Dirty Hookers --- David Dahl

I implemented an applause rule after every Christmas present this year.


Most feel good Christmas to date.

To expand:

About a month ago Kitty gets into some kind of fight and comes home with two big, gaping wounds on his ears. I feel terrible.

A few days later I leave for a weekend trip to Tucson and by the time I get back one of his ears has become pretty badly infected. Again, I feel terrible.

He finally gets over the infection, but has little red scabs on his ears for almost a month. I feel bad/a little embarrassed for it is a walking testament to my bad pet ownership abilities.

Well, after a week in Virginia I come home to find both scabs completely fallen off. Unfortunately, however, they leave bald spots on both ears and a not-so-tiny teardrop shaped hole in one of them.

Now, I feel kind of bad about spots (I'm sure they are going to get rather cold in these winter months) and the hole, but am way too distracted by fantasizing about/stopping myself from sticking an earring in there to dwell too long.

(I give myself another 24 hours before I crack)

You are the worst person to own a pet.

The plan: raise ‘em up to have low expectations

So, Iowa gives me an entire week off for Thanksgiving break which is great and wonderful and naturally, I take advantage and plan to spend the entire time in Virginia. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as my planning went last week when really I should have been getting ready for a week away from home. Instead, I put everything off until the very last possible minute. I have a spare key made in the ten minutes between my class and leaving for work where I just hand it to my co-worker/neighbor so she can take care of Kitty. That night is a desperate scramble to buy cat food, write instructions, find enough money to pay my neighbor, pack, and clean my apartment well enough to not be an embarrassment. But I do it and all is well the next morning when I leave and let Kitty out to play because the weather is actually rather nice.

All is well until the next morning when my neighbor leaves me a message, “Um Carina, the key you gave me doesn’t work.”

Goddamnit.

So I call and we work out a plan. Kitty will roam the halls for a week, sleeping on the stairs and eating twice a day from a bowl my neighbor leaves in the laundry room next to the dryers.

Homeless Kitty.

I get back last night and call my neighbor this morning. She is amazed that living in the hallways for a week by himself didn’t even phase the cat. “He’s just like John Wayne, totally laid back. He’s so independent, like he doesn’t need anyone.”

I don’t know if this should be considered good parenting or very bad parenting.

Oh Yes

Somebody found my blog by Google searching "Carina caliente."

But what about a starch or, perhaps, a vegetable?

My extended family consists of two parts: One part lone wolf uncle who comes up from Georgia once a year to spend Christmas quietly drinking, pays a visit to the Air and Space Museum, and occasionally declares that he “digs” this or that. And one part Rosier Gang, made up of my aunt who I love, my little cousin who is delightful, but only eats bread products and, as a result, takes a slew of vitamin pills everyday, my other cousin who is in a heap of trouble, and my slightly sexist uncle who gives me endless satisfaction every time he visits and inevitably hits his big head on the low hanging chandelier in the front foyer.

Holidays are divided like this: Thanksgiving my family makes one pie then drives three hours south to my aunt’s house where she slaves for hours while Amy and I ‘help’ by occasionally stirring or removing something from the oven when explicitly told to do so. My mother usually chats and my father, being a good sport, kind of watches football with my uncle. At Christmas my mother picks a color theme and spends weeks buying paper and coordinating each package, bow, and ribbon so when my aunt and family come up their dollar store paper clashes so profoundly we are forced to open presents almost immediately.

This year, however, thanks to my troublesome cousin, my aunt has decided to forgo the holiday altogether and head far South for some sort of vacation from life and family.

This, of course, leaves my family stranded and puts the weight of an entire Thanksgiving celebration on each of our shoulders.

...

Ok, here’s the plan: Jim gets pecan pie (which is kind of a cop out because Jim always gets pecan pie because he is from Georgia and actually uses the pecans his brother sends him picked from their childhood home-farm), I am stuck with gravy (because I’m the only one Aunt Sue could ever talk into spending half an hour stirring turkey fat non-stop), Mom takes turkey (natch), and Amy calls pumpkin pie. This is all decided a few weeks ago.

Sunday I make it back to Virginia. My mother is out of town and Amy moved to Rosslyn, so it’s just Jim and I. I poke around the kitchen a bit.

My mother thought of everything. Amazing, amazing, amazing. I love her. Outside is an entire box of homegrown pecans, hand shelled and ready for pie making. There's a brand new pan on the stove complete with some kind of special rack where a turkey is supposed to sit. From a cabinet, Jim pulls out a new and strange-looking gravy separator and we argue technique (neither of us actually knowing anything about it) and (here’s why I really like my mom) stuffed in the depths of the freezer she’s carefully hidden a fully prepared just-in-case pumpkin pie.

I can't wait til Thursday.

Long Overdue

It's official: BFF

Aww

Gallery

Alter

Gaunt

Day 7

Creativity is running low.


(Also, lets all notice just how much time I am spending in this editing lab)

I am feeling very pleased with myself

I just wrote this in a film I'm working on:

"Too much weight is being lost
in the war against hips."

Where is Hank to help me be self congratulatory while editing?

Day 6

Day 5

Day 4

If anybody was wondering what grad life in film school is like

We actually planned and executed a surprise wedding in the hour before colloquium.

Here are Ben and Arpita's wedding photos.


Writing the Vows


Happiest Day of Her Life


Of Course We Filmed It


Ring Bearer


The Reverend


It's Official

So as part of my teaching assistantship I am required to attend a sexual harassment orientation/warning thing with about 150 other graduate students.

I cannot believe how much of the presentation was directly relevent to events from my life.

Day 3

Photo credit: Deon Kay

Temporary hiatus from challenge for a digital photoessay

ROLL CALL:











WALK IT OUT:













KITCH:



Sorry for the blurriness/lameness of digital photography. A Polaroid edition is soon in the works.

Day 2

Photojournalism!

Challange Day 1:





Oh yes

(Photo Credit: Hank Knaack)

Archive

I actually reused this costume (the kitty one) for a Halloween party this weekend. Only the ears still fit tho.

ps. I'll be in Tucson for the All Sould Procession this coming weekend. (Read: Tucson friends buy me drinks)

Nothing has ever made me happier

Grad School

Grad School Coursework First Month Summary:

Advanced Film Theory, Corey Creekmore, The Voice in Cinema:

Currently writing a paper on Star Trek, specifically the Borg.
Notes read as follows:
Data - "Are you the leader?"
Borg Queen - "I bring order to chaos."
Tone sexual, viceral[sic]. Borg Queen is the only sexual Borg. (Very poor drawing of Borg Cube)

Colloquium, Ariana Hamidi, Text in Film:

Recut a Richard Scary alphabet film to spell out the phonetic alphabet. Found another alphabet film where the host tells a fry guy-esque creature that Kiwis taste like strawberries and bananas.
Note the customer comments





Sound Design, Leighton Pierce:

Used ProTools (love) to turn Chris into a purring cat and added him to a soundscape with Maricio (older Italian exchange student) sewing during a rain storm.

Proseminar, Louie Schartz, Microcinema:

Watched Prince Albert Hurts, a short film about a botched piercing job (edited by Nicole Koschamnn).