things I like right now

1. Thrifted sueded cotton jersey pullover. I didn't know what 'sueded jersey' was until now and it's awesome for this unpredictable spring weather we've been having in L.A.
2. Queen Helene's Cocoa Butter hand/body lotion. Pleasant, inoffensive scent, no greasy after feel and it gets the job done; I'm in love.
3. More shirts! in 'guy' colors, although now I'm wondering if I should've stuck with the spring-y girl shirts, because now I'm going to blend in. oh well!
4. Owl bank! Gag gift my mom got for her birthday, but she's letting me have it and it will be a glorious addition to the apartment next fall. Emergency drinks/food fund.

found - 1944 mercury dime

The value of this dime is $1.00, I'm RICH! Note to self: invest in a good macro lens soonish, but not before updating to a full-frame body.

keep on truckin'

I lied. For some reason I'm compelled to keep this up; I just need to keep my trap shut tighter or something. But nobody's gonna go pissing on it for me before I piss on it myself. I don't have much to say, but many ways to say it. So I'm blabbering on, motherfuckers.

afternoon at Eaton Canyon, pt. 3

1. Cuscuta californica, or California/chaparral dodder. It's a parasitic orange plant that looks like a mass of strings of orange plastic.
2. A pretty little cluster of cute blossoms...
3. Lizard basking in the afternoon sun.
4. Ladybug!
5. Wild grasses.
6. A bulldog puppy who stole my heart. His name tag read 'Biggie.'
7. Biggie kept turning around and looking at us. He even wandered away from his owners to follow us, and we had to walk away from them to stop distracting him. so cute.

I'm ready to sleep now.

afternoon at Eaton Canyon, pt. 2

1. The path beckons. We stayed on it mostly because after wandering off into a brush-y area (my idea, stupid), a man in the path and his dog pointed out a rattlesnake nearby. We are so lucky to have avoided that catastrophe.
2. Clouds of these sage 'bushes' everywhere, so lush and amazing.
3. Tommy crossing the shallow beginning of the gorge.
4. If my boyfriend were a tree, he would 100% certainly be an oak.
5. Tommy and his fantastic walking stick.

I can't sleep so I'm listening to the rain steadily falling outside and feeling my stomach grumble, trying to will myself to SLEEP. It's my mom's birthday and my sister and I are going to get together to whip some things up so I'm excited! Coincidentally and conveniently today's my day off too so I can get mucho done for a day.

afternoon at Eaton Canyon, pt. 1

1. A cluster of fragrant, creamy white elder flowers.
2. This smelled like sage...!
3. Opuntia, or the prickly pear cactus! We're going to go back and eat some in the future, when the tunas ripen.
4. A blossom from the Hesperoyucca whippleie - also known as Spanish Bayonet, Our Lord's Candle, and the Quixote or common yucca.
5. Mysterious, plant-like alien seed pod. After identifying the leaves & pod it seems this is a wild cucumber!
6. Unknown purple flower, pretty little cluster of blossoms atop a long, slender stem.

T and I decided to take a spontaneous trip to Eaton Canyon in Pasadena, which was a fantastic way to stop thinking about the recent drama about the content I've thrown up on here (which has been resolved). I decided that it's not a big deal so I'll keep this thing up; I got over myself real quick and don't give enough of a damn towards those who'll stir up shit for their own amusement and curiosity. I held myself accountable and followed through so I don't feel the need for censoring myself. However I am lucky to know people who don't freak out or jump to conclusions without getting the full picture from me. Excuse me now, I'm off to get some much-deserved rest.

so long

This isn't from my room, but I found it appropriate.

So I had no idea that some people I personally know had knowledge of this blog (naive stupid, I know). These days you can find anything on the internet and you must be mindful of what you put out there. I'm an idiot loud and clear, posted some things that weren't meant to be read by someone, and am now dealing with the consequences. What, was I born yesterday? Am I a twelve year-old who has just discovered the glories of the Internet once again? This has come to me like a slap in the face, and I'm re-assessing the need for a journal on the internet. There is no need. I've grown attached to this thing, but maybe now I have to say goodbye.


