seriously. another year gone by.

to a new year, ladies.

i left my journal in florida with my grandparents. it has my vaguely outlined new years resolutions written down in it. if my head wasn't attached, i'd set it down somewhere and walk away.

so, off the top of my head, here's what i remember of said resolutions:

1. drop 30 lbs. i know--typical girl move. fail.
2. handle my shit. by "shit," i mean emotional baggage. i'd like to be in a position where i could handle a relationship healthily if one landed in my lap.
3. something regarding galleries or publication with my photography, but i lacked the forethought to actually make a plan/decision.
4. writing more would be nice too, but i don't know if i really want to try and make myself that promise, too.

anyway, cheers. see you on the flipside, and i can't wait.

in short.

vacay has been interesting.

key words: north carolina, rock band, ass, titties, bloody mary, puppies, slutty moms, road trips, florida, orlando, olds, miami, taylor swift, TROUBLE, makeoutz, tattoos, dirt bikes.

pictures:


dis the band, ass & titties.

this the shitty band that played the living room on christmas eve.


this me dirt biking.

this how i look and feel about it.

oh, and new tattoo.


more later.

i am officially a rockstar.

i got my brothers rock band 2 for christmas. since none of us are really into it, mom was cool with me giving it to them early. we started a band called ass & titties, because tom's ass is always hangin' out and so are my boobs. zach is the lead singer, i am the drummer, and tom plays guitar. coming soon to a venue near you.

my entire life, it hurts

let's do some math:

1 crazy weekend
3 nights since i've slept in my own bed
2 days wearing the same clothes
3 days hungover
1 ugly boy i done made out with
1 hot body contest loss
1 new buttsex mug
1 night of memories completely lost due to blackout
1 stick portrait
2 amazing love letters:

fearlessness.

when i interviewed amanda palmer last month (an interview you may never see, as this winter has brought on a major bout of HIBERNATION!), the last question i asked her was this: what is your biggest fear?

her answer? fear.

"my biggest fear is fear," she said.

mine too. the fucked up thing is that i'm afraid of EVERYTHING. i'm only partially the girl i want to be and i'm terrified of making these big changes, taking giant steps because this little bubble i live in is so, so thin and i'm afraid of popping it. seriously. in my head, i know that i could be so much better, but i am just TERRIFIED. not that i'll fall flat on my face, either. i just know that the things i want to do require fortitude (of the testicular variety) that i'm not sure i have.

yeah, maybe i should work on that.

non-sequiter

1. odd habit: when i'm listening to music, i'm usually breaking it down in my head, noting time signatures and changes. if i'm really into it and spacing out, you might even catch me conducting a la band camp funtime.

2. yesterday, i went to get a manicure. that bitch CUT OFF MY NAILS. i am so crabby about that. i mean, they'll grow back and all, but still. boo.

3. still working on new year's resolutions. need to keep the list short and realistic. thinking on it all, though. deciding what's important, culling.

4. i'm sure it's obvious that i haven't been taking many pictures lately, but i have been playing around a bit with my new phone and the camera on it. getting some interesting shots of my body (WARNING: some nudity involved, but nothing scandalous. i don't even know why i feel the need to throw in a disclaimer, since everyone and their mother (including my own, dammit) has seen me naked on the internet) and light/shadowplay. also, i look really adorable this morning, i think, and without makeup, too! my skin looks amazing since i decided i'd handle that shit, so there are also some pictures of my mug circa 8am. check it:




this is the best shot i've gotten of this tattoo to date. i wish i wouldn't have decided to go so small with this one.

brotherly love.

have i mentioned that i really enjoy philadelphia? i have such a fun group of friends there. they're all smart and artsy and like snuggles, too. oh, and they love brunch.


michelle & lauren

a bloody mary to-go. note: illegal.

"road soda," as patrick likes to call it.

i'm so glad i finally got to bathe. i was lookin' a mess.

a question for which i sought an answer:

so, the other day i decided to ask a Very Important Question on one of the social networking sites on which i probably waste too much time. it was thus:

Q: does the fact that most of my friends are hipsters make ME a hipster?
tagged: srs_bznss

Replies:

onegirlrhumba said, (1 day ago)
if i have to be a hipster, so do you.

douchecanoe! (this is me) said, (1 day ago)
BAHAHAHA. this does not answer my question!

onegirlrhumba said, (1 day ago)
IT DOES. I DEEM YOU A HIPSTER, SUCKAHHHH.

