California Girls

Here's to the first sign of summer and a perfect California day.

lovin levi

I have accrued a ridiculous amount of Levi jean shorts. this is a tribute to their wonderfulness and how sexy they make me feel. to the cut off's, the cuffs, and the hemmed, the jean, the white, the royal blue, the black, and hot pink. to summer afternoons and crop tops. to long legs and sunkissed skin. I hope I never have to take you off.

life advice

bright eyes

this photo take by the talented Kimmie Perl in Los Angeles this week marks the arrival of bright eyes.

like it best...

you asked me what I liked best a week or two ago and I have been thinking of answers ever since.
the things that I like best make me feel like there is nowhere in the world I should be other than in the moment. it's a feeling I search for endlessly and constantly. I like my sisters and my black cat best. I like you best. I like finishing an article and sending it into to the magazine, relaxing with a cup of coffee (after and not before) a long day of work. I like it best when we spend the afternoon doing things we swore we didn't have time to do that morning. I like it best when I see your name on my cell phone. I like it best when I'm traveling to a place. I am an anticipation junkie. I like it best when I spend the afternoon writing for myself and not for someone else while listening to One Bird on A Wire. I like it best when I fall asleep hungry and wake up feeling skinny. I like it best when you look at me that way that makes me wonder what you really think about me. I like it best when I have no unread emails. I like it best when I'm grocery shopping after half a bottle of wine with Andrea and there is nothing more hilarious in the world her and I and that moment. I like it best when I get off work and the bartender pours me a great deal of scotch over ice. I like it best when you're there to share it with me, though rarely you are. I like it best when the sun is out and the weather tells me, hey those jeans shorts are a perfect fit for this afternoon. I like it best when I'm blogging and I like it best when I'm sleeping. Was that what you meant when you asked me what I liked best? If not, thank you anyway for helping me think of all these glorious moments that make my life a little better on the daily basis...
What do you like best?

So Fresh

inspired

 

Inspired by my new J Brand bellbottoms I am obsessed with the 70's and all things Farrah. I am even thinking about growing out my hipster bangs and replacing them with this coveted do. So spring, so fresh, and so my new look. xoxo

more to come

I Like to Think of myself as a Day Dream Believer. 

this is one of many many pictures taken by jenavieve this past weekend in Yosemite. many more to come...

sleepless in socal

It rained for most of the night, I could hear it pooling out side my window. I couldn't sleep I had a bad case of the smiles. They made my face hurt and my body roll around beneath the covers. Thinking about you out there. Are you cold?

Sea-Change

You are no more, but sunken in a sea
Sheer into dream, ten thousand leagues, you fell;
And now you lie green-golden, while a bell
Swings with the tide, my heart; and all is well
Till I look down, and wavering, the spell-
Your loveliness- returns. There in the sea
Where you lie amber-pale and coral-cool,
You are most loved, most lost, most beautiful.

-Genevieve Taggard

affirmation

 

This is how I feel today. 

The affirmation for today is...

Come my friends and share my feast of joy. 

took a walk

We were walking through a parking garage and he was trailing a bit behind me.
"I can see your breath and it's dripping with lies," he said.
"The subtlties of our conversations never cease to amaze me. I had a dream I was with you. Why are you still so far behind asking questions that no one wants to hear the truth to?"
He ran a bit to catch up to me becasue I was already stepping through into tomorrow.
"You know I used to think you were pretty," he said.
"Me too."
"Now I just think you look tired and I don't see why your always chasing the daylight. Good things come to those that wait they say."
"They never got anywhere," I told him. He looked sad and sucked dry of his old beliefs. There wasn't anything I could tell to make him think I was still the same girl he had met. I don't know what happened to her but I hadn't seen her in awhile.
The days were getting longer and the nights were feeling stronger. I had a hard time pulling myself up and I wondered how long something so fabricated could last. How long do these things normally hold up I wanted to ask but by this time I was walking alone.

paramount

taken by a lovely lady named Marie in a cavern at paramount sometime near five in the morning.

gifts

I was given a dream catcher by a dreamer and he told me, "all the things people think are wrong are actually supposed to be like that." I learned not to mess with things. It was a gift at the end of March and was going to last many seasons. The first night I slept underneath it I had the most vivid dream of seeing someone I used to love a really long time ago at a train station. I hadn't seen him in my dreams in years and I knew even in that world that it was strange. But like I said, I learned not to mess with things.

