hooves instead of hands

smokypines @ 2011-03-31T16:28:00

2011-03-31T20:28:40Z

smokypines @ 2011-03-04T13:13:00

2011-03-04T18:13:25Z

smokypines @ 2011-02-02T20:05:00

2011-02-03T01:05:12Z

Video Blog from katai stienstra on Vimeo.

smokypines @ 2010-10-28T18:08:00

2010-10-28T22:08:28Z

I have decided to release my first batch of (very) limited edition prints exclusively through my brand new etsy shop! All prints are hand made from start to finish by me! Have a peek and let me know what you think.

smokypines @ 2010-10-16T15:53:00

2010-10-16T19:53:15Z

Having a good time with fish mask.

smokypines @ 2010-10-12T15:04:00

2010-10-12T19:04:35Z

Today after my Art History class I had the most delicious eye contact. Tomorrow I am spending all day in the darkroom making goodies, for you!

smokypines @ 2010-10-03T12:36:00

2010-10-03T16:36:54Z

a) This is Abby at the the old port, she's been a good friend in Montreal b) I have an ovarian cyst c) My mum is coming to cook me Thanksgiving dinner this weekend c) Coco is getting spayed and I don't get her back until Tuesday d) Something in the water here makes every show I go to the best show I've ever seen e) How do I make the tables on the my journal come back? f) Watch for this: kataistienstra.etsy.com

smokypines @ 2010-09-22T18:15:00

2010-09-22T22:15:10Z

I haven't written here nearly a year, or anywhere... I'm not cheating on you with another blog or even a paper parallel. I'm living in Montreal now, and my everything is perfect. If I ever gather up the nerve, I will update again one day. I think of you every day when little magics happen.
I apologize to those who have added me recently. I hope you enjoy the catalogues of back-entries.
Talk soon sweetie pie.

smokypines @ 2009-10-22T17:27:00

2009-10-22T23:56:55Z

My grannie is visiting so I spent a day and a night at my folks house distorting my perception of reality by watching MTV and looking at people's facebook pages the whole time, because there's isn't much else to do there. I certainly can't spend 36 hours eating perogies and talking to my grannie about "Gene" the wacky old mennonite bag lady who lives in her building and takes photos (which means I must be interested) of flowers. I really love my grandma but she is difficult to relate to. Every time I watch an episode of "The Hills" or waste time on facebook or wherever, I end up feeling dirty and like I need a shower. I completely understand why all the 16 year olds I overhear on the train are entirely ineffective human beings if that's the sort of thing they're subjecting themselves to on a highly regular basis. I don't have cable at home, I have instruments and pens and far too much learning to do, it feels real.
About four or five months ago I started taking birth control and it fucked me up like a sinking ship. I stopped taking the pills after the first month because I was so sick... but the leftover hormones are still wreaking havoc on my poor defenseless bod. The morning before I went to my parents house, Joey left for work and I completely lost my socket. I was crying so hard that I was choking and couldn't breath and the snot was ...incomprehensible. I felt awful, but it was entirely beyond my control. It's been getting better (before, every time my period came I was bed-ridden for days and would puke and bleed my guts out) since there aren't too many physical manifestations any more, but that PMS is just totally bonk-town. I was thinking about doing a cleanse?
A few days ago I came home to a locked door. We have one window without a screen that is always unlocked but it's at least twelve feet off the ground, Joey can climb up there just by piling our 6 patio chairs up and then climbing the rest of the way. I, however, have absolutely no upper body strength so instead of being able to pull myself up through the window, I become unceremoniously stuck at my waist dangling in mid air next to a very busy road where I'm sure I entertained the masses. After I clambered down and regathered myself, I managed to get the chairs stacked hap-hazardly atop a rusty old table, right after I climbed to the top, everything started to disagree with me and shake so I grabbed the cabinet within reach of the window and without any regard for my limbs, yanked with all my might and toppled onto my kitchen floor. I am now covered in so many ridiculous bruises...
Last night, Joey and I had our regular couples get together with Chelsee and Colin. We watched a scary movie, drank wine, looked at nostalgic movie posters from the 90s, and got high with them for the first time in a park. Chelsee is so pure and good and I've been wanting to smoke a doobie with her since college, so it was pretty hilarious for me. Joey and I have been watching a scary movie every night this month. What are you guys being for Halloween? I know what I'm being!

