Olivia Wilde

I have such a weakness for cute, beautiful girls.  Like Olivia Wilde (Twitter).  I don't usually check out celebrities on Twitter, but she has some song recommendations that I want to check out, later.

I'm so enamored!  She seems perfect in every way.  Sometimes beautiful, sometimes sexy, sometimes both.  Very intelligent, and always stunning.

All images via Olivia-Wilde.org

How does she exist?  Married to an Italian prince at that.  And she glows.  I'm super enamored.

She reminds me of A.O.  It's the cheekbones and eyebrows.

Also, if Sigourney Weaver and Olivia Wilde ever had a child, it would be Summer Glau.

via Summer-Glau.net

(the Sigourney parts come in the smile and side profile)

Someday, I want a signed, full-size poster of every woman I've ever blogged about decorating the walls of my home in a way where each lady commands her own space on the wall, as in a museum.  It could be epic, and so queer.

Anyway, I'm just girl crazy.  I'm doing my reading, I swear!

I want you here with me

Sigh.  My brain refuses to read.  It's awake, I slept, but work is just a no-go right now.  Instead, my mind is fill with awe in light of recent human connections and experiences, feelings that make my close my eyes, turn my face into the fresh sea air and breathe in deeply.

Sunday night I loved a girl's heart when we stayed up all night sharing our childhood stories, connecting over our pains and insecurities, our tears and heartbreaks.  She doesn't love women, but the flavor of female attraction has always differed from male, and I know this attraction is female but without the desire for possession or unrequited love.  Let's dare to push the boundaries of friendship beyond friendliness to loveship.  I think she has been hurt too much, yet still she cares so deeply, that I want to be an unwavering source of love in her life.  I want to make her laugh, and listen close when she hurts.  Isn't it terrible when the world creates an individual so filled with love and excitement that every man who comes across her believes she loves him and demands more?  There is still a person out there who will love me unconditionally as I will love her, but I want to hold this girl close to my heart and never let her go as we both navigate the paths of our lives.  But I have to be careful.  I have to make sure she doesn't misunderstand and think that I am chasing her, too.

Somewhere during the end of Winter quarter the lock on my heart started to unlock.  It seems to be a collective effort of the community around me, because suddenly I am yearning for more people than I can count on my fingers.  I've become accustomed to the ache for high school and middle school friends, but missing college friends is new.  So I'm filled with all this strange emotions that are all good, but yearning good, bittersweet and nostalgic.  It's slightly uncomfortable in the good way, like reaching an orgasm, all the squirming and lack of breath you go through before reaching the explosion that makes you feel good.  But the orgasm has to be delayed for another time.  Is this how people become tied down to one place?  These bonds of love and friendship feels strong, and it hurts when I'm far away from those I care about that it becomes difficult to focus on the place I am now, difficult to focus on the classes that I need to pass.  How do I take all these people with me when I'm not done exploring their hearts?

Right now I tell myself that my brain is rebelling from not having an actual spring break, so it's taking a few days off to dream and feel and love the world before we go underground again to the world of little sleep, tons of work and struggle for validity.  All these sensitive emotions will go away and my brain will harden itself for the grind again soon.  But...I've felt the embrace of love within my community, and I want to keep it here always.  Currently it's difficult to feel the same love from my housemates, since we all seem to be very reserved and independent.  It's hard to repress my neediness.

Ahhhh.  The only thing I can think of to quell this loneliness is the soulful music of Katie Melua, chocolate, and a birthday dinner with my new house mates.  So much for productivity.  Now I'm just moping and feeling homesick.

Bloom

Like an artist by =JellyVampire on deviantART

And speaking of blooming, the Felishorn team, spearheaded by One Winged Angel, recently hosted a Hanami celebration to honor Japan in recent light of the disastrous earthquake.  I was taken by surprise, and so touched that they were able to come up with something so sensitive and relevant to the times, and to have held such a successful event.  Using Felishorns to bring meaning to the world is something I dream of, and strive for with varying success.  I have been so proud of the Felishorn team lately, and this event has only reminded me of the impact we can have on our community when we work hard at what we love, and when we work together.  Here are snippets of the thread.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Felishorns Hanami event! The Hanami is the ancient Japanese tradition of admiring flowers and celebrating their beauty along with the renewal of spring. From the end of March to early May, thousands of people gather to view many types of flowering trees, the most popular and well known being the Sakura, or cherry blossom. It is a cause of celebration for the people of Japan, who gather to have parties beneath the bows of the Sakura, enjoying them both during the day and at night. In the evening, the eldritch beauty of the trees is enjoyed by the light of paper lanterns strung along their branches, illuminating the delicate flowers.

