Willo O'Brien

a great quote my friend Jenny (DJ ShOOey) forwarded to me this morning:

“We cannot discover new oceans until we have courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide

that was last week! wowie! I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday… sorry I haven’t updated in forever. Last week was pretty insane.. I don’t really know how it happened, but between MacWorld, and the pile of work and (exorbitant amount of) emails I was under, it was quite a whirlwind!

So, as to not blab on about the work stuff (besides to tell you that some really fantastic opportunities that have been coming my way), I will spill the fun stuff:

I have been busy going to shows (finally coming out of my hermit cave) and last week was CHOCK FULL!

First, Wednesday night Jem and I hit the Tsunami Benefit Show at 12 Galaxies w/ 12 bands: Call & Response, Jolie Holland, Loquat (who I love), The Herms, Mark Eitzel, Bart Davenport, the Bellyachers and more.. it was soo fun! Somehow I ended up closing down Doc’s Clock’s next door with a new friend. A wild, fun Wednesday night.

Then Thursday night, Jem & I hit Arcade Fire at GAMH – who I saw at BoTH in December, and they were JUST as amazing this time – if not more. They’re sooo good live!!

Friday night was a great lineup at Cafe Du Nord: Ex-Boyfriends, Oranger & The Thermals. ROCKIN – and what was really fun is I knew like almost 20 people there! Oh, and before hand I had drinks at the LAC with Omar*, Lyne, Jim and one of their friends. And then Taylor** & Heather showed up and we went for a yummy dinner at We Be Sushi!

* Check out Omar’s awesome illustrations: OmarLee.org – He’s published in Ready-Made this month, if you have a copy!

** Check out Taylor’s awesome Calder-esque mobiles and his 3D short film: taylor.mahony.org And for all of you who I went to HS with – Taylor is cousins with Molly Fletcher! wild, huh? :) Also his brother is in Hijack the Disco, who I saw play a couple months back and they’re excellent. Check em out!

Saturday I met up with THE Sarah Hatter and her friend Shannon and we had a tasty brunch at Grind in the lower-haight. Then we went shopping!! I never go shopping, and it was much needed. Total retail therapy! awww yaaa! :)

Then, I stayed home Saturday night to save myself up for Sunday night’s show: The Lovemakers and Gold Chains at The Hemlock! Which was sooo incredible, I danced my booooooty off!!! :) It was eeexcellent.

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So by Monday night I had finally caught up with all my emails and work from the previous week (phew!) and now wouldn’t ya know it, I feel like I’m coming down with a cold. I hate colds!!!! I have a big get together to hit Saturday night & I will be A#1BUMMED if I am not feelin good for it. COLDS ARE STUPID! I have been sooo healthy for so long, which I attribute a lot to not working in an office where there’s germs everywhere. So I can just imagine that going to all those shows (and my friend Misty was even sick who I chatted with on Friday night) that that may have done it. Well, and the final kicker being getting only like 6 hours of sleep on Monday night after staying up late and working.

I slept in a bit this morning, and since a few FT jobs have been offered to me here lately, I had all these dreams about how I *so* could not do a FT job right now. I love way too much that I #1. Can set my own schedule and work from 12-8 (or 12-12 as it often is) and #2. I don’t actually have to get up, shower and commute somewhere looking presentable :) haha.

Lucia was in my dreams a ton… she was at this job I got, but also was staying with me or something, so we both accidentally slept-in and then had to stress & get ready since it was already like 11:30am. Random things were in this dream, like Lucia and I had actually fallen asleep talking, and when I woke up I still had a wine glass in my hand and the light was on. haha! Another random thing was that the shower was like a room bigger than my kitchen. All tile and I was stoked they had Finesse. ha!!

Upon arriving at this new office, I was trying to pitch to the marketing team that we needed to print postcards to get the word out about the zoo (?)… and then there was this whole part about me wearing these fake boobs that felt and looked real, even though you could take them off and on. So it was like you could wear Carmen Electra’s boobs for the day. haha! But then they sorta didn’t look so good up close, so any time I showed anyone, I stood back far so all the edges would blend & they would look real. I know, weird. There was a bunch of stuff about parking, not getting tickets, and even one of the managers showing us the door to where the closest McDonalds was and asking us to pick him up something (when in fact we thought he was going to scold us for being late).

I saw my old friend Justyn (still in my dream), who lives in Nashville now & I miss dearly, and he had shoulder length bleach blond hair. Rick was around, and I wanted to go talk to him – but he was avoiding me as to not feel the pain. (sort of related to how he’s not been going to these shows I’ve been hitting lately, since he knows I’ll be there :( it’s just hard right now, I suppose).

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Alright, enough about my dreams – this week is awesome so far (minus the stupid possible cold onsetting), and I hope to update my show calendar ASAP! It’s horribly out of date – last week while going to those shows none of them where even on there yet! It’s bad – I gotta work on that.