smokypines @ 2009-10-19T15:35:00

2009-10-19T22:06:15Z

I am sitting upright, dreaming of an eastern apartment filled with down comforters and colorful paper. I want to sink under the canopies I draw on the walls and hang from the ceilings. I want a little nest of my own! Fly baby fly.
I am also procrastinating big time, filling my mind with day dreams and smoke when I should be finishing up my online course... I'm hoping though that writing a little something here will warm me up.
I had an art show this past Saturday for which eight local photographers were partnered up with eight local bars/trendy establishments and told to photograph each location in their own unique way. I was quite anxious about the subject since I usually take pictures of things I find beautiful, like trees and people that give me butterflies... not dark stinky bars and the kind of folk who hang out in them at 2 PM. The entire project was incredibly rushed and slopped together so I wasn't looking forward to the opening whatsoever, but it went swimmingly! The response to my photos was really warm and I sold everything I had in the show! I was also offered the opportunity for a solo show at the gallery where it was held. Since I pretty much just did the show because I'm applying for school soon, I was so overwhelmingly happy that it went so well. I goobed wine all over my favorite tank top and then scrubbed a hole through it in the bathroom while attempting to get it out with hand soap and water as people tapped on the door and my high heels carved little reminders of themselves into my toes.
Autumn lasted for approximately an afternoon and it is now fiercely cold and windy most days and even snows! I was not prepared or eased into it at all and I do not have the proper gear to win a battle against the cold so I mostly stay indoors and make collages. I want to show you real bad! I will scan them soon.Yesterday, Joey and I went to Big Rock (it's a big rock in the middle of the prairies that was misplaced by a glacier some hundreds of years ago) and climbed all over the top and smooched at high altitude. It was the end of the day and the wind blew the cloud's shadow's all over the surrounding plains like a fancy little dance. I was also highly accident prone as I fell off a bar stool in impossible fashion and impaled my back on the legs. Now I can't wear a bra without feeling like a victim of medieval torture...

smokypines @ 2009-09-20T14:33:00

2009-09-20T19:18:02Z

After all this time, I'm deciding to update on this heavy greasy Sunday morning. It's raining but it's just good vibes. I'm sleepy like a housecat. Last night I wore a brown dress with fins at the waist so I looked like an stewartess from the 60s. I bounced around town drinking bulldogs and eating veggie nachoes. I had to be up before the sun because I am working at a fashion and art market thing this weekend. It's the easiest and most slack job ever... case and point- updating my livejournal. It's actually so boring, but is basically free cash. Although, this morning when I was throwing something in this computers "recycling bin" I noticed a few hilarious naked photos of my boss. ha! Yesterday Joey hung out here all day and smooched me while I perched atop his lap. We had the best time saying mean things about people's clothes. The DJ plays reggae all goddamn day and it's filling my skull and squishing my brain. Some surfer nerd asked if I'd bought a cd yesterday and when I told him no, reggae isn't really my thing, he asked "so what are you into then? like, punk rock?" Apparently you either like reggae, or punk rock. There is no inbetween. My faith in my own music taste was reaffirmed yesterday while looking at a graph of music disposition in corrolation with intelligence. Guess what cocks listen to...
I'm so insincere about keeping this regularily updated. I do think about it though, it's like a little cloud in my brain that gets bigger and bigger, little livejournal cloud.
Here is what's going on in my life: 1) I've decided I want to quit living the high life and go back to school next fall. It's time to buck up, and frankly... I want to buck up. It weighs heavy on my mind since I will most definitely be moving away from this city in light of Montreal or maybe Vancouver 2) On August 21st, Joey and I had been dating for one whole year. That's pretty bonkers. He bought me a brass owl necklace that with it's wings, looks a bit like a heart. I haven't taken it off yet. I'm going to marry him 3) I saw Sunset Rubdown, and I get to see Final Fantasy in about a week and Mum in November 4) I'm unemployed again! I was fired back in July or June or something and decided to stay a free bird for the summer 5) I'm finally putting together a website where everything can be in one place and people can shop! 6) Joey and I started messing around with some loop pedals and our voice boxes. We have big plans. 7) Lauren moved to Vancouver, and it killed me. I cried for days.

extra pictures and stories

This is from when Bikeland was on the road this summer. This show was at an old firehall that had a bar in it. The trippiest house thing was upstairs. It had sporadic, weird rooms and no kitchen... and a bathroom with stalls and a sex swing in the middle of the livingroom. Plus tons of oversized colorful art on the walls. We all sat quietly in a sparsely decorated room with a bed on the floor and an antigue refridgerator while Clarke puked because he had pneumonia. There were also all these creepy old stairs and nooks and crannies to explore. What a fun night! We all smoked so much weed and bought some gross porn that we showed people we passed on the highway. Like children.