It is a time of friends, family, feasting, and above all, enjoying the brief yet beautiful appearance of the Sakura. To celebrate, I have many games and prizes for you all, so I hope you will join me in our own version of the Hanami!

~OWA

 

You are a traveler in modern day Japan, wandering along its streets during early spring in the hopes of joining in on the Hanami celebration you have heard so much about. So far you have seen many interesting things during your journey, however you cannot resist the lure of the delicate flowers, or the promise of the parties which are sure to have banquets of traditional food, new people to talk to, and music.

As you leave the city streets and turn onto a bricked path which leads you to the calm, quiet green of a park by a river, you catch sight of something out of the corner of your eye. Turning, you tilt your head as you watch a pale, delicate blossom drift to the ground. Sakura? But you haven't even reached the party yet...perhaps it has drifted on the wind across the river? Yet the thought is quickly brought to an abrupt halt as you look up and find that the park you entered before, has changed. Elegant trees arch above you, their gnarled branches laden with clouds of soft pink and white blossoms. A subtle, warm wind shakes their bows, bringing down gentle drifts of petals which gather at the base of the trees like snow. Suddenly, the blossoms seem to rise again, stirred by the force of a wind which you cannot feel, but which carries with it the sharp scent of spring rain and earth. As the petals slowly settle, something seems to be taking form out of the Sakura itself. Transparent at first, slowly gaining solidity, a female felishorn steps out from between the dark trunks, her coat blending in with the scenery. You are uncertain as to weather she is real or not, yet like the proverbial Cheshire cat, you are drawn to a pair of pink eyes which watch you from the shadows, and a gently smiling mouth. She does not speak, merely beacons you with her eyes as she turns, bounding along the narrow dirt path towards the soft glow of lantern light. Shapes move through the trees here, men and women dressed in kimonos, but you cannot be certain if they are human.

Have you just encountered one of the legendary Yokai...?

You follow her never the less, hoping that the encounter will be prosperous rather than troublesome...

I would like to say, now that I have gone into the details of the event, that when I came up with the idea for celebrating the Hanami festival through the Felishorns I never expected that a rather somber shadow would be cast upon it. In light of the recent tragedy which befell Japan earlier this month, I feel that the event itself has taken on a double meaning-it is now in a certain sense, a way for me to pay tribute to those whose lives were taken by a disaster which has devastated this historically rich and beautiful country. In Japan, the Sakura has come to symbolize, among many things, transience- in other words our humanity, our mortality. Because the trees bear flowers for only a brief time each year, the delicate blossoms have come to serve as a reminder of the fragility of life. This disaster has proven once again the Sakura's lesson to be true. Life is brief, life is fleeting-it can be washed away in an instant.

But the Sakura has a second meaning, one which also holds true- Hope. Because the blossoms will always return each year, they mark the arrival of new beginnings. They remind us to find the strength to look ahead, towards the future. And while the past cannot be forgotten, and there are many hearts left heavy with sorrow, Japan has hope. For those survivors who are left behind, many countries around the world have gathered together to provide assistance. Hopefully, in time, though the aftermath of this disaster still plagues them, Japan and its people will find the peace they need to heal.

Look at this beautiful art.  I couldn't be any prouder, and more astounded.

Celine Sciamma

Wait, I want to see these.

Submergence

The last week or so...Oh man, life has moved faster than I can comprehend, and within the midst of that whirlwind I'm struggling to study for finals.  But in my mind there is a wall blocking any academic thought.  I still have Evolutionary Paleobiology and Bio42 today and tomorrow (as I write I'm frantically trying to figure out where my Bio136 final is, and crossing all fingers that it will be from 7pm-10pm tonight rather than some other time which has escaped my notice.)  A lot of things escape my notice when my mind is wrapped around something, because I have this tendency to completely submerge myself in a thought until things have been wrestled to the mental ground.

A few weeks ago that thought was the evolution and dispersal of New Zealand's freshwater crayfish, Paranephops.  I fear that project had so entirely consumed me that the amount of time I missed on Physics was irreplaceable.  I may have gotten a 30% on that final, and my only salvation is hope that the rest of the class struggled equally, because that was a difficult final.  I got to walk away with a Eureka moment when I thought I solved one of the last problems within the last five minutes.  But this doesn't reflect how badly I did on the rest of that packet.

