painted my bureau a new color! navy navy like the ocean

i read the most profound thing i have read in a long while. it broke me down to sobs, likewise for everyone i sent it to. i haven't read something so painfully real in a while. something that cuts human existence down to the bare bones and makes you realize how lucky we all really are. happy new year and let's all be thankful for the beautiful lives we have:

A letter to my dead girlfriend - m4w

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Date: 2009-10-25, 1:36PM CDT

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It has been a rough year darling. The ethereal power of Craigs List will get this message to you I am sure, like in some sort of cheesy 80s movie.

Well back to the last year, you of course died at the beginning of it which put things to a sour start. I spent last night with your mum and dad, we went to that Italian place in Wicker Park, who on the surface seem to be coping. I had everyone get together for my 25th which went well, your ladies are on top form and I think some engagements are brewing. Ellen is turning up the heat on Steve who will soon be forced down to one knee as you predicted.

Last weekend I finally took the step of cleaning out your clothes from the closet, which is very barren now. I invited your friends over to take your what they liked, it was an awkward session. I think they took them more as a favor to me than anything else. Liz cried when we pulled out all of your shoes, Miranda joined in and then Catherine broke down. It was strange to stand in our bedroom surrounded by three crying girls. I made a joke about them crying for joy at the prospect of some free Manolo Balhniks which they didn't seem to find very funny.

A few girls have put the moves on and as you know picking up women is not a forte of mine. It seems the grieving boyfriend seems to be a good angle. Who knew! I went on one date and spent it talking about you, the poor girl. You would have found it quite witty I think. No other dates to report, I am going against your orders to move on for now.

I found one of those hair tie things that somehow managed to squeeze into every crevice in the apartment. It was under the bed. I sat on the floor holding it and cried. Until then I had held everything together but it just all came flooding out.

Every morning when I wake up I forget for a fraction of a second that you are gone and I reach for you. All I ever find is the cold side of the bed. My eyes settle on the picture of us in Paris, on the bedside table, and I am overjoyed that even though the time was brief I loved you and you loved me.

Love,

P.

Echo Park: Two Room Living

I was looking through some of the archived articles in the LA Times Living section recently because I love to look at how people design their spaces and I came across this rather preach-y Echo Park couple's abode. See link. I like their sensibility, in terms of design for very small spaces, but if you read the article, they have this very annoying neo-hippie rhetoric about how it's important to live in a small space because it keeps the family closer. This quote says it all: ["We are trying to be conscientious about the choices we make," she says. "People tell you you need all this stuff for a baby. All you really need is diapers, a place to change him and boobs."] Yeah, because a baby doesn't need room to grow or anything. Also annoying: ["The American dream is to have a kid and buy a house," he says, adding he's thankful he went only halfway.] American Dream bashing?? Really? Has our hipster generation become so alternative that we can't even give our children the option or space to become whoever they want to be? I am all for being a hip and conscientious parent, but honestly. These people are looney toons.

Also a really fun website for apartment inspiration: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com

Favorites of 2009

FAVORITE MOVIE: A SINGLE MAN by Tom Ford

FAVORITE BOOK: THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER by Rudolph Wulitzer

FAVORITE ALBUM: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Karen O and the Kids

FAVORITE SONG: ALL THE SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT) by Beyonce

FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEO: WHEN I GROW UP by Fever Ray

FAVORITE BLOG: BACKYARD BILL [http://backyardbill.blogspot.com]

FAVORITE TREND: FACE PAINT

FAVORITE CONCERT: TREASURE ISLAND 09

FAVORITE DESTINATION: STOCKHOLM

FAVORITE DESIGNER: LOVER

FAVORITE SURPRISE TV DISCOVERY: Friday Night Lights

FAVORITE MOMENT: 4th of JULY @ Dolores Park

i have fun

This blog is pretty effing cute. This one post is basically a compilation of laydees riding their bikes over NYC. It's called experience PARISIENNE.

I like her bike!

where the wild thigs are // opening ceremony

Trey showed me this new line of opening ceremony inspired by the movie. While I think it's ridiculous to spend $600+ on a faux fur onesie, I'm digging the fur vest and mohair-esque dress thang. Also (and I feel very proud of this) I blogged about pamela love's freaky claw cast jewelry back in 2008! O.M.G.

hippies on dave letterman!

tisland is our land

egon and edith

babes in toyland

lil ones

war paint

I like this...I feel like she really doing something a little different from the pack. also, it doesn't hurt that she is gorgeous. and has a really good singing voice.

i WANT THAT

top o'th'world

Sunset Junction :: top of the ferris wheel

Say Anything

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. As a career, I don't want to do that.