Stark Raving Brad said, (1 day ago)
not in and of itself. nonetheless, you are a hipster. the first step is acceptance.

Sosane said, (1 day ago)
If you accept that you're a hipster, then you're not a hipster, are you?

cheap shot said, (1 day ago)
If you seek out potential friends solely for their hipsterness, maybe? Or perhaps that only makes you a hipsterphile.

0scroogemacDUCK!!0 said, (1 day ago)
. . .not unless your being friends with them is ironic

Salomea said, (24 hours ago)
Yup. You are a lesbian tattooed band photographer, you are a hipster anyway. :-)


DING DING DING, AND I BELIEVE WE HAVE A WINNER.

shit.

a cosmic joke

remember how i wrote about my two new year's resolutions for 2008 just yesterday?

well, the universe seems to think it funny to fuck with me, because at about 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, i received a text from kat after EIGHT MONTHS of radio silence. it was totally inane and about her car (i'm guessing she got into an accident. again.), but the point is that it even happened. unless maybe she's reading one of the sites where my blog is mirrored and decided it would be a good time to fuck with me, but i'm thinking that's unlikely. who knows?

point is:

dear kat libby,

please pretend i'm dead and that it is impossible to communicate with me unless you intend to pay me back for all of the debt you put me in. in that case, you know who to make checks payable to. also, fuck off and die.


love,
des!

seven pages itineraries, memories thick as bloody marys

the year's coming to a close. for a lot of my friends, it's been a bad year. i remember, at brunch in philly recently, i toasted to 2009. looking back on 2008, though, it hasn't been a bad year for me, really.

my dad died. that was the toughest part. it was hard to try and handle the relationship we had and how it affected me, in addition to trying to rekindle (or at least be gracious about) a relationship with his side of the family, albeit briefly. it was hard to sign away his body, to read the autopsy report, to hold that heavy bronze box with what was left of him in it. it was hard to have that much control when i didn't want it.

that aside, this has been an amazing year for me. one day, i up and decided that i was going to be a concert photographer, and i succeeded. i'm affiliated with 3 of the 4 top music blogs in nyc. i've shot, met, interviewed several of my personal musical heroes (amanda palmer, melora creager, regina spektor). i've been published extensively on the net. i've traveled to do this. if there were ever a time when i believed i could do anything i set my mind to doing, this is it. i know that if i keep going, the sky's the limit. i even got my first print publication this month (skyscraper magazine).

the only real downside has been the occasionally crippling bouts of loneliness. while i have become so much more independent than i ever could have imagined years back, it stands to reason that i'd prefer to be part of a pair. it occurred to me several weeks ago, however, that the only reason i have yet to meet someone is that i'm standing in my own way. i've got some things to figure out, and i'm synthesizing all of this new information. it could take some time, but at least now i understand.

anyway, back to more positive things: i fulfilled both of my new year's resolutions, which were thus:
1. stop talking to evil ex-girlfriend. fulfilled circa april.
2. stop biting fingernails. finally nipped that one in the bud last month or so.

i've been thinking about resolutions for this year. i want to keep them few and realistic. so far, i've got:
1. lose 30 lbs (basically, i want to get back to where i was when i lived in texas, but i want to attain the goal in a healthy fashion, as opposed to, you know, not eating because i'm suicidal).
2. i'd like to have a gallery show.


i think it's going to be a good year.

happy happy, tra la la

on friday, mitch and quinn had a christmas party. it was ridiculous. and amazing. here are some pictures. all with me in them, of course. i commandeered ash's point-and-shoot for most of the evening and it humbled me. i can work a dSLR, but not a freaking p&s. FAIL!


a shit-eating grin, and something else quite different.


quinn and i are really good at making horrible faces.


ash and i continue to be really good at making horrible faces. i think our goal here was "pensive," however.


i think we were singing.

my new favorite self-portrait. i enjoy making stupid unattractive faces.

me, ash, & joey, whom i hadn't seen in fuck forever.

this just looks so bad.

seth is giving me a massage, but it really looks like he's hittin' me with the cruciatus curse or something. oh my god, did i just make that nerdy joke?

also, mitch and i got facebook married, so we decided to take some christmas flavored wedding photos.



