Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

This movie shot Wes Anderson back up into my top five favorite directors. I loved it so much that I watched it 2 and 1/2 times before sending it back to Netflix, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. This film does what films can rarely successfully accomplish - go above and beyond the original book/story (in my opinion). The film elaborated more on the story by Roald Dahl a bit but stayed faithful to the original tone while injecting it with that amazing Wes Anderson style, flavor, humor and aesthetic. I could go on and on but I'll stop now and just say if you haven't seen Fantastic Mr. Fox, and are a die hard fan of Roald Dahl or Wes Anderson, WATCH this film NOW.

yellow

May has been a strange month in terms of weather. Windy over the weekend then mildly warm, dreary then too warm all of a sudden. However the flowers in our yard benefitted from all the rain from a few weeks ago so the garden has never looked better. So no complaints there.

I'm itching to travel, but with a strict self-imposed no spending rule for this summer this won't be happening! Instead I'm living vicariously through others, which I am used to. I haven't ridden my bike in a number of days out of sheer laziness and due to my duties of caring for a friend's cat for a week. Other than that I have been spending lots of quality time with my sister and even my mom, carrying out some creative endeavors, and eating lots of fruit.

Y's room

Part-time personality; self-explanatory; hand-painted tees from high school; black, white, grey, red - essentials; glow-in-the-dark; wolf tail + thrifted leather rucksack atop sarape-covered bed; legit street artists; accompanying equipment & reads; charms, keys, and chains; makeup tools - because your face is a canvas, too; hand-glazed light switch plate, to makes things go.

lists

A mish-mashed cloud of words I typed up while listening to my mom and sister talk for two minutes, so that I could have something to print out to test the wireless printer.

My room inhales dirty and exhales clean. Lately my only vices are chocolate and White Russians. And berries. I have hangnails, scratches and callouses that make me want to gnaw all of them off. Inadvertently found out some things on my lunch break, though that's a game I really do not want to play. As we were closing tonight, the owner of the Italian place on our block brought us pizza so we chowed on pepperoni & jalapeño pizza before restocking. There must have been something in those pizzas because we were all going wild towards the end of the night. One of my bosses got a flame-colored succulent and I want one now, too. My toes and foot bones are in a constant state of cracking - two days off in a row might be a good thing!

things I like of late

1. Maps. Specifically of Los Angeles/California. I went out and bought two from the drugstore and when my mom noticed them she procured several other thoroughly pored-over ones - old and with disintegrating folds. I'm obsessed. If I had more I would wrap my room in maps.
2. Changing light bulbs. Two in our house went out. There is nothing as simple as changing a lightbulb, that in turn makes such a huge difference in if it were to go unchanged. Well that's an exaggeration, but a few minutes of unscrewing/cleaning and replacing a fixture and gaining more light practically makes you god. POWER. but seriously max capacity light > half to zero capacity.
3. Tips in the form of chocolate.

Unfortunately, keeping up with this blog keeps me on my toes. Why? It's a self-preservation thing. I've become so dependent and intertwined with technology that the only validation of my being exists in the words and pictures I post. If I don't put myself out there I'll disappear. For every post I make from now on I will delete two old ones from the beginning of this thing. When I arrive at zero, I will stop.

simmering down

After some graduation madness on Friday, i.e. trying to be at the Marshall, Viterbi, and architecture ceremonies all within the span of 2 or so hours, I found myself stranded outside of campus & unsure of where to go. My mom had taken the car back already and my boyfriend was busy at an audition he'd left for right after his graduation, so I went to hang out at Andrew's. The house felt weird with it nearing emptiness, since it has been a familiar place to frequent for the last 2 years. Anyway, since it had been a stressful morning, I borrowed a more comfortable shirt from Andrew, poured myself a white Russian, listened to observed the 'smallest violin quartet in the world', and chatted with Andrew as he made himself some spaghetti.