SXSW

I don't think I have ever wanted to be in Texas. I want to be in Texas right now and for the rest of the week. As madness and endless music descend upon the city I cannot stop wondering the F I'm not out there. With over two thousand bands playing on over one hundred stages there is bound to be a little bit of everything for everyone. As I bid some of my favorite people adieu I'm looking at a bleak week until Friday rolls around. Lucky for me I'll be heading out this weekend as well to lovely Yosemite and hopefully catching up on some serious me time that I clearly need. So while the rest of you make sweet sweet music I am so there in spirit dancing in the back of the venue. Can't you see me smiling? Much Love. xoxo.

Inertia

I am currently proving the principle of inertia to be true. An object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest unless compelled by an outside force. I think it is interesting that it refers several times to the objects natural resistance to a change in velocity. A law of nature that confirms our resistance to change. A confirmation that it is science that makes you want to preserve our present state for as long as possible. The word inertia comes from the Latin word, iners, to mean lazy or idle. I was finding it very easy to drift by in this state for sometime now, but I have been compelled or propelled by an outside force and am now fully in motion. So now my mass has shifted velocity and I seem to be moving through the world with more speed, force, and intention then I have seen in sometime. Thank heavens I was beginning to grow tired of resting on my laurels. 

writers peril

He read everything she ever wrote and thought every day of telling her, “I resent the way you always write about me, as if I wouldn’t know I was there.”

“I never write with the intention to deceive you. I think we both know you were there. But I told you before that just by knowing me you are placing yourself inside my writing. Everything in this world is fair game for a writer. You are in my world, no?”

“That’s just the way you are. This is all your world. Yes, we're all here just for you to write about.”

“I think you’re missing the point entirely. Which is why I always end up writing about you.”

yes please

Lent.

I'm not a religious person but I do like to jump on the bandwagon for a variety of holidays across the board that fit my interests, desires, or needs. More so, I like to explore my options. Lent is one of those things that goes way back for me to the days of uniforms and catholic school boys. It's one of the few things I remember from the slight religious upbringing that I had. You give something up for forty days and forty nights, which doesn't include the six Sundays that fall within that time. So really it's 46 days in my eyes. In past years I always try to give something up, I always have the discussion and it goes on for sometime but somewhere within those forty six days I loose sight, track, or simply forget what I had committed to. So on my list of tings to give up this year but I have not committed to one is smoking, drinking, processed foods, netflix, men, diet coke, and shopping. What's a girl to do? It is supposed to represent Jesus and his forty days fast in the wilderness, which makes me more inclined to give up diet coke and processed foods. But those both feel so selfish, I mean it's not that hard and I want that anyway so hows really making the sacrifice here? Not, me. The word Lent comes from the German word Teutonic which means springtime, and they say we should view Lent as a sort of spiritual spring cleaning. I also read that while giving something up the idea is to put something more spiritual in it's place making us more like Jesus Christ. I don't think they entirely mean spiritual in the praying kneeling sense, I think it just means something good, or something better than what you gave up. So, think about it, you have the rest of the day to decide....

blueberry hillsides

On Blueberry hillsides the light runs quickly to stand by your side.
-Hello Evening

just now.

I just had the strangest dream in a nap I didn't mean to take. You were there but you didn't look the same and you didn't recognize me, and that made me realize it was a dream, which made me wake up.

fake.

