Independence in Trolley Form

I'm typing this in my large studio, not my pokey dorm room. I feel really comfortable in here so it makes a nice change. I think I am going to keep my Macbook down here. So, dear reader, I am sure you are on tenterhooks to find out if I survived Halloween. I did. Pah! They call that a party? Honey, that was a school disco... I was very relieved though, I had visions of me having to politely turn down orgies, saying, 'Well, its a nice idea, maybe next year when my husband will be here too?". It was good fun, and a great spectacle - the main thing I did all night was wander round checking out the costumes. A boy spoke to me who I hadn't spoken to before, even though he is in my After Archive class. He particularly wanted to tell me, whilst he was inebriated, that he likes it when I speak in class as I say interesting things that he agrees with and he thinks that I am clever. He slagged off other people in the class to illustrate his point further. All the time stabbing the air excitedly with a black dildo. It suddenly occurred to me he was gay.

I met with Billy Woodberry, my mentor on Tuesday, the first time I've met up with him. I was scared of him, but you know what? He's great. I was thinking, what has this documentary film maker got to do with my work? Why is he my mentor? But he walked in and started talking to me about my work. He really likes it. He remembered it all from my application portfolio and thinks the way I write about my work is really interesting. This was a total revelation. He is my tutor because he loves my work. Like, of course! I am at a point where I have moved on in my head from 'Les Girls', the dancing ladies project, because I am devising the next project, but he was strict with me, he said, finish the project, wrap it up and send it out into the world. He said he thought it would be interesting to show it at CalArts to see how students and faculty from other departments react to it. His hunch is that many people take it as the original photographs blown up. But he was telling me, the work is subtler than that, he said that my visible nose ring and my 'internal smile' - expression that is not looking out for approval but that is self-satisfied are the details that give the game away, and that they make there appearance slowly. Anyway, it was very interesting and very useful. He did not trifle himself with small matters like how I am settling in, or what exactly one does to get credit for a 3-credit Independent Study project, but that matters not. I like him.

The Crit last week wore me out, our little BFA4 boy presented (BFA4 students sometimes join MFA crit, but only one this semester) and bless him, he was out of his depth. Every time someone talked about his work he resisted their reading. It was exhausting.

The shopping trolley Dad sent me finally arrived on Friday. It is a trolley I can go to the shops with and bring anything I want home in it. It means I don't need to get plastic bags and I don't have to wait to get a lift to the 'Strip Mall' (retail park). It is the same type of thing that old ladies have although theirs are usually tartan. This is red with white flowers printed on it, it has an internal purse and external pocket. Its really roomy, its amazing. Its from Ikea.

Friday night I went to 2 exhibition openings in LA with Brianna and Calvin. The first was Kaucyila Brooke's at Michael Dawson - I loved her work and the gallery is amazing - modernist building with lots of wood panelling and a second hand bookshop in half the space, upmarket though, of course. The second was Miller Updegraff's in a funny space, hard to describe but not so upmarket, apparently a private collector opened it to show off his collection, although it is predominantly UCLA grads. He's branching out into CalArts grads now. Miller is so much fun, he reminds me very much of Joff Whitten, my friend from Psalter Lane, he is very charming and funny, they both are.

I got home at midnight and talked to Nareg for an hour with a cup of Night Time tea which knocks you out. I cleaned my teeth to go to bed when, guess what? A party in our kitchen. Achraf brought his friends home and they put on music and drank and talked loudly. Dana and her friends came home and joined in. There was no way I could have slept through that. I got my duvet and Henry (teddybear - maybe I should tell you about him sometime) and came down to here, my studio. I slept great, btw.

I'm so glad I have my studio sanctuary.

Over the weekend I needed to get off campus, so I went to Alexis's after she finished working in her studio on Saturday night. On Sunday I walked around Hollywood, taking in the spectacle of it all. Although I never took it out the car, Alexis let me take my shopping trolley. She knew that it represented my independence, and that it needed to come with me.

Halloween Nerves

Leslie Dick, the Freud tutor, is fantastic. Love her. Today she told us how her middle name is Matthews, thats 3 male names. A student a few years ago thought she had changed her surname in a gesture to re-claim her lost penis (Freud people will know what I mean). But no, its her father's surname. Last week her phone went off, ringtone = Gnarls Berkley, Crazy. And she has an Orla Kiehly bag. We started on Lacan today. He's a refreshing change from all that Freud reading. I had no idea he was such a cad, dandy and rebel.

In American English the word 'redundant' means repetitive.

I bought an outfit for Halloween. An $8 above the knee black jersey dress and fake blood. I'm going as Velma Kelly from Chicago - remember the line in it where she says she didn't know her sister and husband were dead until she was washing the blood off her hands. But basically I'm not into dressing up. Totally nervous about the whole thing, they are meant to be debauched over the top affairs up here. They are legendary. I was talking to an Irish girl yesterday who is in her second year, and I was saying how I know feel I've acclimatised, and she said she felt the same way about this time last year, then going to Halloween put her acclimatisation back a few months. She didn't go into details, she didn't want to scare me too much. The party is tomorrow night. So next time I blog I might be traumatised.

When I was staying at Alexis's in Hollywood I went to a diner for dinner and had eggs, bacon and pancakes. Once I had finished that lot (I was sitting by the counter by the way, as Alexis already had plans to go to her friend's grandma's birthday meal) I got up and picked up the menu to select an milkshake, and a girl had just walked in, and was expecting that I was going to hand her the menu. I didn't. But for about 30 seconds we stared into each other's faces. She was smaller than me, wearing a denim jacket, she was about a size 0 and looked like she needed a good meal. She had my hairstyle, and her hair was my hair's natural colour. It was Christina Ricci.