happy new year!

party like a sailor! xo

pop princess

avocado baby

I miss living in CA., sometimes. Avocados I miss especially. And being hungry for toast and thick green slices on the sunny campus.

sleigh bells

I'm sort of a sucker for this lady.

reading lust

I think these fools are all great writers. Great because they can spin stories like gold, but also great because they write with such consistency, that even if its made up it rings true like something we've heard before and know to be.

Jim Harrison, The Great Leader. A boyfriend in Montana introduced me and I will always be grateful. Reading Harrison is like reading a story written about yourself. That sounds a bit narcissistic, but I just mean that his characters are so totally a part of each of us.

Miranda July, Learning to Love you More. Duh.

Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian. Hitchens, a smart man, a better writer and someone who trusted himself. I didn't agree with everything he wrote, but I loved to read it and it made me think which is most important.

Sam Lipsyte, The Ask. Just got a notice from the library that this was in. Yes.

And three who I haven't read before...

Tina Fey, BossyPants. Before she turns it into a movie.

Colson Whitehead, Zone One. Blame NPR.

Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone. Blame BookClub.

I'm excited for this winter's reading list: chai, fireside, dog, book, done.

star lake

"Hierbas Buenas" Valley Petroglyphs (Night Time Lapse Movie) from Stéphane Guisard on Vimeo.

earth grapplers

Trickster animals,

You make my heart sing,

and my eyes flirt with being, you.

A sneaky little path in the dark,

and a glimpse of your fearful heart.

Your fur and face are built for beauty, but are adjusted to grapple with a death, much sweeter than mine.

lordy

fools

so good everytime

flora does fauna

tree drawings. the best dream I have had in awhile.

nocturn

whistler

best

One of the best books I have ever opened. I've read it about 12 times since freshman year in art appreciation. Its sort of the best explanation of things I've found yet. Read some chapters here. Lucky you.

On a side note. black holes remember everything they've ever eaten.

make me cry

perfect. sofia

strations

katie scott is rad. I love these.

cave dwelling

The Eurycea rathbuni, or Texas blind salamander, is a rare cave-dwelling troglobite amphibian native to Texas, specifically the San Marcos Pool of the Edwards Aquifer. This creature has insane blood-red external gills for absorbing oxygen from the water. The gills look like a crown of fire against the salamander's albino white skin. I want to swim into a dark aquifer and meet him. I saw him on the 'planet earth' series. He was walking across the tv screen while I was pretending to sleep next to someone nice.

sexy danes

So, I just think this little piece of engineering genius is so pretty. A waste incinerator
designed by architect firm Bjarke Ingels, doubles as a ski hill near Copenhagen. Smart, sexy, green, and really fucking fun. The Danes really have design down.

Also, speaking of sexy, check out this pretty Danish girl and her heels.

hero talk

Chris Van Allsburg talk at the Tacoma Public Library last night made my heart tick a little nicer. He said that you have to practice writing and drawing. He said that good things take a long time, like 6-11 months, which is a nice thing to have confirmation of. And the best thing of all was this, "I created a story where nothing was there before." Quite possibly the best thing anyone has ever said about writing stories for children.

a girl in love

we've all got it

baby money

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/11/03/141943008/when-governments-pay-people-to-have-babies

instead of crying myself to sleep

movies I watched this week include.

you and me and everyone we know

let the right one in

locked inside, trapped inside this body

the ballad of fuck all

Oh will you come home soon
Come home soon and save me
I'm so bored

he became more silent

I asked her who she was talking about

and she said anyone but us.

I took him down the same path I had found that morning

and he said he didn't want just me.

We told each other to go away and never speak again

and we said nothing.

i have no where to go

I'm pretty sure most people are good at acting human, but the ones who are really good at it make it look so easy.

so beautiful, soo soo beautiful

mike swaney can you take me to barcelona

pretty lusty

You're the kind of monster that doesn't wait for the sheets to hit my skin, before you crawl out from under my bed. The circus red tips of the blossoms you spin are crushing and deadly and poison against the little pearls of wisdom you pretend. Listless in a sleep, purple hearts and softly weeping, baby breath against the truly white night, a little lonely only wandering then. I want to make you feel the pull. Tight little fists against your chest, but barely a thump to you. I'm kind of begging here, on my new knees, to be a something in your sleep that doesn't let you go.

perfection

I can't stop watching this clip. I love the music and the edits on this. perfect timing and sequencing and makes me want to make some kick ass video installations. fuck this is lovely.

in the dark

photo alex prager

hotlips

red lips seem to be true

I forgot to tell you about these

drawing and thinking about.

dams.