Kiki moved to Montreal this summer, this is Au Revoir Kiki! The whole night we sank further into a velvet couch in the unicorn room of Arbor Lake Sghool while champagne stained our knees.

Myself as Hilary Swank. Ugliest wig...

Spencer Krug, looking like a babe in my personal space.

This beautiful creature is Clarke's new girlfriend's dog, Theodore. She works all week, so during the day him and I hang out. He looked so cute today in the rain. Autumn between blondes.

My first time in a photobooth was on my 21st birthday!

smokypines @ 2009-06-08T15:12:00

2009-06-08T22:26:35Z

The thought of leaving a mark here is so daunting sometimes. I allow too much time to pass in between entries.
I turned 21 in May, and it was possibly the most lack luster of birthday's so far. Joey and I ate some mall grub off of styrofoam plates and watched construction workers try and keep the dust off our food, and my mother made me lasagna for supper. I have a very distinct memory of my mother sewing me a party dress when I was a young bugger. It was black with bright pink flowers and puffed just right around my scrawny stilts. She combed my white hair into the perfect ponytail and I trudged across a field in my mary-janes holding a brightly colored package bigger than I was... towards the house with the balloons on the mailbox. This is what the word "birthday" means to me.
A week and a half ago, a couple of us drove to the coast in a station wagon to see Animal Collective. Road trips are like drinking youth syrup... something about bare legs on the dashboard, Ray Bans, and a smoking doobie as you cruise in a steel monster. I love watching the landscape slowly morph from a rock-ridden desert into a juicy jungle that reminds me of how pretty my hair can be. Joey popped his ocean cherry and it was gorgeous watching his eyes light up with the reflection of seeing the sea for the first time. We stayed downtown in a charmingly outdated hotel that overlooked a pretty garden. Joey bought me market flowers one morning while I was primping and we kept them in a coffee cup on the windowsill, surrounded by sheer curtains stained with salty wind. We had our first dose of pure summer, burning the evidence of tank tops onto our shoulders and getting lost at dusk among trees taller than buildings. Man alive, the perfect weekend by the sea.
In other news, I've started a new job at Nars. It's nice working for a company that I really love, but getting back into the routine of a 9-5 is really awkward. I can rarely keep my eyes open passed 11 these days and I spend a lot of my spare time half asleep in the bath tub, sleepy little night owl. I'm starting work on the new Bikeland EP that they'll be releasing exclusively for Sled Island, which I'm pretty excited about. I've found a nice little niche doing work for musicians and hopefully I can expand on that a bit more.
I've missed you livejournal, I promise to try harder.

photos from Vancouver...

smokypines @ 2009-04-25T16:28:00

2009-04-25T22:43:09Z

I'm sitting alone upstairs in a pink velvet chair, tucked away in a corner. The boys below me are making noises so thick and loud, that my floor hovers above easily. They play two discombobulated songs and then the music suddenly stops. I hear guitar twittering, little machines, and then footsteps. I look up and say, "hey" all at once in a startle. He falls over me, grabs my face and kisses me hard. I can't breathe, the new familiarity is blocking my airway. My heart has beaten out of my chest and is now flying around the room, knocking on the windows and ceiling. His body swallows mine and he pulls at my mouth. As quickly as he came, he is gone again. I breathe deeply, wrangle my heart and settle back down into the pink velvet as the noise below resumes.

smokypines @ 2009-04-14T18:24:00

2009-04-15T00:47:35Z

Joey took this picture of me pulling my toes on Easter morning. I had the loveliest Easter I've ever had. Joey invited me to his Father's ranch for family dinner. It was up high and you could see the mountains and the big sky when you smoked and held barn kittens on the porch steps. It felt really nice being around his big family. I've never really met them before so I was really nervous during the drive there. But the high content of animals and beautiful people made it feel like my favorite cousins house filled with finger food and people you can cuddle.
After dinner we wore farmer coats and boots that were too big for us and road in the bed of the truck. We drove down a dirt road at sunset and my hair licked my cheeks as I smiled at Joey through the yellow light. I fed a baby cow and it drooled all over my legs. After, Joey and I stood in the middle of a crowd of horses who put their faces on our shoulders and let me kiss their noses. I want to keep this.

