little hidey-hole with cold waffle and peanut butter*

Title Quote: South Pacific--Bloody Mary, Happy Talk

She rides bareback through it all And whispers by the willow

So I take an art class on sundays at the art students league downtown. I do a life drawing class, where the models are clothed. Last sunday when I went, a 20-ish looking model, who later find out's name is Bobby. Though he certainly doesn't look like a Bobby. He's wearing a Jim Morrison T-shirt and gray skinny-ish jeans. He eases himself into the chair se tup for him, slumping comfortably. And then, all of a sudden, the door opens, and another model comes in! This is unexpected, but all taken in stride, as it happens often. This model is a fifty-something woman, dress with this wonderful flowing purple skirt. She has such good posture, that we ask her and find out that she used to be a dancer. Now she comes in, and the monitors (who help around with the models) jokingly suggest she sit on Bobby's lap. And Jokingly, she complies. But then the monitors like it, and we (the artists) all begin to laughingly draw them, the woman sitting in Bobby's lap. The two of them reminded me of the movie Harold and Maude. Old movie, but great. It's about this 17 or 18 year old boy who falls in love with this woman old enough to be his grandmother. It's far from creepy though, it's heart-warming in an un-phony, un-disney way. But anyways, we drew the models. Quite hard, actually, to capture such a pose.

So we left, and when we came back the next week, our model is a large black woman who's name, I believe, was Tunisia. She settles herself in a chair and we begin drawing something of a boring pose. And then, who walks in the door but Bobby, who we had never thought we would see again! "hey Bobby, Hi Bobby," we all say, and one of the monitors leave to get another lamp for him. He comes back, carrying a small statue that looks kind of like a Venus De Milo thing. "well," he says, "I didn't find another lamp but I did find another model!" And sets her up, too. We are all smiling at this point. And now, as it can't get much funnier, the woman comes back as well, proclaiming that they didn't need her in the other class and she was told to come to this one! This time, she gets her own stool to sit on, and drapes her arms around Bobby's neck, and we all draw the scene lay out for us. 

Title Quote: Elysian Fields, Queen of the Meadow

a boy looks at a girl, and a girl looks like a pony

this is one of the coolest youtube videos. So many people use youtube to try to convince themselves they are famous because a few people have watched them whine about one thing or another, so I'm always glad when I come across something as cool as this on it.

<3, Lola

Title Quote:Fatboy slim feat david byrne and dizzee rascal, Toe Jam

But in between her cracks you can read between the lines

Last night I dreamt that I was working in Starbucks filling thimble sized cups of frothy milk with syrup till it turned purple, and then giving it to my customers: worms. But the problem was, my boss was working at the counter, so whenever I handed him the ready cups, he would have to try them to make sure they were good(he was very critical of me). In doing so, of course, he drank the whole thimble-full up, and so would order me to make another one for the worm, which he of course had to test again, and it went like this for sometime, with the worms never actually getting their order.

Random, much?

picture courtesy of worth1000.com

I know that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. 

-Robert McCloskey

Title Quote: Michelle Shocked, Looks Like Mona Lisa

And the sign said long haired,freaky people need not apply

this is a very funny website about why we all need to grow a beard.

listen to it, it's trying to show you how to rule the world!

beard fun

Title Quote:Fatboy Slim, Don't Let the Man Get You Down

Winding paths through tables and glass, first flowers bloom.

I closed my laptop and prepared to leave, slinging my father's borrowed yoga mat in it's pack over on shoulder, taking my bag filled with a few clothes and a rolled up piece of paper with art from my class and putting that on one shoulder, the other bag, filled with a deck of cards, a box of colored pencils, my loads of books, and now, my laptop, on the other shoulder. 

I turned the light off, and closed the door behind me. The air was cool and crisp outside, but not winter cold. The wind blew my hair back. I put my earphones in, and turned on my fuze(mp3 player that is NOT an ipod) and listened as the sounds of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, streamed in. I thought about what I must look like, my hair blowing back, the holes in my flare jeans flapping, the layers and straps and bags and the things sticking out of them everywhere. As each person passed, I smiled, and hoped it would make their day brighten. 

The air smelled good. I was tired, but not painfully so.  And anyways, I had arrived home. 

Happy. 

Title Quote: country girl, csny

A soap impression of his wife which he ate And donated to the National Trust

I'm not going to get sappy; in my opinion, Valentine's day is just an excuse to give out candy and hallmark cards and for big corporations to get a bit more money of of sell candy hearts and "I Love You" teddy bears. Or frogs. But still...  all I wanted to say was

Happy V-day, dears!

And thanks so much for reading and all.

-Lola

Title Quote: The Beatles, Happiness is a Warm Gun

Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone

My friend has told me to blog about "connecting w/ strangers unexpectedly and how it can change ur life." and though I don't think she expected me to actually blog about it, I will. I have not, I do not think, connected with a stranger unexpectedly and then it changed my life. Yet. Nor have I (I believe) been that stranger for someone else. But I will tell you stories of it. true stories.

