Jenna’s Neighborhood

if i could create a job out of these things, it'd be nice:
riding trains
riding in cars
walking in parks/forests/outside in general
buildings (cool architecture)
reading (especially stories)
watching TV & movies
seeing places & travel
picking apples/farms
meeting people
looking around the internet
knowing about good (well written/reported) news
plants
mountains
learning about stuff (history, technology, etc.)
making stuff - having a product/outcome
writing (sometimes)
coming up with new ideas

if i could work for/with any of these things, it'd be nice:

Bitch Magazine
Museum of Sex
Creative Commons
Young Chicago Authors
Free Press
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Milkweed Press
Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Public Knowledge
Organization of Transformative Works
GLAAD
WAM!
Sex 2.0
BlogHer

and lots of others.

this weekend i lectured high-school students on the internet age, pointing out to them that i had already visited several of their  blogs when our organization's name came up on our Google Alert because they had written about us. i am not so good at listening to my own dire warnings.

but if someone here is visiting from any of the above organizations due to google alert or the like, would you be interested in hiring a recent brown grad who graduated with honors in English literature and has worked at various nonprofits as an intern? if so, please do let me know. :)

deadwood is sad and so is life (some things are hard). i wonder if there was something psychological where in those times and places, parents just couldn't get as attached to children in certain ways, because it was more likely that they would die young? or maybe not. i should not try to armchair psychologize.

etsy is nice.:

red dress
pretty purse
short sleeved hoodie

i trekked to williamsburg today for the renegade craft fair. i had never been to the area before, so it was interesting. in order to get to williamsburg from flatbush, you have to go through manhattan. actually, there is probably another way via bus, but in order to reasonably do it by train, you have to leave brooklyn only to re-enter it further north. so i took the Q to union sq. and then switched to the L.

since i moved to brooklyn, and to new york more generally, i have been very aware of the idea of hipsters. it's a concept i only learned in the past few years, and had to have explained to me by more knowledgeable friends multiple times. but once i started reading about new york, and especially about brooklyn, it was everywhere. and so now i worry a lot about hipsters, noticing people i think might qualify, worrying that they will look at me and make fun of me and simultaneously being amused that there are actually young people who go around brooklyn in skinny black jeans, which seems to me just the height of the stereotype.

anyway, i think this event would probably be described as full of hipsters. i don't really mind this, since i'm still struggling to figure out the boundaries of all these categories, and how they hook in to class and profession and geography and how much they are about whether or not people are nice. i really enjoyed the craft fair, except that it got brutally hot. i ended up with a cute little bag for $5 and a neat wallet, also for $5, and ordered a tank top with a really beautiful design for $15. not bad, i think.

the little i saw of williamsburg fit with what i had heard - lots of luxury condo things being built or newly built, scattered among empty lots and old brick buildings. i enjoyed walking down bedford ave., with its old buildings and lots of bars and restaurants. less shops, trees, and children than park slope, with the dominant fashion aesthetic conforming to the picture in my mind of "hipster" or maybe just fashionable. i'mnot sure i can tell the difference.

i think i'm happy to be living in flatbush instead. my awesome apartment aside, i like the big houses and the calm atmosphere. there are a lot less bars and places to eat that i would hang out in, as there seem to be in williamsburg, but it generally feels more comfortable in certain ways (though i also continue to worry about my role as gentrifier, but i do so for the time being mostly without doing much about it). there is vox pop,  a couple blocks from the train station in the opposite direction from my house, and the farm next door to it. i haven't been to either yet, but i suspect i will once i have visitors or friends who come to this neighborhood.

anyway, not very insightful thoughts, just thought i would remark on some of my observations.

(also, i feel like my narrative style is a little confused right now, as i have a tendency to always pick up, to an extent, the rhythms of whatever author/narrator i am reading and i just finished a great feast of light and moved on to bastard out of carolina. i've been reading a lot, largely due to lack of homework, a certain lack of social activities, and, most of all, the train commute.)

some pictures of stuff (brooklyn, apartment, craft fair things):

headed to the museum mile fest today. it was cool to see but somewhat disappointing. i did make it in to the cooper hewitt design museum, which i have been to before and really like, and was reminded of how much i like art nouveau, or at least the kind they had displayed. feeling somewhat down, i felt that if i were a better/more interesting/more creative/gutsier person i would get an art nouveau inspired tattoo, probably on my arm, and die my hair red. also, i would get in shape via pilates, dance, and yoga, become extremely knowledgeable about art and history in general, especially this movement and its surrounding historical moment and about plants and herbs and gardening, learn to sew and make my own clothes and generally be more crafty. i also spent a little time at the met, but couldn't find the temple of dendur, which is what i really wanted to see, though i did like their exhibit of art from, i think, oceania? everything else was a little too crowded for me and i have to admit to wandering around being grumpy that i'm not more like willow and didn't have a tara like figure accompanying me.

Behrensbig

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If you don't have Venture Bros. shirts you'd better be walking around topless!

got GLSEN internship, yay!

to do:

-finish last college paper - today
-find housing in NYC - ASAP
-pack up & clean my room
-depending on housing situation, figure out storage

-have fun
-graduate!

fingers crossed for a couple of internships i'm supposed to hear about this week. seeing a room on friday for starting july 1. been networking some thanks to mom & dad, it's fun and makes me excited about moving to new york (just have to make things materialize). holding my breath right now a bit. OnCopyright on Thursday, should be very cool, I am very excited. i need to iron my nice clothes. anyway, fingers crossed!

i'm feeling down from not hearing from job people and because of my body...but spring is all around, and it's beautiful.

seems like a bunch of people on my fbook friends and their friends are going to graduate school. perhaps i will feel lonely with only a BA! but totally ok with it for now. thesis is due next thursday, going to cali for reunion this weekend, and still haven't gotten a job (my dad said don't worry about that, but it's hard not to). in the meantime, trying to write a conclusion for thesis and revise the third chapter, plus doing a group project for my open source culture class and trying to catch some pride month events (i am going to kate bornstein on thursday come hell or high water, but missing an amazing one right now on prison reform justice and will probably have to pass on the feminist porn lecture later - dammit!).

deep breaths.
off to do work.