P.S.
Diego, from Mexico, where you at? I haven't heard from you in a while.

escapism

One of these days I'm gonna cut and run. Take a backpack, water and trail mix bars, jump on my bike and pedal away into the sunset! Maybe I'll find that strawberry farm in Santa Maria to volunteer at for a day or two and stuff myself full of strawberries while I'm at it (hehe), and work my way up the coastline until I reach City Lights, where I will read my fill in books for a week or two. Then I'll continue on my way, familiarize myself with the Pacific Northwest and meet new people, living like a bum but gaining wisdom through experience. I'm spewing, yes, but I need to spew! I feel like a clogged drain, a volcano backed up with hardening lava and ash when more needs to erupt. I stay bottled and when I let a little out the people I talk to just laugh at me and the silly ideas, and then I feel like a funny character, not to be taken seriously. I feel like Howard Beale. I NEED TO GET MAD.

a coney island of the mind

'... Yes the world is the best place of all

for a lot of such things as

making the fun scene

and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

and singing low songs and having inspirations

and walking around

looking at everything

and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

and even thinking

and kissing people and

making babies and wearing pants

and waving hats and

dancing

and going swimming in rivers

on picnics

in the middle of the summer

and just generally

'living it up'

Yes

but then right in the middle of it

comes the smiling

mortician'

Just the second half of '11' (roughly arranged in the way it's published, but bastardized, sorry) from the third part of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 'A Coney Island of the Mind'. I read this poem and 'Dog' in high school my sophomore year of English, and the teacher kept likening me to one of the free-r spirits Ferlinghetti likes to talk of. For example, I remember she asked 'Who here do you think would go around goosing statues?' and some people pointed and said 'Hana!'. I guess it's better that this realization was made when in high school rather than in college.

you don't move me anymore.

smooshed avocado bagels

Or, 'A way to start your day deliciously'...!

Fists in the Pocket (1965)

Dark, melodramatic, disturbing, magnetic. A dysfunctional family at its worst, and the measures one member takes to 'solve' the problem.

building character

I've always wanted to work at TJ's - first I wanted to be the in-store artist and paint pretty pictures and signs all day but I never went for it because I didn't think I'd be good enough. With practice I think I could do some kick-ass work, but now I digress.

For the past two months I'd been working for one of my favorite former architecture instructors - designing, modeling & creating drawings for a competition for a Holocaust memorial. As soon as I finished that scheme I went off to Chicago for a week, then when I was back in L.A. I went on campus to fill out some D-clearance forms, saw my boss and then, in a turn of events, received the news I wouldn't be working for him, indefinitely. He'd done some paperwork for his taxes and realized he really couldn't afford an intern while he didn't have steady work coming in. So I was let go - but a few days before I had filled out a part-time crew application at Trader Joe's, secured an interview the next week, and two days after I was turned away from the architecture office I had a job at Trader Joe's. Funny and fortunate how things turn out. Today was my first day and it was a whirlwind of activity - I got a shirt and a temporary name tag, I helped with restocking food, bagging groceries, did a cart-run, and a bit of paperwork. This is something new, refreshing, and it feels good to burst out of the comfortable bubble of working for people I know or are on familiar terms with. Time to make new connections and learn new things.

excerpt - Walden

"We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander."

"Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay."

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that is one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board."

-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

If anything, at least read the final chapter - but I don't think you will get the full impact of his words unless you read it ALL.

matte black + apple silver

The other day after painting my fingernails and going on my computer I realized there is almost nothing sexier than matte-black nails atop a MacBook Pro. Haha oh gosh. Just being silly here, but I felt the power of amazing aesthetics.

Black Orpheus (1959)

things I like right now

1. New (legit) sunglasses; spring has just begun, but hello summer!
2. Old, old telephone pole insulators & just outdated infrastructure in general, when technology was still budding.
3. A handful of blackberries to polish off breakfast, mmm.

sturdee

I found this bike on Craigslist last Friday, and drove out to Anaheim to pick it up Saturday. I took it to a place called the Bicycle Kitchen off of Vermont Ave. with my friend Andrew, and worked on fixing it up - mostly the brakes, replacing the chain and front tire, tuning up the pedals and axles, and tightening everything up. Overnight it suffered a flat - the front inner tube gave out, so Andrew patched it up for me, and now it's in tip-top shape, mostly. The brakes squeak a lot so I'm always announcing where I am when I stop but it's no big deal. I've been riding it around the neighborhood, which lends a fresh perspective to familiar surroundings. Slower than a car, but faster than walking so the speed is ideal, and I love the direct correlation of body movement to machine that makes you go. It's an obvious concept yeah, but I never quite appreciated it much 'til now.

these days