 She was faking it. Thought everyone could see it too. She was convinced the surly starbucks barista knew her secret, but she kept going anyway. Kept wearing it just to wear it out, thought that maybe if enough time trickled by it would absorb into her complexion and she would no longer have to think about it and it could be a part of her demeanor rather than this unnecessary attachment. On the good days she hung it out the window to dry while curling her hair, but on the bad days it clung to the insides of her ribcage for dear life or dear death depending on the tune she sung that day.

presumed lost.

Some presumed lost photographs from the half frame taken in the first weeks of January in LA.

left right now.

She drives with wrists and it makes me nervous, all lackadaisical like we aren't really moving like we aren't really going anywhere. She plays hip hop at a volume that you can't quite hear but could never ignore and talks over all of it about something that happened last week. Sometimes I can't remember why I am here, when I fell in love with her, and why I stay. Sometimes it's clear but sometimes like this time, it has been so long, that I can't quite see my way back from where I came from, where we came from. So I am just here with her and she is here with me but we aren't really here together. It's a Tuesday morning and she loves to get tea from a coffee shop in Laguna Beach because neither of us work until late in the afternoon, so we go for the drive like some little religious ritual of our life together. My window is down drowning out all the mush of sounds and letting the ocean air come through and whip her hair into her face, but she doesn't notice the way it tangles and hugs to her thin neck. She takes off her sunglasses for a moment and looks in the rear view mirror. She has dark circles under her eyes again and I wonder but don't ask what, or who, has been been keeping her up all week. She is chewing on her lower lip and I sink further into my seat of her 97' Carola. All this way for tea. It seems so fucking stupid today. How can it be that what was once the brightest part of my week could this week be such a death trap. She swerves a bit because she drifted into the oncoming traffic and I think for a brief second we may go straight off PCH and into the Pacific below, and then my next thought is, "this isn't so bad." She starts laughing madly and I try to see the girl I fell in love with, but she seems to have evaporated into the sea salt and I hardly recognize the girl next to me. I decide to watch the sea pass instead.

Good over Evil

Enjoying my morning coffee and already counting the ways in which March has far surpassed February in it's mere 30 some hours of existence this year. A facebook gander led to link clicking led me to this gem. I agree with my friend David who said "I can't believe that A) this exists B) I didn't know about this sooner C) I haven't planned my entire life around attending this event" I second that David and if you want to go next year I am all in. I think the spirit of this celebration is something we could all emulate, and even though I wasn't there I am in love with all the colors and the smiling faces. I think this proves once more that March is the month to be in love with right now. Found on www.boston.com this is an excerpt on the festival and some wonderful photographs taken there. Find some joy today and spread some color into your life. xoxo

Last Monday (March 1st), people in India and other countries with large Hindu populations celebrated Holi, the Festival of Colors. A welcoming of Spring, Holi is celebrated as the triumph of good over evil. Hindu devotees and others enthusiastically drop their inhibitions, and chase each other in temples and through the streets, playfully splashing colorful paint, powder and water on each other. People also attend bonfires to commemorate the story of Prahlada, a Hindu figure and devout follower of Lord Vishnu who prevailed over his father and the demoness Holika with the power of his devotion. Collected here are a handful of images from this year's Festival of Colors. 

try again

Well, February was a total fucking wash. I could just pass on the whole entire month. They should break it up and attach the extra days to the end of other awesome months, like August. August should be forty days long and so forth. There were a few highlights to February, like my new baby Martin guitar, and groundhogs day was great because I reinstated my application for the education credential program and thus igniting a whole new phase of my life, and we moved from being ruled by the moon in to the sun. So I guess we learned a few new things and gained a few new things, I'll give February a point or two for those, but all in all it felt like a sad fly over state. So here we are in March and rather then tying my boots together and hanging them on the wall, I think I will tie them up tighter and try all over again. I may be starting what feels like two steps behind trying to shake off the shackles of February, but try I will. This month will be dedicated to the pursuit of perfection because bikini season is knocking at my door. It will also be dedicated to new people, and new friends, and trying to new things. March will be a month of newness. So we will try and try to make March count for something more than another month passed, more than another flip of the calendar. To March, and to You, and to Me...
 let this put you in a good mood to start the month