My mind and heart are not in testing this week - perhaps the worst possible week to not want to test - because they are centered around a girl.  Naturally; what did you expect?  She's a neighbor in the dorm, and I'm stupid enough to notice her only when it dawns upon me and everyone around me that I'm leaving campus for nine months.  There was something too friendly in the way she teases me about missing her over the dinner table that made me want to find out more, so I took to hanging around and being friendly.  Really friendly, more than I normally am, and it's such a miraculous step because I never take to talking with the girls I like, or even to make a friend.  Here I quote a good friend of mine: "Making friends with you is like a cataclysmic event: all the pieces have to click together at just the right moment for you to make that connection."  It's miraculous I have the friends I do now, really.  I'm not sure what's been going through my head with her for the last two quarters.  I only remember liking the way she dressed when we saw each other at hall meetings and finding her to be terribly exotic with her Indian heritage and as a classical violinist.  Then I find out that she play sports like a tomboy, loves Michael Jackson, dances Bollywood and likes hip hop music too, in contrast to her classicism.  She also has this wonderfully loud, free laugh that doesn't strive for composure, and really soft hair.  Somehow we got to defending each other in public, standing up for one another when other people - usually male - teases one of us.  Throughout all this, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus on the hard, cold subjects like paleontology or molecular biology since all I want to do is bathe myself in estrogen and grow my heart (bathed in androgens, fetal scrotum will develop male secondary characteristics).

Last night during study break I danced a little bit with everyone then settled myself on her shoulder.  I've been working up to a level of physical comfort I share with my close friends from home.  We would hold each other and share our affections while they tell me about their boy troubles and I would do my best to reassure them that they are smart, beautiful and independent women regardless of whatever happens.  I miss that physical closeness that is entirely innocent and non-sexual, and lately my body craves physical contact.  It had somehow gotten to a point where I wanted to ask friends to squeeze my ribs so that I could breathe easier.  So when I leaned my head on her shoulder, as I do with men and women, and she puts an arm around me and keeps it there, I was happy.  A gay male friend who knows about my little crush brushed by and winked at me.  But for that moment, that closeness with another human being, was more than I could have asked for.

I'm not sure what happened next wasn't a mistake on my part.  It was 11pm, and I became agitated recognizing all the time I've lost, and remembering how close together my last two finals were.  I wouldn't have much time to study in-between, not if I want to rest up.  So I turned my head and kissed her wrist while it was still there on my shoulder, took it off with my hand and, realizing that I took too long to disentangled myself, kissed her wrist again more formally before letting go and running off.  Smooth, real smooth.

I'm not sure why that happened the way it did.  I think I wanted to push our physical relationship a little farther with lips on skin, but what was meant to be a brief light touch of affection accidentally lingered too long.  In my mind I've agreed to be her friend, seeing how far our relationship has come within the short week, but, unbeknownst to me, my heart wants more.  I thought it had settled for friendship, too.  It's so confusing to my being when a person of desire is friendly in return, and right now I feel such a miscommunication between all my parts that I just want to run away from my studies and watch Glee.  Or micro-analyze this with one of my girl friends.

I'm disappointed in the state of my academics, but can I say that I'm also very proud?  My parents never said that to me (it's implicit, in my household/culture, so they don't have to take the trouble and I'll have to assume they do) so I've been taking to saying it to myself.  There is something about biogeography that I've grabbed onto with a quiet passion, and I can't help but smile at how obsessed I was over my term paper.  I read everything I could find on my topic, and then some, branching out looking for new ways of analyzing something that has probably been analyzed to death, seeking out answers without being able to obtain my own data.  It was the last thing on my mind before sleep, and the first thing when I woke: how do I compromise what is known about NZ crayfish's genome, physiology and previous evolutionary research with NZ's tectonic movements and historical geographic events?  How can I do this without restating other thinkers' conclusions?  (Every time I came up with a new idea, I keep finding a reiteration of it in a paper I had already read, so it was difficult to know which were my ideas and which were subconsciously planted by another's words.)  How might evolution on this very special, very dynamic, very large island differ from continents and other islands?  I would ponder this and try to thrash out the organization of my paper while pacing my room, pacing the  bathroom while brushing my teeth, or walking to and fro to get more water.  I only lingered over meals to give myself a mental break, but otherwise it was work work work work wherever I happened to be.  I wrote at my desk, in my bed, in my rocking chair, in the computer cluster, on my walls and on my lecture notes.  I had pinned up maps and changed my screensaver to an animation of NZ's tectonic drift, which turned on in a mere 1 minute of inactivity.  It was entirely engrossing and encompassing, because that's how I do everything in life.

