please hold the line

& bear with me as i give my thought platform a makeover.

bi-coast-pathy

Yeah, it’s like everyday I wake up
I stare into space and don’t say much
Peer in the mirror feeling dead from the face up
Coffee pots, cigarettes, morning Js, Baileys
Slowing down my day before it picks up the pace Beats
playing since the night before thinking about writing songs
Feeling exhausted from times we toured constant
And plus the toxics I sip got me tall
Still tipsy staring at the city from the spot we call


los angeles


here again. was crossing off the things that i was grateful for as i was sitting nauseous in my middle seat on the forty-fifth minute of chilling on the LAX tarmac; waiting to be taxied to our gate:
- i made it to LAX in one piece
- kathryn the stewardess hooked up the ginger ale
- there weren't any embarrassments or warnings about breaching security
- watched "i love you phillip morris" & had a good cry

& that was enough to keep me from throwing up in a bag or spinning my brain around how the quality of air travel is digressing blah blah blah... where am i going with this?

ah. gratitude. the theme of my existence these days. i'm just thinking back to how the past few weeks have been, and i can't remember much more than, through it all, i've just been trying to focus on what's already good. that, and not really doing anything. just trying to let the universe really work it all out for me.

don't get me wrong, this has nothing to do with achieving some sort of zen or serenity. if anything, i feel like i'm this crazy woman, being affected by all kinds of realities, insecurities, injustices, treason, thievery, raaaaa! laughing one minute, crying the next, that i have no choice but to surrender to the universe at this point. it's like, "you tell me" because i have no idea.

and then i laugh. i laugh hard. because at the end of the day it's all so entertaining, isn't it. what else could it be?

a bit lonely.



. . . . . .





spent three days with my mom, ate & q. ate drove us, we stayed at circus circus as to squeeze in some adventure dome time for quirina even though her mom made sure she remembered that the focus of the trip was nanay. so of course the little girl is hilarious. q has a magic bean case. in it are some magic beans and what looked like used up ear plugs that had happy faces drawn on the end that goes in the ear. so i said, "ill, are those used ear plugs?"

quirina starts laughing, "yeah."

"gross!" i say.

this grabs my sister's attention. she looks down at the ear plugs and asks q where she found them.

"in ventura. during our walks."

my sister: "those are dirty! what did i say about picking things from the ground? throw those away."

quirina starts freaking out, whining, "no... i washed them!"

then my mom starts cracking up the way she does all loud and howly, makes my sister laugh ruining her game, then i start laughing, and quirina gets away with keeping dirty ass used strange ear plugs.

i've met my hotel/air match with ate & q. man oh man do those two know how to travel. & boy do they know how to chill in a hotel room. they make a list of now five loved ones who know how to enjoy hotel accommodations.

q's at that age where she carries a purse. one day we were in the car driving to nanay's house, and she goes, "want to see what's in my purse?" in it she had travel markers, her magic bean case, and her wallet where she keeps an envelope covered in hand-drawn hearts & peace signs in which she keeps her cash (about $25).






fryman canyon.

early-harvest of the porch flowers (what barrett calls it) before heading out to nice.
it stunk to high heaven.

cholada. kenz & i decided this is malibu's camp david. if you ever need one.

hello marmaduke.

charles the european.

dinner view.

good morning.

landed a sweet cushion while in barce.

fave gaudí spot. so acidic.

shadow maze.

the cushion has a terrace.




eastward bound.

antibes.

homegrown.

nature's tie dye.


julien opened his bar. 4drinks. place garibaldi. it's a hit!


waiting for our table. st. paul.

fête de sainte catherine.

typsie afternoon.



sunday worship.








gandalfo garden details.

lhr-lax.

Every day is like a blank canvas
Carving my initials in the planet like I brand it
Hand picked to live this life we take for granted
Like a child with an upright bass, we can’t stand it
Smiling through the trouble we face, trying to manage
My way without pumping my brakes and staying stagnant
Cause I can sit on my ass or just imagine
The madness I did on my path and paint the canvas

(gracias a mia por les nouveautés blu)

when i wake up i look into the mirror...

white rhino is a summer flower

i noticed recently that every time i catch myself in some skate-related banter i play dumb. always. especially when other females partake in the conversation. oh how they proudly state the answer when asked "who runs the berrics?". dare i show any knowledge of who-owns-what or who-dude-rides-for would be cliché.

what am i, elitist? is this elitism?


