New bento supplies!

I love getting bento stuff in Japantown, but it is kind of a hassle to get there from the East Bay so I rarely go. I went yesterday though and stocked up.
this one has 2 levels and is pretty small.
I love this yellow.
these are to keep little bits of fruit and lunch meat in the fridge so I can cut them on mondays and use them throughout the week.
this is my first onigiri mold (onigiri are rice triangles with a little bit of something salty in the middle.). I don't mind making them by hand but it does take a while. And I got a pair of onigiri containers. 2 onigiri is not very much food for me but I can bring them on days when I only have one three hour class.
Daiso had excellent chopsticks. There were about 5 pairs I really wanted but since I rarely use chopsticks and I already have one pair I limited myself to these two. English is used decoratively on lots of the stuff you can buy in japantown, and a lot of times it's really interesting to try to follow the thought process. The bottom one is the wall street journal, and for some reason I am charmed that something so dry would seem beautiful or interesting.
These skewers are bamboo so I am going to try to rinse and reuse them. I think these fish are boring but they were 20 for $2 instead of 2 for $1.50 like the ones I preferred. They are sold empty and it was kind of fun figuring out how to fill them. Although, almost no soy sauce fits in one. I will probably have to bring 3 at a time.

Anyway, it was nice to go to Japantown and good to stock up on supplies.

New School Year!

I am not off to a very solid start this year. My last day of work was 5 days before my first day of school so I have been having a pretty good time hanging out, relaxing, shopping for back to school, and taking out my dreads. I'm super excited to start classes but very reluctant to let go of this short window of freedom. So while I am definitely prepared enough for tomorrow (I have one studio class from 1-3:45) my everything is in disarray. I am in Oakland, not Santa Cruz, and my trunk is stuffed with clean laundry, my printer, groceries and bento supplies, and so on. It will take a long time to get everything squared away in its closet or cupboard and it would be a cleaner start to the school year to have done all that today. However, this term my schedule starts very gradually. The only class I have this week is the one I have tomorrow. That gives me 3 days in Santa Cruz to get everything tidy and prepped before my first proper week of class.

My hair looks like it died and my nail polish is destroyed and my bike has a flat tire and my perishables are all in my boyfriend's parents' fridge and I have just about enough gas to get home.

It's fall!

I bought a brown and orange leather jacket at urban ore for $20. I kind of adore it.
I felt like I was in a costume because it's so far from my usual thing. I came across my wig while looking for some acrylic paints (somehow I left mine in Santa Cruz, ugh, and I was hoping to do loads of postcards before school starts). The look of it made me long for brushable hair, but the feel of it was really itchy and got in my eyes.

mailed art project update

I put the first postcard in this mailbox at 6am on Wednesday. I don't want to post any until they are received so maybe I will do a big post in a month when I am done.

I did 12 postcards so far. 11 of them are pretty good. One of them, oh my gosh, is so bad. It was an idea for my sketchbook and since I am carrying these postcards and deliberately not carrying my sketchbook I wrote it down on one. Then i "illustrated" it in pastels and crayon. Then since it had a stamp and an address I put it in the mail. I will send that person a proper card shortly.

I got a fish today, and postcards 9-12 are about fish.

phone case

I made a case for my phone. I was happy because it took only a few minutes, but then I was sad because the phone slides out. it needs a button.

I cut a phone size (plus front flap) end off a toe sock. Then I sewed on scraps. I think it needs a few more scraps, also a button so it stays closed. I'm charmed by how it looks like an abstraction of an elephant.

bento recipe

My lunch today was pretty amazingly tasty and filling. Usually I have to eat right when I get home at 5pm but tonight I started cooking at 8pm. So here is how:

turkey dog: cut it in half, cut an X 2/3 of the way through each side. Simmer with a little water until they bloom. I put ketchup in my tupperware but after I get bento supplies at ichiban kan I can put ketchup in a little dipping sauce container shaped like a bird or a frog. Its beak or tongue is a little spoon.

omelet wrap: beat two eggs and fry in a small pan. I put cheese on top but i wish I had stirred it in so it could be more evenly distributed. Simmer broccoli briefly and mix with rice, garlic, and quartered cherry tomatoes. Scoop this into the wrap and fold over.

Mail Art Test Run

I did a crime! I did my first mail crime! My texts-as-postcards were in the box and I brought them inside and took their picture and put them back. Now I feel extremely terrible, because I did a crime, in fact I feel sick to my stomach. I think I will not do any more mail crimes.

I found this diagram on wikipedia:

I feel a little bad for making the USPS go through all that to deliver notes to the people I live with for 28 cents each, but that is their job after all.

So I guess the Priority Mail Processing Center is in San Jose.

This week of letter-texts has given me ideas because it was beyond poorly executed. Like: some of the paper I used had charcoal drawings on the back but I simply didn't have enough sturdy paper to do without those pages. I like that because it got on everything and smeared around a lot so it shows the wear of going to San Jose and back and being handled by all those machines and both those people. And I learned that the USPS will send things that are messy because it is their duty to the American people.

I really don't have any kind of inkling where I would like to go with this, so here are some steps that I might do some combination of as practice and exploration:

-join a few swaps of Artist Trading Cards

-keep a travel journal by recording impressions/sketches on postcards and mailing them to my house

-keep a diasporic journal by recording things and then mailing them off to whomever. Maybe start with a wallet of preaddressed stamped postcards and sketch on the backs and send them off with out checking who they'll go to

-mail things to myself at my old addresses (mail is forwarded for a year and after that you're supposed to have told everyone your new address so I think they'd go to the current occupants and then be tossed or bounced back to the post office and then if I was super lucky get returned to sender)

-make a piece of art that's really meditative and detailed and cut it into post cards and send it to people who could easily/could never meet to reassemble it

-get a book that's either an overview of mail art or has highlights that I could look into.

-learn more about the USPS

ETA: I have to get up in a bit but I keep getting ideas! I could make a piece of art and cut it into post cards and then send it to one person, like a puzzle. I am sure it has been done by ten thousand people but I am still excited by the idea.

I could do an advent calendar, because advent calendars are about each day seeing a little prize as you countdown to Jesus so getting one in 10 pieces with 2 or three little flaps would be neat. It would draw out the anticipation even better because you would anticipate the arrival of each piece and completion of the calendar, and then anticipate opening the flaps.

I kind of want to get this done before I go to bed 3 hours ago but I don't know how.