day off dreamz

I would first like to say that I like my job.

But. My days off are sacred.

And now that I have fully embraced the loner life, I have perfected the art of day-off-ing.

Everything is a variable except for the 6 am hike, which has completely changed my body and mental state, but that's a different post altogether.

After that, the world is my donut. 

I fucking hate oysters.

Here are some new and old day off haunts:

Aroma Cafe 

Skylight Books 

Psychic Eye Bookshop

Donut Friend 
Pitfire Pizza- Fairfax

Freakbeat Records

Second Spin

Flore Vegan Cuisine

Raggedy Threads

Backside

Sqirl

Black

Fat Sal's (get the veggie burger)

The Surly Goat

xx

Moonriver

This weekend, I took a last minute road trip up to San Francisco with Aaron to watch his best friend get married. It was a weekend full of laughs, naps, public bathrooms, vegan food, pretty views, shitty views, and love.

The Lomba(rd) Motel. WELCOME.

Baker Beach.

No one told us this was a nude beach.

So many ding-dongs.

 

Donuts in the sky with diamonds.

My hand looks super fat. It doesn't help that I'm holding a donut.

Chris and Anne. They like Morrissey, animals, and each other.

They walked into the reception to Burzum.

Sold.

Steven, Alex, Russell, and some random I met that time I did a 20 count kegstand when I was 19.

Pretty things.

Aaron and Chris. Anne and Laura.

Love is cool.

Anne and Chris, thanks for letting me witness yours.

I'm starting to believe in it again.

High and Dry

Yesterday, Tania and I decided to make a mini road trip to the Integratron Sound Bath in the middle of the desert about three hours away in Landers. Hoping that I would find clarity in a meditation chamber with 40 other people was wishful thinking, as I already know that turning my mind off is not something that I have ever been able to do on command. But the vibrations of the giant crystal bowls pulsing through my skin and bones at least reminded me how crazy everything is. Like, you can make real music with carved out rocks and lay in a dome in the middle of the desert with a bunch of strangers all trying to make themselves better. Life and nature and humans are crazy.

After the sound bath, we rocked on the hammocks and there was a man speaking Italian on the phone next to us. He reached out his hand to rock me and I let him. Tania asked him about the Vipassana Retreat where he just came from. People go there to find enlightenment. You don't speak, smoke, eat meat, or see the opposite sex for 10 days. His name was Marco and he asked if he could come with us to check out the Giant Rock, supposedly the biggest free standing boulder in the world visited by creatures from Venus. Like any intelligent females alone in the middle of the desert with no means of self defense, we said of course. Duh.

The Giant Rock was giant. There was graffiti all over stating that punk wasn't dead, two initials plus another two initials equals love, feminist symbols (I'm thinking it's because we are all adventurous, but maybe it's also the Venus visitor thing), the all-seeing eye. We listened to music out of my car and offered Marco a smoke. He said no like a good yogi should. So we smoked and danced out in the desert next to a giant rock. There was a second where I looked over at Tania and she was fucking radiant. And I wondered if I was too.

When we dropped him off back at the Integratron, he invited us to come back soon and he'll take us to the hot springs. Totes.

We drove slower through the town on the way back and stopped for what Tania said was the best Soy Chai she's ever had. When the guy told us that they were out of their regular Chai we were so obviously bummed, he brewed us a different kind and gave us giant samples before giving us our actual drinks. Why everyone was being so nice to us, I don't know. I would like to think that there really is a wave of good electromagnetic energy that emanates out from the desert, but it could have also been that  one of us wasn't wearing a bra.

Singing to Tania's random ass iPod mix on the way back, I realized that I didn't need a sound bath to find clarity. I already had it, I just misplaced it somehow, getting wrapped up in things I shouldn't.

Marco texts later last night, "U gals are cool kittens."

Fuck yeah, we are.

Sun Chaser

This week, I got off work and drove to the beach without even thinking about it. I drove through Topanga with the windows down, iPod on shuffle, racing the sun before it set. Here's a tiny video I made that day. 

"The cure for anything is salt water. Sweat, tears, or the sea."

memento.

Queue the tiny sad violin, it's time to finally upload my favorite Instax pictures from Paris.

I don't know why I lagged so hard on this, but enjoy. 

#1: Lay in the grass somewhere really big and feel really small.

 #2: Even if you've been conned by a friendly Gypsy the day before, give the kind Egyptian stranger the time of day. He will walk with you for literally 11 hours and buy you a coffee and explain to you why the waiter is yelling at you in French to get your phone off the table.

#3: Make yourself get lost and bring your iPod. Listen to Summer Heart's "I Wanna Go" on repeat. Try not to step in homeless people pee.