It may have something to do with growing up artistically minded rather than academically minded.  Sure, I got mostly straight A's in high school, but throughout that journey I had also let myself grow as an eccentric, spacey intellectual rather than training myself to be a test-taker.  As a result, my SAT scores were low but people still regarded me as an intellectual because of all these ideas that came out of my head.  I am gifted with a crazy amount of creativity, and I love, love, love projects but I hate tests.  So this week I have been entirely engrossed in building a relationship with this Indian girl, and because my mind is so project orientated it's difficult to get off this until I've completed it.  In this case, that's not possible.  There's no impulse control; I am entirely consumed by what I do or how I feel at every moment.  I'm envious of the queer theorists who get to write papers for their finals, or even the classical violinists who write music theory.  All I can do now is pray I'll get through my classes with a good enough grade, pray that I won't have to repeat Bio42 as I will for Bio41, and beg for a time in my life when the value of my career is judged on what I do on a regular day-to-day basis rather than a 3 hour exam period.

The Case for Falling in Love

http://mariruti.com/love.html

Hear her speak today at the WCC.  It's a progressive self-help book for straight women, but there are plenty of universal themes in the second half, when she gets through bashing other parochial materials on the subject of pursuing relationships.  I should pick this up during a break because it is a good merge between mainstream and academic discussion of a very mainstream topic, and she might have other works of personal interest in academic.  My favorite part about the talk is that she is a straight, middle-upper class white woman who has taught graduate queer theory at Harvard.  Hurrah for competence and plurality.

Now to catch up on 2 weeks of physics.  Hurrah for incompetence.

Tron: Legacy (2009)

As empowering as watching Tron: Legacy is tonight at Flicks, technological glitter always leaves me with this agitated need to immerse myself in the digital world.  Most of the time I'm pretty organic: flowery designs on my wall, wood, cardboard and cloth rather than metallic, muted colors intersperse with vibrancy rather than neon glow.  But I have to admit I find myself undeniably ecstatic over gadgets in Iron Man, Star Trek and now Tron: Legacy.  The most exciting part about it is that if I choose to, I can enter the world and start making my way to the top in it right here, right now.  There are classes to take, and innumerable resources online.  The great thing about computer science is that it is absolutely accessible to any and all, and free has always been my ring tone (it's actually always on vibrate, so free in sound bytes).  The thrill of creating everything from nothing gives me such an adrenaline rush.  Eventually the software bytes become limited by hardware, but those are only fences when the real obstacles are within the logic of the code.

I had an idea for an art project afterwards, intended for a spacial design rather than a maneuverable.  Two versions:
a) Design a relevant code/hardware, something meaningful, entire entirely new and complex or found in existing technology, preferably something we depend on but most doesn't know how the complexity of its design.
b) Re-create code/hardware in replacement of each object for that respective part of the room.  A TV hardware/software blue print as the centerpiece, computer designs on walls around work tables.

The design should not be duplication of the hardware piece built.  Rather, it reflects the logic of the program: if using my Kit Generator code, I would start at one point, branch out continuously with some short-ends, to be collected together again at the base when all the closing brackets are called to finish each function.  The reasoning is logic embedded within logic with all thought neatly tied and finished despite their convoluted mapping, a concept I haven't really been exposed to extensively before (and my experience still hasn't reached 'extensively').  It reflects the spirit and the intelligence of the design rather than mimic the physical format itself.  Be reminded of Stark's father's map of a future city, which became the map of a brand new element.

The execution should be as calculated and meticulous as possible, reflecting the integrity of machines.  Plenty of stencils, metrics, and geometry (straight lights and concentric circles).  It may be appropriate in some places to lose the grid-like structure of thought and create a more organic function in reflection of chaos that inevitably lingers at the edges of our creations; in which case, it's best if the center of the piece is as mathematical as possible, re-creating the human effort to create order within a world of entropy.  The work should fill a space, so position on the wall should be carefully decided, and best if the design incorporated roof, ceiling, and all walls.  When the art encounters a true technology, it's best if the two interacted and became one.  Cover windows and hide organics.  Glow-in-the-dark paint may be used, or black lighting, but be careful about garnish tainting the 'cleanliness' of perfection that programmers strive for.

It's nice to define my more artistic ideas here where I can revisit later if I have time.  Now I really want to take CS106A.

