Orange and Green.

Even as I traveled there,
I wondered how I was going to get home and in what state.
The vodka mixer I drank was not sitting well in my stomic and
exhaustion was already beginning to over take my body.

Long walks across the dark streets of chicago.
Streets lined with orange hued lights. I always some how felt
more comfortable walking while holding a leaf in my hand.
I make my way to his place. There's a party there.
One which I'm not at all sure how I'll (re)act.
Awkward asshole; I call myself.

My head spins a bit. I travel on.
I cross the street and think of how my father
said I make him nervous when I cross streets here.
I never worry. The 16th block comes up.
Already I see young people pouring from the building;
CPD has broken up the party. It's the que that my night is over.
I've not the energy to stick around.

Quiet; I begin to walk back.
Trees rustle, orange street lights cast their
soft shadows. From my lips comes the words of
folk songs; I'm apt to sing to myself while walking if no one is around.
It's during these times when I allow that childhood memory of
singing in a band rise again.
Ahead of me two guys and a girl stand in the street with bikes.
"I love my bike!" she yells to the guys clearly drunk.
Embarrassed, my singing ceases and I walk on.
It's all I can do not to stop and rest. I know I'll run the
risk of falling asleep if I do so.

Thus, I happened upon the longest
journey of my life.






















though I say it all
rather loosely.

Self Loathing and all that Shit.

I'm no longer sure what to do with myself.
As i made my way across the city and back to
Wicker Park, I came to the conclusion that I am a coward.

I am a coward because I although
I finally got up the nerve to tell him,
I couldn't find it in me to stick around.
I am a coward because I can never bring myself
to admit to guys that I like them.
I am a coward because what should've been said two years
ago, never was, and I'm sure now I've ruined my chances.
I am a coward because I no longer would even know
what to do with myself should I get in a relationship.

I have a sinking feeling that whatever
self assured mentalities and character traits I now have were
all just self justified excuses to allow myself to become a coward.


Never the less,
I'm now an idiot.
I am an idiot because I drank
too much vodka (for me) and then decided
to travel across the city too late at night.
I'm an idiot because after I got home (though gillian
didn't think it was possible), in my drunken state I completely
lost my keys. There is now a now a hole in my memory as to where
I put them. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do.

Gap

It was mid November and I had been working at Gap for a few weeks. Being that it was just before the whole “Thanksgiving/Christmas shopping fiasco,” they had all five hundred employees working to unpack the stock whenever there was a spare moment.
I had just gotten to work and seeing that the Body floor was pretty dead, my manager Lucy assigned me to unpacking stock along with a girl named Samantha. I was feeling fairly confident since I’d done this the day before. All around us, people were hacking away thin white strips of plastic that kept the boxes closed, removing clothing from the boxes, and staking them into semi neat piles. Seeing us, one of the stockroom guys turned to us. In his hand he held a box cutter. Looking at it I could tell that it was dull, but the guy handed it off to me anyway and took his leave.
I began the long process of unpacking. Since the blade was dull, I had to come up with my own method of cutting through the plastic strips. I stabbed the middle of the strip, cut right, and then cut left. I was on my forth box when I came across a plastic strip that was even more adverse to the blade than the rest. Further action had to be taken. With my left hand now holding the stubborn plastic strip down, I began my method. Stab the middle, cut right, cut lef-… the box cutter slipped from my had and had pierced an artery in my left arm.
Blood came squirting out like a fountain. My immediate thoughts were: “Wow, I can’t believe I just did that!” and “I guess Quentin Terintino wasn’t over exzadurating with the blood.”
Immediately I grabbed and applied pressure to my forearm where I’d cut myself. Blood seeped through my fingers and onto the floor. I ran to Lucy and said, “Lucy! I’ve been stabbed!” As she looked at the trail of blood I’d left in my wake, she turned pale. Apparently blood wasn’t her thing. She began to look sick.
Either out of concern or simply to remove the sickening sight of me bent over holding my bleeding arm; she ordered me to the bathroom to wash my wound. Two steps in, the bright florescent lights flip on and the door slams behind me, and locks.
My mother had taught my brother and I at a very early age some of the finer points on what to do should you hurt yourself… among those: don’t put ice on a burn (you’ll only make it worse), apply heat to stiff or soar joints/muscles, cold to swollen and/or bruised muscles, and apply pressure to bleeding wounds. Armed with this knowledge, there was no way in hell I was going to remove my hand from my arm while it was still gushing blood.
I did the only thing I could; I stood there listening to my boss and coworkers as they ran around freaking out and yelling advice from the other side of the door. My head began to feel light and the edges of my vision began to turn black.
It was at that moment I began to contemplate death; more precisely my death. Although I had never imagined or wanted to die in the Gap, the overall idea didn’t seem too be frightening. In fact, to slip into that ever-increasing black void seemed more and more comforting as the minutes wore on.
It was then that Lucy burst through the door. She grabbed me and sat me down in a blue plastic chair. The EMT’s they promised were coming. There were two of them. They were both middle aged, over weight and balding. They weaved their way between the mannequin parts and boxes. There were no introductions. Without missing a beat they said, ”So I heard you’ve got a Gap in your arm.” They laughed at their “clever” joke, but although I smiled and laughed with them, I couldn’t help but thinking “Nice guys, how long did it take you to think that one up?” “Oh, hah, yep,” I said aloud instead.
In the end, the wound that made pools the size of Lake Michigan, ended up being an inch long, and a quarter of an inch deep. Thanks to that slit in my skin, I received my first stitches of my life that night.




that paper went over alot better than I though it would.

Subway circa 2009

CTA signs litter the platform at intervals;
once painted white, are now a dirty beige.
Water steadily drips from the man made ceiling
which florescent lights cast shadows.
A platform made of red dyed cement,
it too is dirty with the dust from the feet of travelers.

the train comes.

In the train car,
the ride is bumpy though we travel at 15 miles per hour.
A man confused, asks for directions to Millennium Park Station.
Preoccupied with their own lives, the faces of the passengers seem saddened.
Outside the windows, the only view is walls of the underground.
Reflections of the car inside is the only real view you'll get.

What I Dig About My Apt. Thus Far.

I like that I can sit on my porch.
That everyone is just a little bit closer
and that we can do some ‘growing up’ together.
I like that I can hear birds, see squirrels and chipmunks.
That I can hear people working on their lawns… or whatever they
want to call them.
I like Jewl Osco’s wall on Paulina
and the way it changes during the day. I like
our potted plants and the cut throughs between friends’ places.
I like manikin legs diving through chairs… or what we call our
“Instillation piece”; and that when the wind blows through them,
the trees sound like water flowing through a stream.

My Summer Thus Far

Wake up at 7:08 every morning.
I immediately go to the kitchen to make
a fresh cup of coffee and eat a bagel with cream cheese.
I then proceed to sit in bed while editing the manifest photos
Until I feel good and ready to head out to the porch.
When I do, I sit out t(here) for several hours with my laptop
Stealing wifi when I can. In order to feel productive,
I quietly do chores around the “house”.

When everyone finally wakes up
I head indoors to sit in the living room.
And I eat lunch.
From there, my day begins.
Everything before that is only pre-game.










found a way to tame my hair.. thus, my new summer hair. cuz i'm lazy.

photo[grapher] of the Day. 05.13.09

Levi Wedel


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he also has a blog.