and here's what i look like when it's cold out: ridiculous.

i've got nothin' to do today but smile

hello. i went to florida for a week. there was no internet there. get your shocked faces because i survived without it.

what a crazy vacation.

it all began innocently enough. my grandparents set me up with a weeks' worth of bloody mary supplies. i started in on them immediately. memaw and i got drunk and watched tv while we waited for my mom and brothers to show, but ended up passing out.

the entire family came for thanksgiving. that's never happened before. it was nice. especially given the large number of loud and distinctive personalities involved. is that a kennedy thing? here are pictures.


cody & zach playing xbox


check out my chinzzz

mom & hughie

poppy being all domestic and shit.

this is how tommy woos the ladies.

mom make a silly face.

john in his natural habitat.

hughie.

boys drinking. age appropriately.

ball boys.

cliff. he and i are the oldest of all the grandchildren. and have the weirdest names.

john, alejandra, and daniella on the 4-wheeler.

daniella & tom. i like how all the parentals are mixed up so you can't tell which kid belongs to who.

i love cody's face in this.

he is a macho man.

ted.

tommy's taller than i am now.


kids eating.

at some point, my camera was taken from me by two children. here are some of their pictures.

memaw is clearly protesting.

extreme closeup of poppy.

mom, why is my brother prettier than me?

daniella & cody

nicole.

carolyn & ted. this is before i told ted to tuck his chins in.

me & tomtom.

then we did family portraits. these are the first ever and they're amazing.


memaw's face is perfect.

this is more like us.

the next day started out normal enough. everyone came over again for leftovers. john & cliff had been out drinking all day and came home just as we finished dinner for a pit stop. they wrangled me and tom.

we went to a dive bar named gwen's. the boys were drinking beer. i was drinking vodka. everytime my glass was empty, it was refilled. a girl came around with two dollar jello shots. i spent $40 on those. cliff spent $60. cliff & took over the jukebox. i know we're related because all we played was country music from 20 years ago. oh, and cher. my uncles thought the shooter girl was hot and got a little jealous when i got her number. i talked to tom about a lot of things for a long time. it was nice to reconnect with him. we've always understood each other, even though we talk so rarely. i got a boy's number.

then the night starts to get fuzzy. i know i fell. outside. flat on my back. i hit my head so hard that i still have a lump and it's been almost a week. my black glasses flew off my head and i never found them. my camera took that dive with me. i thought it was broken, but it's not. well, the lens is. that's replaced easily enough. new rule: no more drunken photography. tom says we got kicked out of denny's later. cliff says we didn't. they brought the bartender home? she totally did the walk of shame in the morning, even though i'm pretty sure she didn't have anything to feel shamefully about.

i woke up just before that happened with a pounding head and relocated to the couch so i could listen to tom and cliff's respective retellings of the evening. that was about the time that my mom put me in the car with the boys and told me we were going to the keys. pjs, hangover, and all. sometimes brothers make good pillows.



it just so happens that my heterosexual and very engaged internet girlfriend was in the keys, too! she came over. we hung out with the fam.




then she remembered that another friend from high school, ash, had recently moved to the keys. so we called her. we went to her house, sat on the floor with her and the most adorable dog in the entire world, talked. there were boys milling about. we went outside to have drinks. the decision was made that we would take a trip to woodie's, the strip club in islamorada. it was ash's birthday, after all. seven of us piled into a car, which was fine because katie sat on my lap and i'm totally down with that. those women were terrifying. one of them even had a botched boob job.

katie couldn't go to the bathroom alone, so ash and i went with her. that was when i realized that i had 9 missed calls and my phone (actually, my grandfather's phone because mine was dead) was ringing. it was my mom, calling to inform me that the place we were staying at closes the gates at 11 (it was after 11) and she wanted to know how i was getting in. we went back and forth a bit, and i wasn't sure exactly what she wanted, but i told her i'd be there when she woke up in the morning.

when katie drove me over there later, we understood immediately what my mom was talking about. locked gate, barbed wire, etc. with katie's help, i went under that bitch, on my back like a ninja. a slutty one. the chain link fence totally got stuck on my boob at some point, too.

these things can only happen to me.

the rest of the trip was tame. the olds took me to the olive garden for dinner my last night. i watched a lot of sex and the city. i drank a lot of bloody marys. you know how it do.