Gratuitous pictures after the cut because oh dear God do I want to pee my pants.  The official sites for these movies are also quite a sensational experience, but their URL won't last with time, so I won't post.  Films are Iron Man, Star Trek, Tron and Fractale, a new futuristic anime keeping me company.  Also, Hulu's got the entire Digimon Tamer series!  Guess what I'll be doing over spring break.

Boys Don't Cry (1999)

Via Hilary Swank Fan.

The last Transmission event was tonight, a screening of "Boys Don't Cry."  It was intense, because not only was he hazed, raped and killed, you know the story was exactly true.  Everything you saw on-screen happened to a person in Nebraska who died about 10 years ago.  It was so quiet in the room afterwards.  Our host is a MTF transgendered woman, and she felt very passionate about this movie.  Other people were crying, or silent.  I didn't cry because halfway through I knew what was going to happen, and I was sad, but I couldn't help but see the beautiful side to the story.  Brandon did find a girl who loved him unconditionally (although apparently not, since the real girl sued the movie makers for mis-portraying her, claiming she had cut the relationship after Brandon was arrested), he was confused but he was as true to himself as he knew how, which is more than many can manage.  The homophobia didn't make as much sense to me: here were two men who are obviously way more messed up even before Brandon got there.  They would cut themselves to get through the day, and let's not start on all the other crazy shit they spent their days doing.  Brandon was a perfectly normal youth trying to grow up, and these two men were simply nuts.

The room was so sad and quiet after the movie ended.  I looked around and wanted to say, "Don't be sad.  People die every day for lesser things.  He died being true to himself, and gave us a message to carry on.  Let's be as brave as he was, and fight."  But I wasn't sure if I would have sounded like an insensitive dick, so I thanked the host for hosting, said goodnight to the room at large (I think I got a response from everyone because no one had anything to say to break the silence otherwise), and biked through the rain home.  Maybe it's better to let people seep in the sadness and tragedy.  Let it move them, and remind them that one of the hardest things to do is being true to yourself.  Although I think they were seeping sadness against the anger of the homophobic community.  I don't want to be angry at homophobic people; I don't want to hate them.  I want to understand why they're so afraid of people like me, because no one should have to be afraid.

This makes me remember why I buzzed my head the first time, in the privacy of my friend's backyard.  It was later shaved in San Francisco, and that's when people started making such a big deal out of it because they compared it to my buzzed hair before.  But when I did it for the first time, it was because I wanted people to be open to the idea of 'different'.  People get so used to who they think you are that there's usually a response when you change.  There are certain changes which are considered good, like maturing into a beautiful young woman who might be the object of men's desires.  But there are other changes that people hush up about, like changing your sex.  It's not that I prefer short or long hair either way, but it's the idea change that I want people to get used to.  Sometime there is such a set image prescribed by society ingrained within us some childhood of what a person should look like, sometimes with regards to who they are and sometimes not.  Maybe I'm in some transitional state where I am changing inside and therefore its a relief to change outside as well, and maybe one day I'll settle into one of the prescribed social norms of appearance, but right now I really think it shouldn't be such a big deal if a girl grows her hair then cuts it short.

Plus, I realized that many people here won't see me for 9 months.  Let's have a big change now, then be 'changed' again when we see each other next winter.

Marion Cotillard

Well, my laptop started spazz-tically twitching and then crashed, which just means I take a little time off to enjoy the refined beauty that is Marion Cottilard in the computer cluster.

Via Dorothy Surrenders.

Mmm.

Fredagsbarn (Friday’s Child) (Tom Kietz, 2010)

Via Ann Arbor Film Festival.

25th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival

LGBT Short Films Festival.  I want to see.

I also want to go to LGBT conventions.

Pretty Red Dress

Skipping class today to work on my paper.  I looked outside this morning and it was so gray and depressing, and I was perfectly happy in bed, so there I stayed.  I know, I've been pampering myself too much lately.  Six to seven hours of sleep every day?  What is this madness?

Also, procrastination.

Via MailOnline.

Oh Bieber.  I like you so much more now that you have a gorgeous red-dressed lady on your arms.  Thank God he's not shaking his hair and looking like a jerk anymore.  You know, he actually may be maturing.  Catch how he holds himself on Ellen.



See, no swaggering involve, right?  And much better haircut, thank you very much.

And let's not have a Justin Bieber post without some lesbians in it, too.  Extra points if they're Aussies.



Let me love the idea that these women are in long-term, steady relationships.  Please let the plot follow this rather than a string of hook-ups, almost-marriages, smoking-sex-alcohol (SSA).