pretttttty

a beautiful LA sunset from yesterday.

hooray blackberry.

self-appointed uncelebrity playlist

Sounds unimportant. Perfect.

I have affectionately named this playlist Country Fried Rock:



Here's a nice assortment of my favorite lines from these songs:

"I say I'll help you squeeze and fix yourself up a
A new kind of God of some kind

One that tells you
Fertilize and multiply
One that tells you
Outsow and outblow
Outplant and outgrow
Outdo, and outrun, and outclimb, and outspread
Every other tree and bush
And brushy fruits and flower petals
Outfruit them all
For the feed of man

Outstalk and outhunt and outthink
For God's own sweet sake, outthink! Outthink!"

Yeah. Reading that is like a swift cowboy boot kick to the stomach. Genius.

"I ain't the world's best writer, ain't the world's best speller
But when I believe in something I'm the loudest yeller
If we fix it so you can't make no money on war
Well we'll all forget what we was killing folks for"

self realization

I realized today that it's not that I work better under pressure. It's that I only work under pressure.

traffic + poetry = could have been worse

Last week I sat in traffic on the 5 for over 2 hours. When I hit the 2 hour mark I decided to stop keeping track of time, and instead memorize poetry. This is from one of my new favorite books called "To Bless the Space Between Us", a contemporary take on traditional celtic prayers. I memorized this one:

For Longing

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
and quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen
to the voice of desire
that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously
into your own unease
to discover the new direction your longing wants to take.

May your forms of belonging--in love, creativity, and friendship,
be equal to the grandeur and call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destiny of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted
by ghost structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

welcome to fall?

i think someone is confused here...

more of my face

Wow, as of late this blog is becoming the exact gross narcissism I always hated about blogging. But YEEHAW! Pretty soon I'm gonna start name dropping, too.

Jess took this photo at Silver Lake Coffee, my favorite hideout.

Oh how I love the banana peel.

And the white mug with the white saucer. So simple. So clean. So perfect. Everything should be designed that clean and precise. Or I should move to Denmark.

visitor!!!!

My mom is coming to visit in 10 days! I didn't think I'd see anyone in my family until December, so this is a marvelous development. She is traveling allllll the way across the whole country to get to LA. See?

I live at the pink arrow, and she lives at the blue arrow.

You may notice a pair of scissors cutting Atlanta out of the map. I know many wonderful people there, so if you could all just go ahead and relocate that would be great. No city should be that difficult to navigate, and no city should ever get that hot without being near a large body of water.

And also, Michigan is king but went broke years before the rest of the country, so don't go there.

Oh, and I have a crush on San Francisco and I'm totally in love with New York.

Also, I did this at 3am, when things are funnier.

normalcy

I'm not very good with schedules. But recently I find myself in a familiar place of feeling chaotic and due for another attempt at creating some normal rhythms for my days. I took the last few days off and didn't really work...well, didn't do anything that I got paid for, at least. It was good to take some time off, and give some thought to what kind of rhythms would make sense in my life.

I became acutely aware of this need last week, on a trip to San Francisco. Proof:
(ps: Daley took this photo from Twin Peaks, which was one of the coolest views of a city I've ever seen. Go there.)

San Francisco was lovely as always, but the first stop was in Santa Cruz at Daniel's cottage where he and several musicians are currently gathered, working on an album. The cottage is in a magical redwood forest, and only a few minutes away from the ocean. The atmosphere of Santa Cruz is so entirely opposite of the atmosphere in LA that I was caught quite off guard at the peacefulness and relaxed environment there. Suddenly I felt like I could write. And I wanted to read, and memorize poetry and all the other lofty ideals I carry around with me on a daily basis.

Also, it didn't hurt that the weather was wonderful fall weather that justified wearing the jacket and scarf I had packed in a moment of optimism.

I know I'd lose my mind in a small town like that if I stayed for too long, but for the time being it was wonderful, and I could have really used a week of that sort of environment.

The rest of the nights were spent at Ryan and Holly Sharp's home in Oakland. They just moved to Portland this week, but check out the view from their back yard. As you may have guessed, I was a bit mesmerized by the view.

All of this is to get at the same point of trying to figure out how to foster an atmosphere that allows for me to be spontaneous and imaginative without perpetuating the innate chaos of my natural habits. That was kind of wordy. But I think you know what I mean.

I'm not necessarily looking for balance, at least not in the traditional sense--I don't need to feel comfortable or managed or safe--I just am hoping for some kind of rhythm...I just don't know what kind yet. So far my best idea is to have one day each week for music/writing only...and possibly incorporating some kind of "mental health day" (though I have no idea what that would mean yet) every few weeks.

I don't think this has anything to do with busyness; more so just wanting to get the most out of my time. There's a small chance this has more to do with believing that I am what I produce; but what I do know for sure is that it has everything to do with not being interested in being mediocre in the things that I get to do. I get to do some cool things here and there, and I'm interested doing things really well.

I'm not sure if this was beneficial in any way for someone to read. It's too long for a blog and poorly written. I think perhaps it was more about me being vocal about it so as to somehow hold myself accountable to at least addressing that this needs to be....addressed.

