Hurry, we're going to be late

Even I haven't been posting- that doesn't mean I haven't been using my camera phone! I've got quite the collection of pictures that I've accumulated in that little piece of plastic I'm so attached to, so I best start posting them.

My first set is from my friend Erin's birthday... about two months ago, hah! We threw her a surprise birthday party at a karaoke bar and I was able to capture a few good ones with my measly phone.

Relics of my Childhood

There have been a few things lately that have been enormous reminders of my self for myself. They have all come from different facets of my life, but all together they have amounted to an incredible meaning I hope I never loose sight of. Lately I have been feeling that every day is a test. A test to stay a strong individual of a person I have yet to find. But in those daily tests I am given advice.

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Every year on my birthday I am given advice, openly and obviously, from significant people in my life. It has been sort of a tradition. This year, being away from my original home, I was unable to receive advice like I had in the past. But it still came, just in different forms: from a friend at work, on a birthday card, from a phone call and irrelevant conversation, and from absence of  few people who I love so much. It was every day experiences that held underlying meanings that regularly I would not have noticed. Only because it was my birthday did I pay so much more attention. 

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It is that attention that I know I must hold onto. That focus to see more than what is there, because so often do we just view through our eyes and not also through our brains and hearts. Without that attention we become clumsy with what is delicate... and I cannot let things become a mess. My tests are small, but I must get through them. There is so much capacity to be filled. 

Maybe I'm just talking gibberish now, but I hope you understand a bit. I have come to a personal understanding- I have come so close to making the connection- and I hope so much that I able to hold onto that connection and see it through. Maybe it is selfish, but I don't think so. Finding one's self is so tricky sometimes, and I want so deeply to know who I am. 

PreBirthDay

Today I went to Coney Island with a really good friend of mine. After a day laying in the sand and watching the people and pets go by, she decided to take us both to the freak show as a birthday gift. We witnessed a sword swallower, a machete/apple/torch juggler, a contortionist, a man who danced on glass, and a few other fun and disturbing sights. Apparently these dedicated "freaks" preform as a non profit art show, and they are quickly going under with the slow but sure redevelopment of Coney Island. Just outside the performance room was a small installation of peep holes. When you looked through each hole you could see a small 3D scene of Coney Island as it originally was, and then in a seconds time it changed into what Coney Island would soon look like, with starbucks' and destroyed ferris wheels. It was a sad reminder of the struggle these people are going through trying to obtain such a historical piece of americana... but as a whole it was an excellent introduction to my birthday week. I hope to go back very soon to support the side shows!