I haven't posted in a few days, and it's certainly not for lack of something to say. The problem is that I have entirely too much to say and I've been waiting for my head to cool off. I've just been terribly confused about certain areas of my life. And then aside from thinking about my conflicting ideas about certain situations I've been dealing with this lingering maudlin feeling. It's strange because I'm generally a very rational and cool-headed person, but really...who I am I to say who I am. I guess I'm just frustrated by the fact that I generally make my own happiness, and I'm unable to do that now.

San Francisco was only two days, but I know it changed me. I have this feeling like I was just in a dream, or I saw a movie that made me see the world differently. Everything about my visit was just very ideal and colored with happiness, and it felt like whatever was there was there for me. I found books that were exactly what I had been looking for but had been unable to find for years (including a really old used hardcover of Franny and Zooey), I drank microbrews in a cave with someone I'll never forget, shared headphones on the bus, laughed over old favorite shows and new secret jokes, and made a mermaid out of my dinner. I guess I didn't know how badly I needed some time away from LA, but the sad feeling that came over me this morning confirmed it. I just felt like it wasn't time to go.

Girl Post: The New Love of My Life

I just walked into Sephora to check things out, and I'm happy to report that I walked out with one well-chosen product instead of the typical "ohmygodiamsuchanidiot" voice that usually loops in my head for an hour. This is what I got: As most of you know, I'm typically AWOL in Dreamland, so a good eye concealer is critical for work in the morning. Smashbox's High Definition contains caffeine and light-reflecting pearls to make me look like a productive and attractive member of society when I feel like a sleepy mess from all the fun I had the night before. Well worth $18 to keep up that disguise, no question.

Ayatolla For My P.T.P.

The XX

Photo I took from last night's show at the Palladium.

Zhongqiu Moon Cake

Yesterday I had "Moon Cake", which is a Chinese delicacy eaten to honor the Moon Goddess of Immortality during Zhongqiu. I was impressed enough to learn that it was made from lotus and duck egg - but there's something way cooler beyond the surface. Apparently, the cakes used to contain hidden messages and the Ming distributed them to coordinate a revolt to overthrow Mongol imperial rule.

The taste is a little strange, even for me (there's hardly any sugar so the "cake" part is a bit misleading) but when have you ever seen cupcakes used in a coup d'état?

Warpaint

"I love you to pieces, distraction, etc."

I can't keep my skin from bruising and my fingertips from being cold.
When I laugh I just feel like I'm never going to stop and I have to think terrible things just to knock it off.
My heart swells when I think about things and people I love, and people I may soon love. Then I decide that I just won't talk to anyone anymore. Anyone who has the power or potential to hurt me. I just won't answer my phone anymore and that will be that.

I'm not depressed and I'm not losing my mind or anything. I'm having a Franny Glass crisis, with the religion part included.

The Who and Why.

So after a conversation with the handsome and talented Michael Lowman last night, I've decided to start posting on here again. The topics will be the same as before (actual reality with a twist of whatever the hell is going on in my frustratingly strange mind) but it might get a little more personal than that. I like this idea because if you're really curious as to what's going on with me you can come here and see something beyond the surface of social networking. I'll be sure to keep the shameless exposition focused on myself because that's really the point of something like this. And because, well, I try not to be a jerk.

Takato Yamamoto

Check out this feature Juxtapoz recently did on Takato Yamamoto: http://bit.ly/12PBLp

He says nothing ever takes more than a month! How inferior do you feel?

Advice: Never go grocery shopping when you're in a weird mood. You'll end up spending $40 on tomatoes, frozen Palak Paneer and Peruvian cacao nibs.

Recent Music

These are my heaviest played tracks of late in no particular order:

Sonic Youth - Sacred Trickster
Nu Shooz - I Can't Wait
The Mars Volta - Teflon
Joy Division - Means To An End
Cut Copy - Zap Zap
Shinichi Osawa - Push (ft. Ania Chorabik)
Liars - There's Always Room On The Broom
M83 - Kim & Jessie
My Bloody Valentine - When You Sleep

Fall UD

So much has been going on over at Urban Decay lately, it makes me sad that I've been cheating on them with Dior. Most notably, they have this absolutely sick shadow box dubbed "Show Pony" with work from Kime Buzelli which so badly makes me want to ignore the fact that I already have the included shades and accoutrements:

My definite favorite look from the Show Pony kit is this (mostly Painkiller which was probably mixed with some Transforming Potion and accented with Rocks):
Either way, Lais is absolutely killing it.

Fallen Star 1/5

The lovely Crista Funk and I went to LACMA a few weeks ago and saw "Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea", and though most of the pieces were impressive this one blew my mind completely:
It's called "Fallen Star 1/5" by Do Ho Suh. What this image doesn't capture is the unbelievable detail inside of the house, which included miniature EVERYTHING with absolutely nothing left to the imagination. If there was a tiny sandwich that had fallen off the counter, there was mustard and a tomato slice peeking out. There were tiny notebooks with the integrity of full spiral spines. If there was a coffee table, there was a ring on it from someone's sweaty water glass. And there had to have been a least thousands if not half a million little objects like that inside the house. Unfortunately, they didn't allow public photography of the piece, because there would better images to do it justice. The exhibition is over on September 20th, and viewing this work alone is worth the $8 student/$12 adult admission. Don't miss it.

Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound is the sexiest man dead.

Crystalline Spheres

"The music of the spheres will enrapture your soul."

Ode to Diet Coke

Diet Coke, I cannot quit you. Merely holding your cool aluminum vessel sends my mind into a state of sheer elation.  I know your light, bubbly goodness lies in wait as I slowly, eagerly pull back your flimsy tab. I pause and brace myself for our encounter after your mouth has opened and I deliberately carry you to mine.  Your artificially sweet, cold wetness first touches my lips, then tongue, then floods past my beating heart to finally collect in a pool of love in my belly.  As I drink more and more of you, my heart literally beats faster. I never fear that I will become tired of you, as you come in six exciting flavors--all a beautiful testimony to your relevant and dynamic nature.

The Birth of Feeling

      I've been wanting to--no, needing to write about this for weeks now.  It's in regards to a work of fiction in another work of fiction (The History of Love by the fictional character Leo Gursky which Krauss focuses on as the plot's nucleus in her heartbreaking novel The History of Love).  Anyhow, it's about how there was an exact origin for each individual emotion. For example, "surprise". There had to have been a status quo established before there could be anything that diverged from it. Krauss gives us many more emotions, and explains logically how the emotion must have developed. She then goes on to explain that after there was a basic set of emotions, people became addicted to feeling. People craved new feelings, whether negative or positive and became unhappy when anything stayed the same for too long.
     I feel like this idea totally knocked me over the head and made so much sense in my own life. It made me think of all the times in my life that I have (and still do) seek out new feelings just for the sake of I don't know, feeling like I'm alive in some way. I had been thinking that this was negative initially, because I think it's what makes people buy things they don't need and date people they don't care about. But revisiting this idea, I feel like this constant search, this addiction, can be very positive. It also caused me to think that the constant search for charged emotions may be exclusively Western, but I think it applies to everyone in a very human sense.
     The potential to feel new emotions, at least in my case, is what makes me want to discover new music, great books, film, art, and people. It causes me buy weird jewelry and eat exotic foods. Overall, I've realized that the result of this search and the resulting effect it has on me makes me who I am, in a very intrinsic as well as superficial sense.