82. can i have the keys to your car, lover.

sometimes this is all that remains after a party.

81. i dreamed you were a cosmonaut.

80. david.

bazan does the best covers.
solo back porch soundtrack, forever. waiting for something, or someone, that isn't coming.

79. after vacation.

i caught a cold and lost my zinester button, my favorite of all.

bummer week.

i need porch time.

78. homer, ozzie, and the straw.

 go nats!

 (and go cracker jacks)

77. things.

it's entirely possible that i should not be permitted to compose emails anymore.
just write it down and then light it on fire, jc (figuratively, because you're in the library, and darth vader is across the hall. literally). not all words have effect.


my brain is a funny thing.

76. blue moon.

75. late nights.

rockin' joni mitchell with our dog next to me on the perfectly cool summer night.
a happy moment, even with no one to share it with.

i should be sleeping.

74. national cathedral.

looks like a sheep in wolf's clothing, a smoking gun holding ape.

i think this is where senator's sit?

73. oh, where are you going.

in those keds?

72. quimby's.

my zines are also available for purchase at quimby's in chicago, online or in person.
i'm happy to have people buy it from them, since it is such a rad and important place. i haven't actually seen my zines on their shelves (having mailed them in), so if anyone stops by there and picks one up, i'd be so excited.

http://www.quimbys.com/store/jc

they carry so many amazing things.

i've made several orders since moving to maryland, and have been more than pleased each time.

71. oh yeah.

did i mention my hair looks like this now?

punkbrarian.

i wish it was the weekend; jc wants to dance.

70. this is a promise with a catch.

69. business time.

my zine shop is open!

(fyi)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/tributarieszine

http://www.etsy.com/shop/tributarieszine

http://www.etsy.com/shop/tributarieszine

http://www.etsy.com/shop/tributarieszine

68. sweet corn.

new required headgear for children born in urbana:



my sister needs this, stat.

(fall into the baby gap)

(thanks ashley for the tip)

67. jitters.

i may have miscalculated my coffee-water-sugar ratio this morning.

feeling like leslie knope:

(i'll be under my desk by 2:00)

66. blouse.

soundtrack to a rain-soaked sunday night on the porch.

65. brunch village.

sunday brunch explosion!

expensive and delicious.

(at kramerbooks & afterwords)

64. bird's eye view.

view from above, dczf.

the table next to me left early due to rising room temperatures.

i drank hot coffee and had the greatest day in so long.

63. fundelein.

i booked my plane tickets for september today.
i'll be at home for a couple days before my best friend from high school, ms. shari, gets married in c-u.
super stoked.

62. dczf.

the best day.

61. space luge is also cancelled.

(i love the olympics)

(even those not in space)

60. where i've been.

another laura marling performance. i know, you're shocked.

59. race.

finished some zine things tonight with the help of a friend.


issue #3 is ready to be photocopied.
as my pal keith would say: "giddy up"

58. night.

i just want to feel everything.

57. tis the season.

(photo via dczinefest.com)

this saturday, 11-5 pm.
i've pretty much been waiting for this since i moved here.
here's hoping i can get everything done in time.

56. inside/out.

writing on anchors, from inside the submarine.
rainy nights are my favorite.

55. the bathtub.

"The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece, the entire universe will get busted…When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see everything that made me flying around in invisible pieces. I see that I’m a little piece in a big, big universe. In a million years, when kids go to school, they’re gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub."

-beasts of the southern wild

movie night.
epic.

54. loner, rebel.

(jungle porch/submarine when it rains)

53. on my feet.

back porch/candles/new couch cushions.
cider/ceiling fans/busying both hands.
i could sleep outside until october.

52. the head and the heart.

summer is not what i had hoped.

51. chemistry.

[T]here are two main stages associated with a dead and dying romantic relationship...During the ‘protest’ stage that occurs in the immediate aftermath of rejection, ‘abandoned lovers are generally dedicated to winning their sweetheart back. They obsessively dissect the relationship, trying to establish what went wrong; and they doggedly strategize about how to rekindle the romance. Disappointed lovers often make dramatic, humiliating, or even dangerous entrances into a beloved’s home or place of work, then storm out, only to return and plead anew. They visit mutual haunts and shared friends. They phone, e-mail, and write letters, pleading, accusing, and/or trying to seduce their abandoner.’