Wish me luck.

xo.

LA

....looking rather dapper today in those big billowy clouds.

new phone!

I am now a bonafide workaholic, and graduated to a phone with push email.

to work!

life through the eyes of my cell phone

I just got a new phone for the first time in about 3 years. I didn't get an iphone, because unfortunately I don't have enough cash to afford that level of hipness.

I was looking through all my cell phone photos and found a few gems that I thought I should share. Please, do enjoy.

President Ford's funeral in GR

Remember how awesome my hair looked when Dusan cut it? Yeah, me too.

I bought my nephew a set of blocks and my brother promptly found this one:

We were the fat kids at a pizza buffet.

Dylan and I were accidentally twinzies in San Fran.

Hake bros. on the BART

No explanation needed.

Derek & Kendra's wedding

Kitty.

Ben Folds/John Mayer in Chicago

My sweet nephew.

My favorite sign art in all of GR.

Sleeping at Last at CU

Sunset in Santa Monica

The Cinematics

My old front porch on the left....this was the beginning of Oct 2006.
I remember being really upset by all the snow that morning.

Me & Jessica in San Francisco

what you are looking for...

What you are looking for, you will find. That's one thing I learned from Rob that completely shifted my posture toward life.

What you are looking for, you will find.

If you are looking for beauty, you will find beauty.
If you look for hope, you will find hope.
If you are looking for sadness, you will find sadness.
If you look for grace, you will find grace.
If you are looking for something to despair about, you will find something to despair about.
If you are looking for compassion, you will find compassion.
If you look for stress, you will find stress.

If you look for something to be cynical about, you will find something to be cynical about.

Your world is what you make it.

It is colored with the colors of your choosing. It moves to the song that you choose to hear.

Don't misunderstand; I realize I cannot control what happens to me. I cannot control anyone or anything. If I could, rest assured my life would not be telling the story that it has been telling. I can, however, choose how to receive it.

Last week a friend told me that it seems my daily life is full of divine moments, things that seem orchestrated. "Full circle" moments. I feel that way, too. But if I didn't want it to be that way, then it wouldn't.

Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened.

What you are looking for, you will find.

this explains everything

I've been watching old films that I used to watch as a little girl.

Back story chat with my mom:



The Phantom Tollbooth (made in 1970) in particular is really kind of nuts. I was watching that by age 3 or 4. If you aren't familiar with it, or haven't watched it in a long time, here is some dialogue that takes place within the first 20 minutes of the film, between a boy named Milo, and the Whether Man. Milo has just turned into a cartoon character and is driving into a town called "Expectations". This is the dialogue between the two:

Milo: I wonder, could you tell me the right road to Dictionopolis, or some place?

WM: Dictionopolis? Well now, well now, well now. I don't know of any wrong road to Dictionopolis. So if this road goes to Dictionopolis at all, it must be the right road, don't you think? And if it doesn't, it must be the right road to somewhere, mustn't it? Because there are no wrong roads to anywhere. Do you think it will rain?

Milo: But I thought you said you're the Weather Man.

WM: Oh no no no no no no no no. I'm the Whether Man, not the Weather Man. Its more important to know whether there will be a change in the weather, than what the weather will be. Don't you think? (WM begins to float away holding baloons that have who, what, when, where, and why printed on them)

Milo: What kind of place is...I mean, what kind of place is Expectations?

WM: Good question! Splendid question! Expectations is the place you must always go before you get where you're going. Of course, some people never get beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along anyway, so I better hurry you along, too.

Milo: Thank you, thank you. But I really think I can find my own way.

WM: Splendid, splendid, splendid. I do so hate to make up my mind about anything. Whether or not you find your way, you're bound to find some way! If you happen to find my way, please return it? You did say it was going to rain, didn't you?

And scene.

Strange in general, but especially strange for a 3-5 year-olds.

This is just the beginning. The portion I'm watching right now is when Milo finally arrives in Dictionopolis (a town that believes words are superior to numbers, unlike their rival town, Digitopolis), to find a roadside stand that sells "Half-baked Sentences".

This explains everything.

oh ben!

Ben Folds....back on tour this fall. yeeeeehaaaaw!

I'm loving his new song You Don't Know Me with Regina Spektor....some male-female call and response lyrical fun: have a splendid time listening. His music is SO MUCH FUN...be sure to listen to both songs and enjoy the symphony on the second one.

Ben in LA this November! Sad that its not one of the shows with the local city symphony/orchestra, or the one single ridiculously awesome show on the tour with Death Cab. Why Wisconsin?

I found this on Craigslist.

i can't hide it

So, I know I smile at my computer occasionally, but I don't think I'm aware at how much I do it.

Just now I was sitting here at Silverlake Coffee Co. minding my own business, chatting with some folks on iChat, when a guy came and sat down next to me. I looked up and realized it was my friend Steve, and a couple other guys from church. They laughed and then Steve told me, "I wasn't sure if it was you, but I saw you laughing at your computer."

Shoot. I totally got caught in the act. Perhaps I should work on that.