I was walking to lunch with my friend one day(funny how we say walking  to lunch when really we're walking to get lunch. huh.) And this friend of, mine, she dresses pretty... interestingly. Differently. Stand outly. And we are walking down the street and whammo! this woman just comes up to us! More rather my friend, actually. This woman is short, with stringy blonde hair and is kinda on the pudgy side. Actually, more kinda dump, really. And so she comes up to my friend and just says "I used to be exactly like you. And now like who I am!" I'm not sure which direction that's supposed to mean, good or bad. Maybe that didn't really change anyone's life, but you never know... it might. We told a teacher, Liz, about it, and she said it might be this woman she knew, Candy, who was her best friend and then she stole her boyfriend. 

Art by melissa Haslam

Ooh! Ooh! I remember! So maybe this didn't really change  my life, but it was interesting to post about, I can give you that. So I was taking the train to school one day, and I see this woman. I love to look at the variety of people on the trains. So this woman, she has light brown skin and is wearing a brown suede jacket, and she's got really earthy colors on. And I notice her face. It's round, and creased with smile lines, and she has darker brown sorta freckles dotting her face. She has the long, dark eyelashes, and I notice them because her eyes are closed. I figure it's impolite to stare at someone for so very long, so I turn away and survey the rest of the crowd. But none look quite so interesting as she does. So I turn back to see her, and I catch just a glimpse of her eyelids fluttering close, yet I do not catch any glimpse of her eyes. I'm curious about them now, and I turn away. I turn back again, hoping they will be open now, and again I see her eyes just closing. This happens a few times, and each time I am more and more convinced that there must be something special about these eyes. Finally, it is my stop, and I get ready to get off, but I decide to look back just one more time, to see if maybe, I might see her eyes. And there, just as I'm about to step off, she opens them, and I see that I was right in thinking them special. Her eyes are darker than any I have seen before, her pupils lost in the swirling blackness of her irises. She smiles, her mouth spreading slowly to her cheeks, and before I can see anything else, I have to step off the train or miss my stop, but I feel as if I have seen something very special. A bit corny, I know. If I believed in God and angels, though, I would think that she was one. 

I think, to be a stranger for someone and change their lives is one of my goals in life. So maybe they'd be changing my life by making me want to change their lives. Hmm. But that's not the point! What I was going to say was that maybe I have changed someone's life, but you know, I don't think I'll ever know it, nor will they. But wouldn't it be amazing to have some artist or poet or writer be changed by me, and write or draw a picture of me, and it were to become famous, and I were never to know it was because of me? Maybe I will do that, for someone else.

Out,

Lola

Title Quote: John Mellencamp, Jack and Diane

See I'm a young soul in this very strange world

There was a girl. She must have been around 17 or 18, and she had skin the color of coffee with rich cream mixed in. She had a small nose, which must have been like a button when she was little, but had now grown to a point, giving her whole face a defined manner. Her lips were darker brown than her skin, and she wore no makeup. Her eyebrows were pronounced, yet they were soft at the edges. And her eyes were the color of a black cat's at night, sparkling with a secret. The girl's face was made even more vibrant by the scene of her hair behind her. It was wiry, and tightly curled, hanging at different lengths along her shoulders and back. Each ringlet was a different color, one the color of honey when light streams through it, one the color of a dusty antique oakwood cabinet, and one the color of rich amber beer when held up to a window. Her hair was only just held back by a colorful sash, full of lapis lazuli blue, eggplant purple, and a dull ochre. The sash was wide as a headband at the front, and crinkled thin at the back, trailing down to the girl's hips. At the very bottoms dangled little worn brass bells, about three a piece for each end. I imagined they must tinkle like a dream does, if only people would stop to listen.

The girl was wearing a baby blue cotton shirt, worn at the edges, the sleeves coming down halfway between her shoulder and her elbow. The neckline had been, presumably by her, cut into a ragged V, and there was a symbol, or writing on her shirt, in black, though the way she was twisted there was no hope of deciphering what it said. The bottom of her shirt dipped low in in the front and the back, and the sides were shortened to her hips. The bottoms fell over her skirt, which was a beautiful gypsy piece, hidden with patterned patches, stolen from mandalas and persian rugs. It was a tiered skirt, but it was not the kind where the tier evenly circles around the whole length, it was more each pice for their own, and the effect was of more shingles than anything else. Where the patterns flapped up, you would catch a glimpse of fuchsia silk, seemingly from a sari, and bits of it trailed and fluttered with he rest of the skirt. The skirt hung about her calves, but just then, the girl ran over a subway grate, past crowds of people, and because of the breeze, the skirt hovered around her knees, exposing, long, thin, graceful dancer's legs. Now, her features had been molded to form a look of defiance, and determination, even though her obligation that she was determined to fulfill was a hard one. Her hair had been blown back momentarily from the breeze, exposing the eye of a peacock feather dangling from each ear, swirling in emerald and the darkest of blues. And now I saw, too, that the girl was clutching a shoulder bag, made of woven hemp the color of beaten straw that was held to her waist. Then, the girl dashed past the subway grate, and disappeared in the tumult of people, off to haunt someone else's vision.

Title Quote: Yael Naim, New Soul