smokypines @ 2009-04-02T16:25:00

2009-04-02T23:14:42Z

Mexico I love you. I have found a piece of my heart in the concrete, sand, and skies of the Mexican landscape. There isn't anything else I could possibly say. I want to go on an excursion, packed in a van full of artists, lovers, and animals. We'll drive across the country and find the rest of ourselves. If I hadn't left my little love boat at home in the prairies, I would have swam out into the ocean and never returned. Alas, I can't bring myself to be without him... I cried on my first night in a lonely bed (mostly due to my 1 1/2 hours of sleep the night before... but still)
Joey told me the other day that he could very well be with me, really be with me. He wants to have babies in ten years and sit in rocking chairs with me. He told me about our home and our bodies...the kittens in my tummy purred. I realized a lot of my feelings toward him while my jaded outer skin burned and peeled under the Sinaloan sun. Growing up, I always imagined myself alone with a herd of wild horses when I was older... I didn't want anyone except for myself, but he changed who I am. I found things in him that I didn't even care to look for in other people. He is my sweetest friend, my lover, my very self.
The Saturday after I flew home, I slipped on ice at 7am before climbing into Joey's warm bed. In the evening, I cuddled Lauren and her birthday bones through drunk lips and sleepy eyes while a blizzard ate her home.
I'm only a few days along in my adventure to find a new job and I'm already totally discouraged. The only reason I want one is so I can stop answering unemployment questions over and over and so my mother will stop telling me I'm wasting away in an artland filled with boys and uncertain futures. I don't care! I just want to make out!
I am so ready for summer. I'm ready for long grass and bare shoulders.

and a few from Lauren's party, for good measure...

smokypines @ 2009-03-18T23:43:00

2009-03-19T06:24:32Z

I always say I'm going to post more drawings and shit on here, so this will be a drawings and shit only post.
Well, Lauren broke up with her boyfriend. As soon as I found out, I called her without a second thought. After the two of us cried a bloody ocean... we resolved our silly dramatic girl issues. Thank goodness. I knew we would work it out, I just didn't know how. So far I know the break-up has been really hard on her, which just breaks my heart. He's been fighting to make her stay. I just hope she's tougher than he is. Anyway, now I can go back to writing about impersonal bullshit that doesn't matter. Thank you all for your dear advice. I can always count on you, livejournal.
I was lucky enough to recently be featured in the debut issue of the beautiful "ANTLER MAGAZINE." Check out my interview and a bunch of other talented artists, designers, and generally cool-ass people here!
I painted my fingernails an obnoxious coral color in celebration of the sunset I will be watching on Friday evening. I'm so excited to have beach hair and itchy beach skin and to be so hot that I'm uncomfortable. I love the way I sleep when I've been out in the sun all day. I plan on taking an embarrassing amount of photos, which tends to happen under the umbrella of warm weather. As well as read two and a half books (one of which I got half-way through and than abandoned... which I do often and has nothing to do with the quality of said book) When I get home from the beach, I need to buck up and get a real job. No more lazying around Joey's pad having sex with him, smoking pot, watching the boys play music, watching endless hours of South Park/Flight of the Conchords, and drawing pictures of animals all day. Fuck, that was the best three months of my life.

This is a show poster I did for Bikeland's last show. After this here show, our drunk ass posse (the band and I) all went to a party at The Grimbeat's house. There were photos all over the walls and you could smoke cigarettes inside. Remember when you could do that? I sucked smoke from between Joey's fingers and my eyes sizzled. We discussed our favorite songs by Bob Dylan and smoke clawed and chewed at my white linen dress. Somewhere around three in the morning, I was crammed into a tiny and uncomfortable wooden chair surrounded by old skis (which kept slipping onto my shoulders and knocking on the back of my head) and party decorations, watching Joel (Grimbeat singer) and Clarke (Bikeland singer) make music that made my sleepy ears swoon. The boys have asked me to do all band-related artwork from here on out until Joey and I noose each other (which is strange to think about... I want to love Joey forever. Even after I die) I'm making them a stamp for their album so they can stamp one of my drawings all over the place. I'm thinking about drawing a squid eating a deer, or maybe a dead wolf with it's guts pouring out. I'm not really sure yet...