This is the Inguri Dam in Georgia. I like how they block the landscape and enhance it at the same time. They are really eye catching. I'm doing a series on dams, train trestles and bridges. All of the structures are left white or really lightly painted and the rest of the landscape gets painted in around the pencil lines of the structure, the opposite of how they are actually built. They depend on the architecture of the landscape, I mean, thats why they are placed in these ideal locations, structurally they depend on the landscape, but aesthetically they suck up a lot of space and attention.

walk

here

the only line thats true

heartbreaking

Miwa Matreyek's glorious visions | Video on TED.com

Miwa Matreyek's glorious visions | Video on TED.com

thank you anna. this is beautiful.

dog eat dog day

melanie authur
noel camardo

jolie

feelin for you

everything you meant to me remains

January 1988 : Poetry Magazine

please visit this page and read this poem and know that the man who wrote it is one of my personal heros and a gentleman and a genius poet disguised as an amazing professor.

a new best friend

fucksticks

what is going on?

beat of the jungle beats

I'm sure that the way the street slants towards the ocean makes it seem like Seattle is a sweet place to walk. Always towards the sunlit gleamy piers, wasting into brighter air above the salt and dead crabs. And my lake, the one I had to drive around to reach the other side each day said something else to another boat or a seaplane. I can tell you exactly where you should be standing, where the light can hit the top portion of your sneakers and the rest of you can finish your cigarette in the shadow near the closed greek cafe. you can walk all around and take photos with your eye held up to a rolled paper from the baguette you just inhaled after your cigarette. Get some sleep and in the morning tell her about the day you've had patrolling the streets for sentiment. I am hiding here, but you haven't asked me what I think about any of the shops. I could tell you about the way the fish makes me feel. We could slip sushi into our tummies and then walk forward to find something else like tea or a coffee or a person to comment on. I am so good at commenting. I will even be brave and take your photo near them so we can remember how they looked and what we ate and the beautiful sun we shared. Just ask me where to find myself, I would love to share this tilted city with you.

breezy

love and heartbreak

sincere thoughts and pride and joy and baby steps towards an understanding, but never to forget your love for us all. weeping wildly again for your climb and fall. touching and sentimental.

and I said a'nooo nooo no

I will never have my hair cut again. I hate haircuts. I do not like someone cutting my hair off. They never do it nice. I promise to take care of my mane. I will condition it and treat it with herbs and oils, and I will cut it myself and let the wind take care of the rest. No more scissors, no more chairs, no more letting go my hair! xo

good medicine

Toshio Shibata

carly margolis

what the...

I met you and knew instantly that you were made for me. But, you have a girlfriend. I look into your eyes and see happiness. I love your laugh and your face and your love of things that you told me about. But, you have a girlfriend. I love your hair and your shirt and your shoes. I love your demeanor with our waiter. But, you have a girlfriend. I love your hobbies. Love your language and your quiet, funny presence. I love your arms on the bar. I love your teeth when they smile. I love your heart and the way you make everyone feel at home. I love everything about you. oooh please tell me when you no longer have a girlfriend so I can kiss you.

cartonlandia

Ana Serrano makes nice things. Look.

tiger dancers

people keep tigers in the back of their mind more often than they would admit. everyone loves a tiger dance.

in the middle of the night of the summer

i am a little lonely for everyone i have ever known and sometimes in the middle of the night i panic. i think about the things we've done and how they float further and further from now. every second longer lasting and more distant. when i think about us. we were so good. we were so right even when we hated it. i think about you living with someone new. my head swims. my heart gets too big for my throat. and then i am reminded about all of the people who share that space. i think about how before i met you i didn't know there was room for you in there, but clearly i didn't know anything at all. and that thought is the only thing that keeps me hopeful for someone else. i think that if i do find them they should do some cleaning up in there, because honestly is it good to store all of those things in that space for this long? and i wonder about you too. are you happy with the person who took my place? does she have you wrapped around her finger like you used to let me drag you around? you liked it because you told me. and when i am this lonely i think i liked it too, even though in the morning i will remember more clearly that i didn't like that part at all. and you too. there you are at the very bottom, almost like a sandy bottomed well. you are the heaviest, even though i barley knew you at all. you sit, sodden and sunken in the deepest part. that isn't even you fault, you were just the first. and thats okay, because you let everything else rise to the top and i like it like that. and i am here alone in this room, in someone else's house thinking about mistakes and times when i was selfish or sad when i should have been kind and happy. and you should have too. to have a mirror on my life with you i would have changed us. could have spent more time alone preparing for my time apart from things. last time, i tried to think about what i wanted after you, and then you came along before i could decide. this time, i am doing it right. i am waiting it out, just to see if you are out there. you are all so important to the way i think about the love i have. you are distinguished gentlemen, but only because i say so. i am determined to never let you go, and every part of you that loved me is still here.

i love her stuff

sometimes I forget how much I love my favorite artists and then I see them and almost faint with pleasure. Becca Mann in the house.

Happy Birthday Dear!

Say something about telling and being and love. A dance for afterwards or right before, like when in anticipation your little heart beats too fast.

I'd like to keep things nice

Coppery metallic taste

not your average lady

a little bit uncooked maybe

and swept back, without bobby pins

walking briskly ahead of the pack

with a slight trotty trot trot

whistling and digging through

a purse that is full of everything

but not full of anything she needs

least of all a warm apricot

the love in your eyes turns the knife in my stomach so nice

At that very moment she saw the horizon stretching out, at last a thin silver line marked the space between. Kneeling on a half prayer she balanced for hours. She was holding her breath like that. The day shifted and floated, carrying the weight of all of those other times with other people. They seemed to be stretched so far apart that the ties that had once held them became empty and brittle. Coming all the way back to where she had started, it gave her something solid to think about, like keeping your hand on the horse, sliding it up the back and across the neck. You don’t tell it anything, a secret even your horse can’t figure. Bleeding all of this felt fantastic. She withered away in this space of thought with the stark white light against its darkening counterpart. The walk home uneasy and jilting.

dinosaur lungs

dr peter ward talked about dinosaurs in a guest lecture today at work. We all have dinosaur lungs. check it out.