#4: Buy a beer by yourself and offer someone your lighter. Get drunk with her and her friends. Take pictures of people without their permission. Let someone walk you home.

#5: Look at and fall in love with everything.

#6: Appreciate the monuments. Then, create your own.

#7: Agree to go in a stranger's house and find out how hard it is to mime "raspberry" when you're high. Meet people that make it hard to leave.

#8: Hang out with yourself. Read and think and write and eat and laugh and sit and wander.

Then come back and be changed in the best way possible.

Taro

This trip has been full of moments that I can't even explain with actual words.

I thought I would be sitting every day at cute cafe's with my computer, blogging and watching people and updating everyday. But to be honest, I learned quite quickly that I have to let this trip happen to me before I can even begin to tell anyone about it. This trip has played out like a good book that I can't put down and I know it will stay with me until the paragraphs bleed into each other and I have to read it again.

What I have been doing is walking for hours, meeting cool people, taking some of the best pictures I will probably ever take (that I can't wait to get back home and scan), and just being in the moment. I guess which is why I can't write it all out just yet, I am still letting it happen to me. I asked one of my new friends what they were doing after we were done drinking and they said, "What do you mean? I am here." It was the best thing I ever heard.

This song has been on repeat as I wander around for hours on end.

Oui, ça va.

I made it to Paris.

Today is my second day and there is so much to say already that I need a day or two to let it sink in. It's hard to stay in the moment when it feels like it is happening to someone else. Theres almost an emotional delay that is happening right now as I realize that, no, it's happening to me.

Anyway, I am off to shop today. I took a page from the pretty girls walking around and decided to lay off my usual makeup hell and let my hair do whatever the hell it wants.

It feels good.

High Land

A few weeks ago, I wandered around on Hollywood and Highland a few days before the Oscars. The tall gold statues and red carpet were wrapped in plastic. Everyone's feet and eyes could only get so close to the real thing. I guess that's the thing about Hollywood, or Los Angeles in general; it excites and alienates all at once. Everything is within reach, but a lot of it isn't for you.

I feel like it's not cool to ever say anything bad about Los Angeles, especially if you're from here. But like the house you grew up in, you know the secret safe spots and you know where the creak-y boards are. As I walked across the street to wait for Matt at the El Capitan, a Spongebob Squarepants creepily said in a Spongebob Squarepants voice, "Hey, Gorgeous." If you live here, you know, Hollywood and Highland is one of the creakiest (and creepiest) boards of all.

Fumar

Feeling a bit nostalgic today.

Here is a page out of my notebook I made to remember my trip to Spain.

The thing about life and growing up is that there are certain things that you just can't tape down.

Sometimes you have to try really really hard to recall key moments. Saying yes to drinking wine in a stranger's house and not thinking twice about it. Learning how to pay with funny money for cigarettes. Feeding stray cats hotdogs. Crying drunk at a party because you just realized how crazy life is. Trying absinthe for the first time with people you just met and genuinely wanting to read their poetry. Laughing so hard you might piss yourself as you are stuck in a hostel elevator with your best friend who doesn't talk to you anymore. 

A city breaking your heart.

Bonjour, bitches.

When people ask me what I want "to do" as a profession, I have to debate on whether or not it's worth telling them the truth. I've found that despite everyone's encouragement to continue to slowly eke my way through a very expensive psychology degree while working full time in retail management,  I can't really stomach the idea of what most people would consider "success". Here, I guess, is where I share something very personal that only a handful of people in my life know and understand about me. I don't want to "be" anything when I grow up. My idea of being a successful human being is a mixture of three very important things: knowledge, compassion, and adventure. Hey, if I can have a PhD at the same time, great.

 This is something that I have felt for years and rarely choose to share because I get it, it sounds super capricious and naive to a lot of people. But as of recently, my mantra has become very simple and it is, for lack of better words, "Fuck it."

Which is the very sentiment that brought me to buy a ticket for one to Paris last week. Although it's for a very short stint in April, I'm proud that I saw a window of opportunity (the window being pretty great plane tickets and a friggin STEAL on airbnb.com) and went for it.

Here is a picture of me after I bought my ticket.

While I haven't even left yet, I have already learned so much in the past few days. Let me share some really important stuff with you okay:

1. If you do not think someone will be truly happy for you about something that excites you, do not share it with them. They will make you doubt yourself and pretty much murder your joie de vivre.

2. I found out you can't bring "Christmas crackers" on a plane. I had to look this one up, but apparently they aren't talking about holiday treats. I still have much to learn about dangerous weapons that neither sound dangerous or like weapons.

3. If you want to learn a language really fast, download the Mind Snacks app for language. Yesterday I learned that "douze"is not a douche for men, but actually the number 12.

4. If your dreams and goals terrify you, you're doing it right.