GIANT kiss

Why did I consume this all over the course of the day yesterday? An intense craving for chocolate, a slight need of a pick-me-up and intense boredom. Ugh, horrible. I'm off to bike it off now.

pizza time

My sister has been on a pizza obsession for the past week (?). Yesterday she made pizza dough that wouldn't rise (dead yeast probably) but decided to try to make something of it anyway, and still ended up with cute and amazing little pizzas, but just with a... denser moist chewy crust as there hadn't been enough chemical reactions to make it rise. STILL delicious though. I love how much more special food is when it is made from scratch and from the heart. Tonight my sister made me a barbecue chicken pizza (with mushrooms too!) and a Hawaiian pizza after she picked me and my bike up from work... and of course I gobbled those suckers up. Thank you sister! You are amazing ♥.

beach BBQ

A few of my friends threw a beach party/BBQ on Tuesday, but the beach was much windier than usual so the party got moved to their house near campus instead. We tossed footballs/softballs/kicked soccer balls, grilled hotdogs/chicken fajitas/veggies and warmed up some spicy chicken nuggets from Denny's (see first photo), drank some good cerveza and feasted on brownies, etc. And took turns lazing around on an amazing hammock one of the housemates rigged up on the porch.

Tomorrow many of my best friends and boyfriend graduate...! I have to get up early tomorrow but I'm not tired, damn. I just had some amazing mini pizzas my sister whipped up for me after work, and even after ending at 11 I'm usually never tired until a few hours after. But I got my paycheck today, YES. Happy dances all around.

send me artichokes

I have been obsessed with artichokes for 3 months or so now.

my friends in their rooms

Sometimes inspiration strikes, and even if it's really late at night and you have work the next day, you have to utilize it. I have more of these in mind, but many of my other friends' rooms are... in transit, for lack of a better term. These are rather clumsy, but it feels good to draw. Catharsis/expression!

wanting...

This looks and feels like summer and I want some! Must-have: barbecues & bike rides, general frolicking and adventures. Freedom, knowledge & awakening, and a readiness for anything.

tried & true

1. Spending an afternoon/evening in an armchair reading a good book is #1 of my top 5 ways to relax.
2. The Big Lebowski gets better and better as I re-watch it. Seriously.

Knife in the Water (1962)

Roman Polanski's directorial debut that pretty much launched him into the international spotlight and won him critical acclaim as well as his first Oscar nomination. Knife in the Water is a taut psychological drama in which fear, tension, rivalry and sexuality are skillfully knit amongst only three characters. It's also beautifully shot and set to an amazing jazz score by Krzysztof Komeda. My favorite Polanski film thus far.

happy

Jon accidentally snapped this photo of me yesterday, and it's so perfect. I love that it is slightly out of focus and that I'm smiling not knowing the picture's about to be taken. So in obvious words it's 100% candid and captures careless, free, unfettered joy, which I only experience when I'm among certain people. Well to rephrase, there are a few people I can be completely at ease with and when I touch base with those people I'm myself more than ever; my sanity becomes restored. Lately I've been feeling a push and pull of my personality amongst different circles of people - which sounds bad, but I think it's a survival instinct to keep from going crazy, to only deal with conflict when absolutely necessary. I was starting to feel stale from bouncing off the same individuals all the time, losing momentum and rotting in unremarkable complacency. I think the new job is shaking me out of that mentality, since there's a hyper-barrage of interactions being made every day. It's a good fix, a refresher, but I wonder when I will be able to grow a new layer and find that same ease with someone whom I don't go back with for at least 8+ years. It's a matter of time and...meaningful connections. I'm just glad that I realized I can be totally free amongst a handful of individuals. They have no idea how grateful I am for them.

read & sleep

That's what I want to do right now, but I think I'll just collapse into sleep instead. But seeing as how I'm up and doing this, I'm fooling myself with a false agenda.

the third

"The only thing in life that's constant is change."

Cocktail party number 3 had some weird vibes, man. And I left just as things were getting started. So it goes. I was with good people though, and we went to Wurstkuche afterward, mmm. A night well spent.