One random thing I did was export a list of Artists/Albums on my HD. Check it out.

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Tonite is my BAMboozled meeting, and then Jem & I have tix to RTX at BoTH, but I’m so not into going, as it’s my #1 mission to kick this cold before it grabs hold… so I may just go and get her in – listen to a few songs & then leave to come home and SLEEP. Also on my agenda is drinking MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF WATER. I will. not. be. sick. dammit! Happy Hump Day everyone…

– lastnight I made cupcakes at 11:15pm. Part of my ‘healing process’ you know. Honestly I was bummed I didn’t have brownie mix… as there’s nothing like a spoonful of that chocolate uncooked goodness to heal a broken heart. My high school best friend, Kelli, and I used to eat it all the time. mmmm… brownie miiiiiiiix. BUT, I made cupcakes instead… and they turned out quite well for not having 1 of the 3 eggs, and having to use olive oil instead of veg. oil. I was worried, but they came out fine. Funny thing was – today when I went to have one there was a big chunk of egg shell in the middle of the one I bit into. Considering I only had 2 eggs in there, I think it’s safe to say I got the *one* that had any egg shells in it, but thank goodness it was me instead of my drum teacher who I just gave 2 to this morning. :)

– under “INTROSPECTIVE” in this post by mimi smartypants, she touches on some of the fears I have about how hard it would be to have children. I’ve been reading her blog a lot and really enjoy it… she’s funny. My friend, Lucia, turned me onto it, who’s blog I have also been keeping up with.

– this book looks fascinating. is this like “collective consciousness”?

– I don’t think I told you – but it was SO GREAT seeing my brother last Sat. night. Him and his girlfriend, Samara, where up here for the Fashion Mart show, showing his Om Gallery goods. We all had a few beers here & then went out to Emmy’s for dinner. I hit it off with the hott bartender girl and we all sat around drinking wine and enjoying the DJ. I heart Emmy’s!! Afterwards I wanted so bad to drag them out to a show. There were FOUR excellent shows and I’m sad to report I didn’t get to one of them. Max & Samara were wiped out from work that day and had to get up at 7am the next – so they prepared me it was going to be a low-key night for them from the start. I considered going to a show w/o them, but since my place is so small – I didn’t feel right stumbling in later… so we had a little mini after-party here and then went to bed. (they stayed on my new futon & said it’s comfy – woohoo!) The next day we all got up early and later on me & my friend Lyne went down to say hello and check out their booth. Max and Samara are the cutest, sweetest couple together and I am so happy for them. It was great to reconnect and I look forward to going down there or having them up here again soon.

I went to my *first ever* MacWorld Expo yesterday! :) I haven’t even hit my 1 year anniversary of having my titanium loverboy, but I’ve definitely turned into a fan of Apple products. Granted, I still remain somewhat level about the two, because PC’s are still fine machines that have a lot to offer in and of themselves, and I am now well aware they BOTH do their fare share of crashing (because they’re both computers after all, duh)! That said, I think I was meant to be a part of this community and am feeling quite at home surrounded by my new {equally as geeked on apple’s ingenious, beautiful technology} friends.

Yesterday, shortly after getting there, I ran into my friend Jeff Keller of DCResource (that I redesigned and it launched last year – however because I’m horribly behind on my website updates, you won’t find it in my portfolio yet… tsk tsk on me!). Then, moments after we parted, just before I was about to ring to ask “where are we meeting again?” I ran into the Google/Blogger boys: Eric, Jason, Biz and Jason. Which naturally happened effortlessly, because of the circadian rhythms (as Eric would say :p).

So we all met up with “the others” for a mass group-o-bloggers-lunch trek to Specialty’s Deli. Yummy sandwiches and even yummier cookies in hand, we marched over to Yerba Buena to eat, geek, and enjoy the spot of sun that chose to come out for the exact 30 minutes we were there. Yay!! There was some group shots taken by others with cameras (I didn’t have mine, as that was one of the things stolen recently *weeps*), but I no worries, as with this crowd there were at least 5 snapping away. It’s well documented w/o my help! huzzah!

I met a lot of new people I didn’t know – and some I only had known of.. and got to catch up w/ Mai (who I know through her being Chris W’s girlfriend) and talk music, which is of course – one of my favorite topics. :)

Update: Tons of photos on flickr of our blogger lunch. Tags: bloggerlunch, macworld and mwsf05. More to come as I find them posted…

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After lunch Eric, Ryan, Skylar and I all milled about the Expo, checking out all the booths. It was really nice to hang with these boys. I couldn’t help but feel such a mutual respect between all of us that was so refreshing… I can’t stand meeting people that are “too cool for school” – and all these guys are solid, sweethearts that I would totally set my sister up with (that is, if I had one around my age).