. . . . . .


"you poor, washed-up papa's boy." -chas tenenbaum

i ♥ it.

. . . . . .


marijuana is an interesting issue to talk about with the world. it has so many different connotations - it's comedic as it is (supposedly) sinful as it is indeed medical.. and then for me, it's also my income.

i need to find a new synonym to "stoner."


. . . . . .


sometimes i do things that remind me of loved ones in order to feel their company even when they're not around.





the great thing about being in cali (with a car & having weekdays for weekends)
is being able to get on the road. mackenzie & i decided on driving up pch.



reaching the halfway point on a 90-mile stretch (all cliff, no exits)
of hwy 1 by way of a caltrans detour.

cannery row.

pismo.



five-star bathroom view.

quick & dirty nyc weekend with mia & co.
view courtesy of lauren & another one of her fab parties.

nerdz!

nyc & mia. this flick says it all.


. . . . . .


tita tess says "you look like a teenager." i feel like one, but grown. starting a new school - seeing where i fit in or which crew i'm gonna run with... but i already know. without knowing much at all.


. . . . . .


hollywood. got to love its charm.



work.

a visit with the stratte-mcclures

charles the american.


rap snitches, tellin all their business
sit in the court and be they own star witness
do you see the perpetrator? yeah i'm right here
fuck around and get the whole label sent up for years (huh)

mmm..food. i'm playing it out.


inger's last night in town.

well, well, well. judgy wudgy was a cliché.

stevie has no shame.

crazy gideon has a view.

this is how nokia takes flicks.


and so here i am in the hometown for another summer solstice. it's five pm & the sun's still shining high and bright. my perception of time is so off. the last year feels like at least three. good things all around. happiness in everything. and into the sun i go.

"chance is slimmer thanthat chick in calvin klein pantses"

the past few weeks have been interesting as usual. all kinds of different avenues that are open for me to explore. and the difference this time is that i'm not doing any deciding. except in matters of the heart, e.g. making time: personal time and time with loved ones. oh how essential having forty-eight hours a week to myself is. very. lost without it.

the thing that i'm getting the most kick out of while doing biz in human relations is that i have boundaries, and i'm learning how to express them in the most neutral way possible. most recently, i learned how to say, "please leave" to some man in the most reasonable tone i could muster.. apparently so as i got a five buck tip from him as he left. it's weird. all of it. like my body is starting to do the right thing on its own. i don't have to think. meanwhile the universe is very patient that it even took me this long to start considering the possibility that she - & not i - is in control.

trust.

HUGE.


. . . . . . . .


i got together with my sister a handful of times this month. i hadn't seen her in a minute. when we met up at one of q's piano lessons, she was wearing a navy velvet blazer, black riding pants, and calf-high black suede boots with a three-inch stiletto heel. huh. "there's something different about her... but she's the same." the get-up was totally her steez, but before that day i'd seen her in nothing but anthropologie-steez hoodies & wide-legs with sneakers... i don't know where i'm going with this. oh, something happened to her. whatever it is, the way she handled it shouldn't be surprising, but it is. because boom, 180, now she's glowing. go ate.


. . . . . . . .



i caught the royal tenenbaums on tv the other night. i hadn't seen in it a long time. uh, it's still one of my ultimate fave flicks. it's like, get out of my head wes anderson. ridiculous.


. . . . . . . .


i feel like i have to act out the pain of events that are widely accepted as painful... if only to lessen any future trauma from whatever the so-called painful experience would bring.

in other words, i'm so programmed to be so goddamn strong. that even when i want nothing more than to be weak and human and act out the pain freely...

i don't know how to.

oh delayed reaction.


. . . . . . . .


for some reason, whenever i daydream about the future - aside from the building of a dope home that faces the sun for as many hours possible in a day - i have visions of tokyo. access in tokyo. interesting. & i wonder.


. . . . . . . .


cuddling. deep in my heart i know that everyone loves to cuddle. i think cuddling decreases snoring too. nah. cuddle away!




twenty-four hours in vegas to chill with nanay.





heart colors!



look at how q decorated her mama's birthday cupcake.








turns out one of the mid-city collective patients works at uni high. while describing
the westside to another patient who had never been, he was like, "dog. hood's a trip.
whole different world over there." oh hometown pockets.



nugget.



scenes from the nguyen-magcase church nupts.



her again. & my fave color.




"uncle mark gives her the coolest gifts."