smokypines @ 2009-01-17T16:20:00

2009-01-18T01:28:10Z

Prescription pain killers are fucking boss! Now since the initial pain has chilled out and calmed down, I no longer have to take nearly as much medication. I'm taking about a quarter as I was a few days ago when I was a sedated beast freak. Percocets are hell incarnate, they make me feel like total shit. I have no idea why people take them for "fun". If you do, you're fucking dumb. My voice isn't all squeaky and awful from the breathing tube anymore either. I was so afraid of having surgery because my life is so dreamy. I didn't want to "go through something" and have everything change. I'm glad to be back.
Last night Joey skipped a show that he had been looking forward to for weeks to come take care of me and have a sleep over party. I needed him so hard. I knew I would feel moons more normal once I saw him, and of course I did. I was curled up in unconsciousness and he brought me roses and played Scrabble with me even though I know he secretly hates it because I always win. Aw baby, what a gem. I'm lucky.
Yesterday an insanely perfect opportunity fell into my lap out of no where. A friend of a friend of mine who has been living in Strasburg, France for the past few months as an Au Pair (which is sort of like a nanny but with less responsibility) contacted me. Her 10 months is up in September and the family needs a replacement. Who was that who wanted to move to France in September for a yearish but wasn't sure where the hell she was going to work? Oh right, moi! They pay for pretty much everything too; accommodation, food, french lessons, your plane ticket to France, vacations... everything. Which means I will have to pay for my ticket home and THAT'S IT. I can spend the rest of my savings traveling everywhere, (seeing as I will have my mid-days, evenings, and weekends off and the French take 80 bazillion holidays a year. Germany is 5 minutes away, Paris 2.5 hours and Switzerland is 1.5) eating French cookies, buying French clothes, and buying French wine. Not to mention they're going to be paying me about 200 dollars a week extra. I really hope I get the job, it would be so magical. I'm trying not to get my hopes up though because it seems far too good to be true. But ohhh I want to be a french dame. Cross your fingers, toes, and baguettes for me!
In other news, I'm going to Toronto for a week in about a week. I'm excited to see my baby sisters and my paps and also to be inexplicably bored and lonely. Whoever lives in Toronto, adopt me and take me for a walk!

la fin!

smokypines @ 2009-01-15T19:53:00

2009-01-16T03:04:19Z

I came home from the hospital yesterday morning. I rode in a wheelchair in a fluffy pink robe with little puffs of bandages all over me. There is a reason I haven't written about my surgery in here for you all to read. If you don't already know the details, then don't bother asking. I don't want to get into it with strangers. Recovery has been pretty rough. I've never felt so fragile in my life, it feels like I've been through a war. My eyes are hazy and my body doesn't feel like my own, but I know I will be alright.

smokypines @ 2009-01-09T17:00:00

2009-01-10T02:15:35Z

For native Western Canadian artist Katai Stienstra, the love affair with inventiveness started early. Currently based out of Calgary Alberta, twenty year old Katai has only recently taken a break from a nine year stint of art education. Her curiously discombobulated, and variously contrasting array of works range from low-fi photographs to larger scale multi-colored finger paintings. The pieces rarely include titles or tales of any kind, she prefers the pieces to live subjectively within the viewers circumstance. Filtered through her somewhat bohemian perception of her surroundings, Katai's work invites you to follow a distinctively organic tide through her environment which she views as both magical and familiarly comfortable.

...Artist bios can be so awkward. I have had the most shockingly industrious day! As you can probably tell from my incessant posts about parties and getting high, I'm not a very industrious person. I am however, an extremely talented procrastinator. So of course, when I found out I would be taking place in the largest art show in Alberta history (1111) this Sunday back in October, I of course left it until today to take care of all the preparation. Alas, it is 5:02pm and I have finished absolutely everything, as well as made an optometry appointment. Now all I have left is to fill out my unemployment insurance application and I will have officially completed my to-do list for today. I went from being stressed like a ocean to calm as plum within a matter of hours. I am proud of myself seeing as this is very unlike me. Including 1111, I will have had three shows in total over the past four months. I am also hoping to have work in another at the end of this month, but I won't know for sure until the 18th.
In other news, my intuition was correct and Joey finally told me he loved me for real on Tuesday morning. It was very sweet and made my stomach ache with love creatures. I've never been in love before where it was uncomplicated and real yet bone crushingly overwhelming. Joey is my reward for putting up with the world's greatest asses up until this point. I'm sure you are all sick of hearing about it, but I don't care. My journal, my way. Gross, I'm in love!