The expo is just a bunch of booths selling you stuff, but there definitely were some that peaked my interest. Namely: Alias Sketchbook & Corel Painter.. I’ve had Painter before on my PC, but Sketchbook looks similar and worth checking out. I got 30 day trials of both and am looking forward to playing. I want a BookEndz dock baaaad (however quarterly taxes, Apple Care and replacing my stolen items are #1 on my $$ list for now). The solar powered attachment by Solio looked cool… and I enjoyed walking through the digital art gallery.

Apple’s new iPod Shuffle doesn’t excite me too much. Well, OK maybe a little… I’d dig having the 1GB for the gym I suppose. It’s really small & light – and I figure, it probably couldn’t hurt to have something with me that only costs $100 vs. $500-$600. However, I’m quite excited to get the 60GB iPod Photo next. Bring on the GB’s of music, I say!! I was hoping they’d announce a 100GB iPod or something, but not yet! haha. They did however announce the SWEETEST little Mac Mini that I’m stoked about. This allows people who have always said mac’s are too expensive, to now get in on the fun! woohoo!

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Well, because Monday flew by and yesterday was a wash of mac/blogger/geekout I must get to work!!

Oh hey – tonite I’m hittin this Tsunami Relief show at 12 Galaxies that has an incredible line-up. Apparently it’s going to be really low key technically, and all the musicians will only play about 3 songs each – share instruments, go acoustic, etc. Should be great! However, if you go, show up early as I think it just might sell out. Hope to see you there!

Wow! A guy I grew up with in Steamboat, Andy Leroy, is on The Bachelorette tonite! Apparently* he gets the boot out in the first 10 (of 25 guys) tonite.. but still so cool he’s on! How fun! Go Andy!! xoxo

*I know this because Dawna D. emailed me to ask for his email – and I think I might have it around here somewhere..

oh baby, how cute are these little onesies!? I love the Drool onsie (using the class Doors’ logo), the Rockstar barcode, and the Nutrition Facts – so cute! (except I would up the % on my babies rock & roll attitude :p)

I’m finally letting go of my Nikon 5700 & Fisheye lense. Let me know if you’re interested.

Wednesday night after Bamboozled, I quickly headed over the bridge to meet some friends at the Parkway Theatre for a movie. Lucia (my devoted kitty sitter, and darling friend) arrived early to save us all some couches – but luckily Sabra (roommate from 6 years ago!) and her friend had arrived seconds earlier and scored us 2. woohoo!

We saw Kinsey, and it was GREAT!!! I whole heartedly admire Kinsey’s mission to explore and uncover the TRUTH of sexual activity among humans. It is such an amazing science experiment really! And watching his brave fight against the elite and upper echelon of society, who are just plain out embarrassed and too afraid to take a stand for such thorough education and communication on such a daring subject.

The movie sheds a light on just how in the dark people were a mere 50 years ago, and although we’ve certainly come a long way – just how amazing it is that where we are now isn’t much further along at all. At first you think, “Well, there are strip clubs and porn everywhere – and openly gay actors and relationships portrayed in theatre, movies and reality TV – so that must mean we’ve come a long way!” But then the reality sets in… and you look at the fact that there are not only people who refuse to recognize homosexual relationships as ‘valid’, but that our damned government actually FEDERALLY FUNDS ABSTINENCE ONLY SEX EDUCATION! Like it’s the f*ing 1940’s for christ sake!!!

Anyway, I think it’s progress that a movie like this is out, shining a light on how ridiculous it is to think that not talking about sex at all is somehow going to help youth not be promiscuous or save us from chaos uprooting on our streets. Education is KEY and this movie is funny, heartwarming and beautifully freeing in terms of breaking the societal chains that bind us to what is right and wrong about our own sexual desires. I highly recommend it.

p.s. The movie is based on a true story. Visit The Kinsey Institute online!

hey… look who’s at the top of this list:

…Google.com/Top/Arts/Illustration/Cartoons/Portfolios/

wierd!

wishing:

– breaking up wasn’t so hard

– it wasn’t so cold in my place

– i had a million dollars (or maybe just an extra $500)

loving:

– working out (and my workout buddy, becca)

– my pink paper plates

– my fuzzy snuggly kitty

– that i can be here to help friends when they need me

hating:

– people who are assholes

– thieves

– feeling so lost without my lover and best friend

– transition

wasting time on:

– surfing myspace profiles

– thinking too much

– trying to hook up my new scanner

working on:

– a custom illustration/business card

– another business card (simple, quick)

– mix cd’s for friends

– redesigning my site

– crafty projects (glass etching, button making)

looking forward to:

– this deep down sadness going away

– hanging out with some girlfriends for a movie tonite (after BAM)

– crafting with my huffing/showgoing girlfriends tomorrow night

– seeing my brother this weekend

– a warm, sunny day