At the neurobiological level, the protest stage is characterized by unusually heightened, even frantic activity of dopamine and norepinephrine receptors in the brain, which has the effect of pronounced alertness similar to what is found in young animals abandoned by their mothers. 

This impassioned protest stage — if it proves unsuccessful in reestablishing the romantic relationship — slowly disintegrates into the second stage of heartbreak, what Fisher refers to as ‘resignation/despair,’ in which the rejected party gives up all hope of ever getting back together. ‘Drugged by sorrow,’ writes Fisher, ‘most cry, lie in bed, stare into space, drink too much, or hole up and watch TV.’ At the level of the brain, overtaxed dopamine-making cells begin sputtering out, causing lethargy and depression. And in the saddest cases, this depression is linked to heart attacks or strokes, so people can, quite literally, die of a broken heart. So we may not be ‘naturally monogamous’ as a species, but neither are we naturally polygamous.

[ ... ]

[O]ne of the more fascinating things about the resignation/despair stage is the possibility that it actually serves an adaptive function that may help to salvage the doomed relationship, especially for an empathetic species such as our own…. [H]eartbreak is not easily experienced at either end, and when your actions have produced such a sad and lamentable reaction in another person, when you watch someone you care about (but no longer feel any real long-term or sexual desire to be with) suffer in such ways, it can be difficult to fully extricate yourself from a withered romance. If I had to guess — in the absence of any studies that I’m aware of to support this claim — I’d say that a considerable amount of genes have replicated in our species solely because, with our damnable social cognitive abilities, we just don’t have the heart to break other people’s hearts.

(source)

50. nope.

saturday.
no.

49. trash city.

an uneventful capital fourth.
dc is too hot and filled with everything i don't want to think about today.
but i'm fortunate enough to have electricity.

48. but it must not be.

laura, on repeat.

47. trust.

46. water.

45. tennesse williams.

“I have a funny heart,” he admits. “Sometimes it seems to thrive on punishment.”

44. this is really important.

“It’s been expressed before that I am suspected of utilizing my health problems as a convenience in social situations. People have implied I may be lying about my capabilities or limitations so I can avoid a walk, bike ride, or sexual encounter. I wish people could understand that I don’t choose when my disability affects me, and how hurtful it is to not be trusted about such a personal issue."

-luci, “illness, disability, and the punk paradox”
from sick: a compilation zine on physical illness

43. preservation.

field museum
may 31, 2012

42. i've got teeth.

41. music thursday.

yeah.

40. even the losers, get lucky sometimes.

bright spots have been a challenge for me lately. i'm struggling to navigate the lines between moment and memory, possibilities and endings, hostility and calm.
it's hard not experiencing things with the person you want to most, in a city that's starting to feel less special.
the wins just don't mean as much when you can't share them.

national zoo, six little otters piled inside.

adorable naps are definitely a win for the weekend.

39. sic transit gloria.

the lions are roaring this week.

it's so impossible when the root and the cure for what ails are one and the same.

i wish i could fix it, that the part of my life i truly valued wasn't so out of reach.
it makes everything else stale.

38. screens.

the porch is now my daylight home.

being indoors feels itchy.

37. you are here, and so am i.

maybe millions of people go by.

36. cozy town.

central new york was cold and rainy and snowy this weekend.

but the breakfasts were awesome.

did you know that there are purple potatoes?

they are beautiful and delicious.

35. important update.

someone finally took the can of cat food.

34. free to a good home.

we have this designated table in the break room/kitchen at work for giveaway things. people put out whatever they bring in that's free for the taking- old magazines, tiny bottles of hand lotion, random housewares (i scored a basket once), etc. the other day it was looking particularly library-ish:

clockwise from upper left:
1. bookmark
2. can of organic cat food
3. a bracelet with the words, "some like it haute"
4. avon catalogs
5. early reader copies from the public library association conference in philly

around christmas, things were a little bleaker:

33. pistols at dawn.

history!

spotted on my first bike ride around town. the site is in bladensburg, maryland, conveniently located outside a cvs parking lot.