I am reading this right now and loving it. The writing is so intricate, but completely understandable. It's sort of like Brave New World combined with Virgin Suicides...at least it feels that way 100 pages in. It's the story of this medical student, whose entire family has killed themselves in their own way. She is immensely scarred by this loss and feels like her destiny is to be alone in the world. Then the hospital where she works becomes preserved, afloat, after the earth is flooded beneath seven miles of water. She is coming to realize her part to play, which involves her unique past, as she is locked within this floating noah's ark. The premise is impossibly fantastical, but the writing is so grounded and so viceral, that you just sortof accept what you are reading and go along with it.

Pretty much the only perk of my job is getting free books.

welcome new baby!

I just got this lil' baby today!!!! And it's a whole new me.

I've never spent this much on a camera before - and it felt really good to purchase something [kinda] expensive from the fruits of my labor. Read: this is now my quasi-child. From this day forward it will now be called Dyan Cannon - after the wife of Cary Grant - who was best known for her role in Caddyshack II.

I will only name my children after legends, obviously.

a tribute (because i felt like it)

music in the air

Guitar Legend - Sister Rosetta - Up Above My Head
Uploaded by SFHandyman.

black

i haven't posted anything in a while. i'm not feeling very creative lately. not even enough to want to escape reality via internet browsing. i guess corporate living is actually sucking my soul. i need to see some art. or make something with my hands. or reinvent my style. i wear almost entirely black every single day. i think that says it all. 

LOVER

worn heavily by repeat offenders on the cobrasnake, lover [the label] is more than label. it's been gaining hipster cred without being obnoxious. and i just happen to love their spring/summer 09 collection. i like it because it's simple and yet very structured. it's whimsical and doesn't scream expensive (though it probably is). 

no age

i just got into this band. they remind me a lot of a happier sonic youth with some echoes of pavement and the clash in there too. 

mama like

so tara and i were farting around online yesterday and both of us were into this one:

via [the sartorialist].

in a uhaul again

moving again. it's my FOURTH time doing this in one year. jeez. at this point, i haven't even really unpacked things from the last time. my closet is full of four-month-year-old broken down boxes that i'm using again! Recycle. Reduce. Reuse. 

so i am moving to Los Angeles. i hope i don't get too depressed there and move back to the bay area. but knowing me...i probably will. so goodbye! forever! except maybe temporarily! 

seriously though, maybe forever. whoa that's sad. 

remember these??

so everyday after kindergarden, i would get on the bus and go home. have some cheese and a juice box and park myself in front of the television were i was promptly sucked into a plethora of 30 minute shows on some kids channel. first came this one:

sorry for the crappy quality. good thing i was only five when i watched this show. cuz, man, it sucks.


followed by the lil' bits:

a n t h e m s

i'm leaving berkeley a week from this saturday. and this time, it may be forever.

i've been thinking a lot about how much this place has changed on me. first, foreign and new, and then home and safe. i've been listening to a lot of music that encapsulates my era of youth in this wonderful place. And all of it is painfully nostalgic. the first song was something i played in my doom room as i stared at the bunk bed above me. That next year, it played from my speakers in the room i shared with mallory, and anthems, when i introduced it to simon - played as the two of us sat on our backs, together on my bed, listening and melting away. it always gives me the same feeling. and when i listen to it ten years from now, i'll think of this town and how i was young once. listening to these songs makes me feel so old. but i'm not. my memories are already starting to fade, only to be brought back by the music i have once loved. 

this next one is completely reminiscent of my time in cloyne, when i stopping over-thinking and started just being happy. the song made me feel very momentous "our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up."

Arcade Fire - Wake Up
Uploaded by teharcadefire

i'll always feel that this song is my peaceful phase. walking through campus and not being happy and not being sad. just completely content. this song reminds me of the dorms and i don't know why because i listen to it always, but i think it is because it was in that movie that came out when i was a freshman. anways, it's so nostalgic i can hardly stand it.

and then there was bjork. all the songs i've posted up here are my "sitting alone in my room songs," where i feel a little bit unsettled but at peace with it. this song is beautiful and it is my 6th most played song in my itunes library, downloaded may 6, 2007. just listening to this song reminds me of the smell of my room at the time. strange huh? she sang this at the shoreline when i saw her may 18th. i drank a bottle of wine wine, purchased underage from sam my favorite liquor store attendant, in the back of alec's car as rob, alec and i drove to the show. this performance is from that show. i was laying on a blanket on some grass way up high feeling the magic like everyone else. 

i love the valley OH!

i'm coming home.