It's a bit insane the things I've managed to keep a hold of after 6 years of moving all around- and even a bit more strange the things that end up together that are from different alyssa eras. A lot of stuff has been popping up from the Full Sail era lately as I've been on a tangent search for these photobooth strips I had taken with various people in Florida...
I haven't found them...
But I know they are in an envelope SOMEWHERE!
Luckily I found a cool mix cd a really swell friend made... and some awesome party fliers... some special notes AND some SEXY BOYZ pins that never made it to their destination...
It's really hard to let go of such good times, and I think that's why I'm such a freaky pack-rat. All these little scraps of paper are more powerful than memories to me. When I see them- I'm transported to another time...and the air is super heavy, and there are palm trees and broken sprinklers spewing out over endless parking lots...and I am underage, and literally, truely... carefree.
It's so good- it's a movie.

It looks like winter outside right now...
Somthing about the sky and it's tone tells me snow isn't too far away.
I'm stalling at the computer before I face the chill- looking at the sky and thinking about being snowed in on what street was it??? east 79th or something? with my pals Mere and Justin G...booty shakin' in our socks to the snow and lil'kim.
It was one of the worst snow storms I have been in, ever- but also one of the best.
The subway tunnels were drifted shut that morning.
...I walked to work later that day in my split converse all-stars.
snow thigh deep...
new york city baby.
That's the kind of up hill both ways story you tell your kids.

there was once a house that someone built for something good...
now it is just a chimney




some warped glass that blasted out of the windows and melted together


.bales of hay.

This weekend I was able to snag ride to the Rochester Cemetary near the Cedar River/Rochester, Iowa area. I didn't really know what to expect, but the reason I wanted to go was to see one of Iowa's last remaining natural prairie spaces. Less than 1/10th of 1% of the actuall natural prairie of the state of Iowa exists today. Iowa used to be a sea of swaying grasses, flowers and shrubs and was an extensively dense habitat for a plethora of birds and animals.
Now- Iowa is a sea of corn and soybean fields- most corn is used to feed livestock. A lot of it gets turned into precious corn syrup too.
There's big push locally for ethanol of course- but that's always been around here as far as I can remember...and I was at Wal-Mart the other day and actually saw "local" plastic-y hangers made from corn too. I'm down with that.

Anyway...

There has been a lot of controversy over this cemetery in recent months because people are actually still being burried here- and with burried dead comes living concerns of how the heck are we going to mourn with all these weeeeeeeds around. There has been protests from the naturalists and ecologists to keep the area in tact- but more vocalization from the people burrying the dead...and so it goes, the spot was pretty mowed off when I got there.


















Massive Oak trees shroud the disorderly grave markers


















The oldest grave I could find had someone under it that had been born in 1771...


















I liked the way these had appeared to turn BLACK!


















A little Praying Mantis flew near to take a break and well... pray, right!?
This one totally knew I was taking its picture and proceded to creep behind the grave and stick its head out at me to stare... NO STARRERRING!























Which way is UP?


















This was a really cool visit, and though I would have liked to see more natural habitat- it is a very interesting place to check out. All weird and sprawling and old... a classic creepy cemetery.

october is the best month...
best weather, best colors, best air.












the sky is so pure and blue! (just ignore the power lines!)















Iowa City Modern...












Asian Market down the street from me=sauce heaven












something about this market is very comforting. small, saturated, colorful, smiling faces, old grandma in an apron sitting and chatting swiftly with delicate patrons.
...it reminds me A LOT of Tomato Company Inc. near Atlanta as it has just about any candy, snack, tea, veggie, noodle, bean, seafood critter, and condiment you could imagine, plus an Asian bootleg video rental section. This place even has the vcr set-up exposed...I didn't get a photo b/c it was right behind the checkout and I didn't want to seem invasive- but I quickly counted at least 12 vcr's and maybe 4 dvd players all hooked up in some sort of bizzare synchronicity.












has this been in Vice before???












The Iowa City public library is right behind my place.
...just a view from outside the window I was studying near today...

I awoke from a regular nights sleep to find that fall had appeared.
...and the trees were set ablaze to shed their cinders through the air!
but I ask-
where did the locusts go?
where were they ever?
even the crickets have started to cease.
and the world is drying up wherever you turn.
the fields that were once strikingly green-
are stark and brown today.
the sumac that was once vividly blood red-
is a deeper, more dense mahogany, almost black.
but oh! there is so much life in even what is dying.
for the ditches are rampant with that which is wild-
and the color rages on until it’s frozen in time.