Dueling Grounds

On this site, now part of Anacostia River Park, more than 50 duels were fought during the first half of the 19th century. Here, on what became known as "The Dark and Bloody Grounds," gentleman of Washington settled their political and personal differences. One of the most famous disputes was that between Commodores Stephen Decatur and James Barron. Decatur, who had gained fame as the conqueror of the Barbary pirates, was fatally wounded by his antagonist. Although Congress passed an anti-dueling law in 1839, duels continued here until just before the Civil War.

decatur: namesake for the illinois town, war of 1812 hero, bad at shooting.  

barron: old man, duel winner.

bladensburg's popularity as a dueling site was purely geographic:

Dueling was banned in Washington, but not in Maryland, which was a short carriage ride away. Irate legislators could simply shuttle out to Bladensburg and fire at will.  (PBS)

and fire at will they did:

In June, 1836, 22-year-old Daniel Key, a son of Francis Scott Key [Star Spangled Banner composer], was killed in a senseless duel with a fellow Annapolis cadet, of the United States Naval Academy, John Sherbourne, over a question regarding steamboat speed. (wikipedia)

fascinating stuff, but i didn't see any ghosts. 

maybe they were inside cvs.

32. trike post, the prequel.

this is the box it came in, fresh from picking it up at the store:

the kind gentlemen who loaded it in did a little "yes!" when it fit-after-thinking-it-may-not-fit-just-by-looking-at-the-car. go hatchback!

and from the rear driver side door:

the box weighed about 75 lbs., so i pried it open, slashed a bunch of zip ties, and removed all the pieces out individually to bring them into the house.

a portion of the home library/bike shop:

coming soon: jc hits the road (preferably with her trike, and not her limbs)

31. assembly.

trike is coming together!

this is the most number of tools i've ever used on one thing.
i still need to attach the fenders, back chain, and basket. then just a few brake adjustments before it's actually road ready.

30. chinggis, not genghis.

http://genghiskhan.fieldmuseum.org/

aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

good thing i'll be visiting home before september.
maybe i should bring my catalog from the chinggis khan exhibit i saw in mongolia.
THE COUNTRY.
what's funny is that they have things on loan from the national museum in ulaanbaatar, so it's possible i will have seen the same artifacts, in two different museums on complete opposite sides of the world, within one year of each other, the second time being quite near my place of birth.
let's all go!
they probably won't be selling any of this though:

29. beyond the sea.

i'm presenting my first solo story time in the morning for 3-5 year olds.
this was really fun to put together, and helping plan the one last week was great practice.

we'll be reading about otters,

 rhyming about ocean friends, 

making paper bag puppets,

and of course, dancing.

my mom pointed out to me that the one thing i said i didn't want to do upon entering grad school was be a children's librarian.
i still don't know if i'd have the energy to do it full-time, but getting to work with kids at least some of the time is certainly a highlight of my job.
and frankly, making crafts and dancing around with toddlers sets a pretty good tone for the rest of the day.

28. freaks and geeks.

the awl asks: "when exactly did it get cool to be a geek?"

Geekiness has accrued cachet, and geeks are becoming the cool guys. In an interview about the comedy web series "Geek Therapy," actress America Young observed: "We started talking about how geek is 'in' now. Everyone, all of a sudden, was proudly waving their geek flag. How cool is it that traditional high school status had been turned on its head?

i often refer to this as "the seth cohen effect"

see also: main streamization of indie rock, largely via television appearances and popular movie soundtracks (see: death cab for cutie, garden state), supposed geeky guys getting the hot girls (see: every teen/young adult/angsty white person movie and television show in the last near decade), and the fashion cardigan for both genders.

i guess it just means being smart is okay now as long as you're also attractive and/or own apple products?