These are some photos my dear friend Andrea took of me for her website. She's a really amazing designer. I think they turned out pretty cool. I'm usually horribly self demeaning when it comes to photos of myself... I hate modeling. I should probably stop doing it.

hoakonhelga.com

smokypines @ 2008-12-17T17:05:00

2008-12-18T00:37:59Z

This is my first December entry, coming from deep within five foot snowbanks and across the frozen tundra. The corners of my eyes are permanently caked with snow goo and my cheeks and hands are as raw as sushi.
So... I definitely got fired on Monday. I tip-toed around the idea of writing that I quit with a bit of dignity instead, but fuck it, who cares. I got fired and I cried so hard that I couldn't breathe and everyone saw my wet, red face. Shame on me. I walked down icy sidewalks while people stared at me, and I buried my blubbering eyes into my frost covered scarf until I found a cab. Had to break off the tearsicles and deliver my address... I think I will stay relatively unemployed until the New Year, that way I can live up the holidays real right. I have a few more cheques coming in yet and a bit of money chalked up from some pieces I've sold recently, so I should be able to survive until the clock strikes '09. I think I'm going to open up my Etsy shop soon as well, so stay posted for that. I'd had that job for so long that being a leech again is going to be both immensely relieving and stressful. That place was the only negative barnacle in my life though, so I see nothing but sunny seas ahead. Shit, I don't even remember the last time I had the time and energy to focus on what really matters to me, art.
This past week, while my cold face was tucked against his collar, Joey told me I was his true blue. Don't people say these things are supposed to turn into a total bore after a while? Wasn't that... me, actually? The perpetually single gal. I want him against me at all times. Being in love in the winter is so good, I highly recommend it. The sweaters make everything more squishy. The winter here is harsh and unforgiving though. There is no room for romance under the white sky. You have to hurry your soul through the winter wind so the 40 below doesn't snatch it from you.
That photo there was taken of me and the factories by Chelsee a few weeks ago... before the subzero fist hit our city. I needed a photo that was taken in the winter. That day was severely uncomfortable for me. I had very few hours of bad sleep the night before on Joey's old futon and I chose to wear high heels for two days straight and yesterdays makeup. By the time this photo was being taken, there were stars of pain shooting up my gams and my bad sleep was pushing on my shoulders like Olympus. The gloom engulfed me and I had death around my eyes.
Today I went for gabs over coffee with Andrea. Andrea is like my big sister and every time I leave an afternoon or evening with her I feel so capable and inspired. She paints such wonderful diagrams for me and basically grips my fingers and points to the golden, tree-lined paths ahead. She's a beauty. I have gorgeous, gorgeous people and opportunities in my life. I'm happy, so yawn about it.

smokypines @ 2008-11-14T21:00:00

2008-11-15T04:17:00Z

You art is in my way, please move it immediately.

smokypines @ 2008-10-04T22:28:00

2008-10-05T04:41:07Z

GET ANGRY

I present to you, a challenge. I don't expect this to be easy. It will take time, effort, and you will want to give up. But, I believe that you deserve the ultimate goal here... which is simply, education... and information. Good luck.

And, for fun...