The next book on my summer reading list: A Great Night

I am working on a few classic illustrations this week, inspired by some of my favorite stories Peter and the Wolf, Rumpelstiltskin and Thumbelina. Lots of drawing, this is a good project.

I'm pretty happy right now.

heartbeats like this

The Knife - Heartbeats from Johannes Nyholm on Vimeo.

you do too

don't need money, don't need fame

just a fool in love

headdresses

I'll take the gold one and her magic stick

happy we were ever

I had you all to play with. I had a piece of each of your hearts, and now you've slipped away into your own lives and I am left with the happiest heaviest memories. I would give so much to peek back into those late nights and stand with you under the stars on the open grass rim we called home. Your honest little hearts, belting things into the night. I miss you ever so, so much.

an old poem I wrote in grad school

First you love me, Then you fade away.

Sings Lindsey, as if his guitar could pronounce the word.

Between you and your own excitement, I say, speaking about myself.

This premonition ceases to disappoint, out of all of this dinosaur breath.

Beginning with the smashing and smothering together of ten thousand years before this hour,

Ending with the realization that this hour has not yet been born.

Seeping into the space that resides silently as the hills flooded with fog.

Saving it would only allow that time to quicken its split into light and dust.

Can I imagine the consistency of fermions created before the sun could blink?

But I can find you in a crowd over and over again.

Touch the sleeve of a stranger and know its you again.

Go to sleep dreaming of the escape I will commit, again.

To late tonight, to drag the past out into the light.

Those boys sweetly sing, smoother than Lindsey can.

Bottles and bottles and bottles of ocean foam.

Two hours pass and I’m still singing along.

Singing and humming and whistling Pack’s song.

lovely drops

Julia Fernandez-Pol makes pretty work

Conductor: www.mta.me from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.

sweet valentine

new favorite daydreamy store

love + such

heart

best newest (to me) blogs for booklove

vintage children books my kid loves title says it all... for sparking ideas for new illustrations, and having major memory lane love

fifi lapin well, I have to admit, when I first stumbled upon this illustrator I was just really annoyed. A hotbed for fashion magazine 'as seen in' namedropping fills the front page of fifi's website, but you know, a cute bunny in stylish clothes just makes every day a little better and I gotta give props to this viral creation.

charlie harper okay so, not so new, but I hadn't looked at his work online before, and this site seriously showcases almost all of his works, pretty sweet.

best for last...

kevin waldron just go look. love.

*booklove = illustration inspiration

my reality is your fantasy

The Brittle Stars Danced. The stingray smoked a pipe.

Perfect article from the New York Times today. Especially since I just started my job at the zoo as archivist and spent the day looking up images and corresponding latin names of animals of all sorts. My favorite find today was the Kookaburra, which I haven't thought about for a while.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,

Merry merry king of the bush is he.

Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,

Gay your life must be!

the taste of love is sweet

why were we ever so mean to each other? who breaks hearts? we do, we do!

stillness as remedy

"Sometimes the accomplishment is merely standing still, growing through circumstances, rather than changing the circumstances. This has certainly been the case for me this past year. And though I cannot say the past year was the best ever, I can say I have learned a lot more about myself, my character, my needs, my wants, and what I want my future to be. By standing still in my circumstances, my foundation and understanding of myself has grown stronger." Stacy of la boudoir.

Sometimes standing still is nice.

I want Iceland

Dear Iceland,

Do you need another illustrator to reside upon your icy shores? Please say yes.

Love,

Kiki

via Krisatomic

i heart cake

looking for a birthday cake for my grandpa's 90th in march...sending three choices, hummingbird cake, chocolate and chocolate peanut butter.

He's going to taste test and tell me which he would like more of ;)

the frosting I will use is swiss buttercream from smitten. I fucking love making giant birthday cakes!

xoxo

imagining you is sort of like trying to remember myself

Join Harvard on the Move | Harvard Gazette

Join Harvard on the Move Harvard Gazette

pinterest interest

via on Pinterest

my country tis of thee

Today on my way to work I was listening to NPR. They were playing a conversation about Atlanta in 1962. You can listen to it here. Holiday Special: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - A Portrait Of Atlanta In 1962 It's a really interesting look at how people thought about race nearly 50 years ago.

I was also informed that "In 1939 your Great-great Aunt Bernice was living in Washington, D.C., when Marian Anderson sang in front of the Lincoln Memorial because DAR (Daughters of the Revolution) was racist. That moment so affected Bernie that she described it to me in the mid 1960's. We have a long way to go before we gain mutual tolerance. "

I thought that was cool too, so I am posting the performance.