this is an incredible photo essay called "the julie project" that i happened upon through kottke.org; it is sad and powerful and beautiful and awful and i think everybody should see it. darcy padilla (the photographer) explains:

I first met Julie on February 28, 1993. Julie, 18, stood
in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel, barefoot, pants
unzipped, and an 8 day-old infant in her arms. She lived
in San Francisco’s SRO district, a neighborhood of soup
kitchens and cheap rooms. Her room was piled with clothes,
overfull ashtrays and trash. She lived with Jack, father
of her first baby Rachael, and who had given her AIDS.
She left him months later to stop using drugs.

Her first memory of her mother is getting drunk with her
at 6 and then being sexually abused by her stepfather.
She ran away at 14 and became drug addict at 15. Living in
alleys, crack dens, and bunked with more dirty old men
than she cared to count.

For the last 18 years I have photographed Julie Baird’s
complex story of multiple homes, AIDS, drug abuse,
abusive relationships, poverty, births, deaths, loss
and reunion. Following Julie from the backstreets of
San Francisco to the backwoods of Alaska.

Click the above photo for a link, or click here.

Happy Valentines Day, friends :)

this is tonya (on the right, with emily):



tonya is one of the research assistants i work with; she's super sweet and hilarious and adorable, and has been totally rocking these asymmetrical cloth flower necklaces in the past week that i have just loved. they reminded me of a necklace my sister-in-law anne:


(yup, i also stalked her facebook to find this adorbs picture of her with her husband/kurt's brother, craig. i feel ok admitting this because i think it's possible she'd be more proud of my internet stalking than weirded out by it...)

posted about in her blog a few months ago, that she actually won in a contest:



fast forward to me, last night, creepily stalking her blog and trying to find a link to this person's etsy store (found it!), and scouring etsy for necklaces. here are the ones i like:





this one is so romantic and pretty--although i have no idea what i'd ever wear it with!



this one is a little more "me;" i'm strongly considering ordering it...



i actually DID order this one. isn't it so pretty?



and um, maybe also this one. what? we just got our tax returns back and i think it was ok for me to buy myself a present or two :-p i really also love the one that anne has--and the ones tonya has been wearing--i think the cloth flowers are really cool and pretty.

anyway, that's what i've been doing for the last 12 hours or so! and, y'know, going out with friends from work and sleeping. happy weekend!

New desk! And a reserved chair.

This is what girls do to Jim. Particularly girls named "Cate."

Cakes from a decorating competition at Johnson and Wales...pretty incredible, no?