Green to LA

The house I am living in this summer is one of artistic expression. When I first talked to Gilli, she described the place as being artsy. I walk in and there are oil paintings everywhere. They reside on every wall from the entryway to the kitchen. They are full of color and life, and tell me that there is no way to live here and not feel artistically inclined. However, I feel that I have to fill expectations created over the phone.

To this point, I have not yet met Gilli. I've met Jennifer, who's room I am occupying over the two and a half months. I have also met Karen, another housemate and Jennifer's business partner. I briefly met Stacy, with whom I share a bathroom with but she has been in and out yesterday evening and today.

Oh, and this house is very green.

I love the fact that the word green has so many meanings that I have to clarify. This is house is not painted green, this house is not new and fresh... we're one household of greenopia. I must learn energy-conscious habits (which this computer obviously does not fulfill). Natural light as much as possible, as little water as possible, etc. I will be a pro when I get back to Tucson!

However, we do have a pool and a very green (yes, the color) lawn... small, but green lawn. The green all around the neighborhood is a nice change, but really isn't it such a waste? In that sense, I do prefer being brown. Exercising habits that I speak of. And I have such a head ache and I don't know if it is the shit in the air, how I slept last night, or just the stress of interning with a woman I've yet to meet.

I'm almost convinced that it is the air. Jen told me last night to wash off any ice cubes I get out of the fridge because they have “flakes of carbon” on them. That immediately took me back to o-chem where I drew carbon-based molecules for an education. Thanks goodness molecules were not the fire in my belly.

Green.

Daren spoke about watching the Limey at the end of last summer. For whatever reason, I could not remember the title and a week later, I asked him about watching that film. He couldn't recall which film he had been talking about so I described the only thing about the title that I could remember – a lime green rectangle with curved edges. Of course he and Joe gave me the most confused looks as I tried to recall why I remembered the title as this image. And this happens quite often to me, where words and sounds leave basic shapes and colors in my brain, and when I try to recall the word or sound, this image also comes to mind. It really is such a bizarre interaction between the senses, because I hope to have better ears than anything else... but then why are all these visual images attached by my brain to sounds. Like cymbal swells are sideways equilateral triangles, usually black or yellow. The clicking my bike as I coast sits in my brain as a bunch of parentheses )))))))) where the color depends on the surfaces the sound bounces off of.