smokypines @ 2008-09-13T14:10:00

2008-09-13T20:12:52Z

Two nights ago I was driving home in the night, alone. I was listening to Sunset Rubdown. I couldn't tell you the name of the song, but it was an impressively nostalgic one. I drove past a large collection of manicured hills, where they had turned the sprinklers on. The wind blew the mist over the road and all the little reflections of street lights rained over the glass in front of me, millions of baby moons. I started crying. It was nice to feel so warm and leaking.
The weekend before was:
Friday, Josh and Kiki and I drove to Edmonton to see Bodyworlds. First we had to stop at the largest mall in North America, where they promptly abandoned me for what seemed like years. I watched little girls wearing sparkly outfits skate around in circles and strangers talk viciously on their cell phones. When they came back we went to the asian market where I ate moonpies and salad rolls and bubble tea and took pictures of clam penises. They were huge! Bodyworlds was life changing, I can't do it any justice without typing for days. The most important side effects will be seen in my art and my deafening struggle with mortality. I put my finger inside an artery as far as it would go. I spent hours in the exhibit-I didn't leave until they started cleaning the cases around me and I finally had to admit defeat. The drive home was perfect, we left the city at midnight under some thick thick stars. I listened to Josh's new lo-fi mixings and recordings, stretching my legs out over the dash to accommodate my tallness. I drifted in and out of sleep while Josh told me of the inner workings of tuna sandwiches and Kiki snored in the back seat. When we got home, I opened the trunk and Kiki's head popped up from behind the seat. Her eyes were all about being closed, and her previously braided hair was in shambles. She said, "you are so nice" and disappeared again.
Saturday, I saw Cirque De Soleil's, Corteo. It was a dreeeeam. I am going to run away and join the Cirque De Soleil. I will marry the clown drummer and we will have small, beautiful children who can fly.
Sunday, was Amber's birthday dinner, more asian food! Lauren and I were high, nervous, and spent most of the time dishing about each others lives in our corner of the oddly distributed collection of old friends. Afterwards Dylan told our bright eyes stories at makeout point in the rainy grass by coincidence. It rains so much here now, more than the London skies.
Monday, was sweet sweet Joey and his perfect body.
Tom left again for Singapore. He drove me to work, told me I was a beauty and gave me a delicious squeeze. He said in November, he will be in New York. He is going to ask his agency if I can stay in the model house thing-whatever with him for a few weeks. I said I would be quiet as a country mouse, sleep in his bed, and not eat any of their food.
Work has made a turn for the better. I am going through a lipstick phase. Yesterday was neon pink. Two Belgium ladies told me I was "gorgeously young" and that I had a perfect nose. They also told my boss to give me a raise, which was amusing... Tomorrow I am doing makeup for some collaborative event between LouLou magazine and Additional Elle with my dear Shannon who has a broken heart. I am also a rep at the Calgary Film Festival on September 18th. I'll be prepping the fancies on the red carpet and doing touchups at the after parties. It'll be aces. I am going to wear high heels and kiss a lot of peoples cheeks. I also have a modeling gig lined up for later this month that pays in gold, and some projects on the horizon at a local gallery.
Today I am sick as a dog. Germs get down, I get sick too much. I know why. My brain feels tight. I am going to draw people with menagerie hair and kiss my cat all afternoon.

smokypines @ 2008-09-08T17:43:00

2008-09-09T00:56:05Z

super fast I am in love with this photo dump

smokypines @ 2008-05-05T20:48:00

2008-05-06T03:14:43Z

For those of your who like my "I didn't take these pictures but I like them" posts, you might be interested in checking out my new blog. blackpocket is a little something I made to stash all of the art, and fashion type of junk that is making my desktop really cluttered. I warn you now, I plan on being even lazier with it than I am with this one.
Anyway, things are really chill right now. This is probably why I have been so stingy about updating my journal lately. Uhhh, today a lady flipped shit at me for walking in between her and whatever she was looking at while I was putting something away, "excuse me? do you just walk in front of people? I started laughing, assuming she was kidding... "what am I?! a PILLAR?!" "...whaat?" People need to re-lax...
I just started reading this book-thing called Dear Diary by Lesley Arfsomething who writes for Vice magazine. It's pretty funny, it takes a lot for me to think writing is solidly hilarious. I like the way she describes emotions and feelings... and she's just about to go to rehab so I'm stoked to read about that later tonight.
Also, my 20th birthday party is this Friday. I sort of wish I had just planned a BBQ. My stomach has been hurting a lot this week and it makes me feel like I don't want to go out at all for my birthday. Go away stomach ache. I wish I could just have the memory of going to the bar for my birthday and skip right to going camping with Lauren. Joshua said I could borrow his car for 5 days so we can go. Josh is wonderful and I can't believe I have a friend who trusts me enough to let me drive their car all around the province. I hadn't seen him in a couple weeks and today he came into my store. I missed him so much that he looked like a glowing angel with magazine skin and puppy dog eyes, and he had on such a nice shirt. My boss recently told me that when you love someone, and you look at them... your pupils grow real big because your body wants to soak in every atom of their being. I hope that isn't hooey.
Okay sorry for this terrible update, nothing is happening in my life at all. I promise to sleep with a rock star or get into a terrible accident...