quick, when's my birthday?!

Um, y'all?



...yes, please!!!

Calamity.

So the night before last, i finally crack open my copy of Anna Karenina (it's been five years, at least, since i decided to read it), and as i open it to the first page, my eyes alight upon a sentence near the end of the introduction, on the opposite page. A sentence that, with a particular three-word combination, gave away the entire ending of the book.

The next morning i woke up bleeding, like a stuck pig, if you'll pardon the expression. There just seems to be nothing more apt, although i have yet in my life to witness an actual stuck pig, which is something i am immensely grateful for.

Later that afternoon i found out that the flower shop is probably going under, and possibly soon. Which means i will be out of a job, and with little or no warning.

What on earth could happen next? Please, give it to me! i can take it!

So this morning there was a freak hailstorm here in P.B.! Utterly bizarre for a place where the weather is fair (and dreadfully dull) 98% of the time... i thoroughly enjoyed it from inside, although i think i may have heard the loudest peal of thunder in my entire life, which of course wreaked havoc on my rabbitish heart. Then the sky opened up for about ten or fifteen minutes, after which the clouds abruptly parted and heavenly sunshine poured down yet again. So basically all i got to experience of this "storm" once i left the house was the lingering aroma of warm, wet, concrete and an afternoon sky filled with dreamy, resplendent clouds. Hey- i ain't complainin'.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Side note: i just realized the sheer genius of having Alanis Morissette play a role in a movie where she doesn't utter a single sound the entire time... There is something wondrous in that.

∞art∞

Some links to make you feel worse about yout artistic skills:

~Dan Park. My 4 faves here are Share, Swim, Jenny Lewis, and Subway Dreams. Frakkin' amazing! Seriously, otherworldly good.

~Simon Schubert's scored paper craft... go ahead, click on one! Whoever said that nothing couldn't be something?

~John Reinfurt. Check out his portfolio (my fave is The Contortionist), and sketchbook (of which "Firebear" and "Mythological Creature No. 7" are personal standouts)... this guy's got talent coming out of his ears. His use of color is extraordinary, and the attention to detail is clear and simply perfect... i want to gaze at them all day long.

~Craig Kanarick's Candy Art. Mostly just photographs of candy, but if you like candy like i like candy, then you'll probably be enthused! His composition is pretty fab, plus: there is such a thing as Italian silver licorice?!

~Veronique Meignaud. Wow. The colors! i especially love "Column Atmosphere".


That being said, all art is subjective. So where did i find all of this amazingness? Drawn!, that's where. So go and find your own favorite stuff. It is chock-full, i tell you: chock. full. Happy hunting...

Blackbirds on the roof again.

Listening to Swami on a Saturday night. i was in bed, finishing my book. Nat was busy at the desk, as usual. Suddenly a song came on the radio and i found myself looking, really looking, at the radio, as if it were telling me something very, very important. When it was almost over (and possibly gone forever), i snapped out of it, sat up and said "what is this?"

"i know!" Nat looked at me with wide eyes and we realized that we'd both been wonderfully somewhere else for those few moments...

i asked if maybe it was the Dead Kennedys, but Nat thought not. He looked it up (thank you internet, for the umpteenth time) and found it right away: The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks". This again proves that i was born in the wrong decade.


From John Peel:

'Teenage Kicks' came on the radio, and I had to pull the car over to the side of the road. There's nothing you could add to it or subtract from it that would improve it.

...i couldn't have said it better myself.

Listen, but don't watch (this is for ears and hearts only):

Flaming June.

May Grey is over; we're officially in June Gloom season. If i hear the words, "jeez, where's the sun at?" or "yeah, what crappy weather we're having, huh?" one more time, i might just lose it once and for all.

In other news: June is Birthday Month. Did you guys know that? Does anyone else know what i'm talking about? There are five big ones this month (that i can think of right now, anyway), plus me and Nat's anniversary. Phew. It's gonna be hectic.

Not to mention that the county fair is coming up... yay! Let's see, last year Marilena did the bungee jump, and the year before that we ate deep-fried Snickers and ogled gemstones all night long. Wonder what this year will have in store. (i can't believe we're in year three down here in SoCal. What a world.)

i helped a minimum of 3 incredibly intoxicated individuals on Sunday (one of them tried to sneak-attack a pigeon), and on Friday afternoon i met a woman named Purple. She asked me if i was a Gemini, to which i replied, "no, but i do have Gemini rising." she goes, "well, obviously!" as if that explained everything, or that she had known all along. Come on, lady. i enjoy astrology/tarot just as much as the next gal, but don't embarrass yourself. No, i shouldn't be cruel. She was actually really nice, and i realized that i was heading down a road where i might end up just like her some day: still riding a bicycle at age 50+, still wearing too much eye makeup, and possibly enjoying the color purple a little too much (as in: her plush bike seat, leg-warmers, shirt, backpack, eye shadow, handlebar streamers, etc.). But it's okay. i hope to remain free-spirited and young at heart. It's sort of what keeps me going, especially on days when North Korea is testing long-range missiles, the Taliban kidnaps hundreds of schoolchildren, and an entire passenger jet is lost at sea.

The insomnia does tend to set in... what are we doing with our lives?

Are you happy with the way you spend your time?

What are you really supposed to be doing?

Does it really matter what anyone should be doing?

Sometimes i am alarmed by the broadening gaps in my thought processes. Where short, neuron-rich connections used to spark and fly, i am noticing myself more and more drift away along long, echoing misty chasms that twist and spiral along (seemingly endlessly) with the grooves of my neural flesh. Kind of like "the Nothing" from Neverending Story.

But enough rambling. here it is. Happy June.