FEENIX!!!!

FRIEND FAIL: leaving a fatigued kirsten at the bottom-ish o' camelback mountain to climb my way to the top. last time i attempted it, when i lived in phoenix, i brought my wee dog and he had difficulty pawing his wee claws up the side o' the mountain (chihuahua mixes don't = mountain goats).

MILEAGE FAIL: when people say "it's just another mile or so up," they mean vertical miles, which, folks, feel way different than HORIZONTAL miles. fyi.

SO PRETTEE!

Flagstaff cafes: topical.


getting my dance on at gas stazns across this nazn.

you said i was the road map reader

mad hair.
we match for our free howard johnson breakfasz.

Kirsten is inordinately obsessed with tumbleweeds. Apparently she has never seen an ACTUAL tumbleweed cross a road before, and so whenever one rolls across our line of vision, she feels some sort of demented compulsion to yell "TUMBLEWEEEEEEEEEEEEED." Somehow I still love her, even after the 19th tumbleweed. "We had at least 45 tumbleweeeeeeeeeeeeedz!"

UNICORNZ IN COLORADO
VEGETARIAN OPTION FAIL:

"Oh. Thank you, but I don't eat meat, and everything on the menu is..."

"Aw, but we have some GREAT baked potatoes."

Anddddd then came the 2nd Subway salad in 18 hours.

g'nite from santa-hayyyyy.

hojo

mornin', nebraska. 15moreminutes15moreminutes15moreminutes.

i'm so devotchka'd to you

HAY EVERYBODY!

kirsten & kira here, live-blogging from a howard johnson in the fair cosmopolitan metropolis of Grand Island, KNEE-BRASKA. we had to reserve this room from the internet, located on the world's oldest still-functioning computer (INTERNET EXPLORER 3 FAIL) located in the "business room" of the hotel, adjacent to reception, since it was "$9 cheaper online." Nevermind you the receptionist was sitting AT a computer. HOTEL FAIL.

HOTEL FAIL STORY NOT OVER. While we are waiting for the room reservation confirmation number to move the 5 feet from the internet explorer in the business room to the receptionist's internet (took 10 minutes), we were accosted by an overly-capped tooth self-described "dirtiest old man, she can tell ye," followed by a knowing nod towards the receptionist. He was carrying a plastic bottle of "UV Raspberry Vodka" in a small paper bag, and his teeth were already stained light blue.

"Why are you moving to California? Got a boyfriend there?"

"No," (through gritted teeth).

"Hell! Why would you move without doing it for a boyfriend?"

"UH....Why would I need a boyfriend to move?"

"That's all they women I know! The only women who move are those who do it to be closer to their boyfriends."

Kirsten goes "NEWSFLASH WALTER KRONKITE." and I got all Germaine Greer on his ass, like "Women do not need a boyfriend for an excuse to move, or to you know, do things with their own lives."

"Oh. So you're just, movin' on over there to like, live your life?" accompanied by an effeminate wave of the hands.

"Yah."

"Need a boyfriend? I mean I'll volunteer!" He then leans in to breathe in an overly loud and alcoholic whisper, "it's her (receptionist's) birthday on Friday. I gave her her present early. Look at her neck." 

The receptionist then lifts her collar to show the massive hickey she had received from him, proud to be a 25-year old Howard Johnson receptionist with such a perverted winner of 50-year old "dirty old man salesman."

TUESDAY'S ROAD TRIP ROUNDUP OF BEST CITY NAMES ALONG THE WAY TO LA:

What Cheer, Iowa

Montezuma, Iowa

Friend, Nebraska

wind in your hair ribbons on your face

en route to LA, on route 66 ... i'll miss you, chicago, old friends, new friends, familee, new dog, old haunts, new haunts ... see you soon, dear ones. onwards and outwards to starting over, yet again...

top photo here, bottom 3 by the wonderful sara macel

then & now & back again

why i love maren: she is the cutest thing probably in the entire solar system. tonite, she brought me my favorite things ever: candy corn & white chocolate pretzels for the road trip. in high school, instead of doing drugs & drinking, we would make late-nite Windy City Candy runs, giddy on sugar and each other. 17 years of best friendship, oh i'll miss having this doe-eyed delight in my everyday.

why & why & yes & yes

why i love jill and why the phoenix leg o' the trip can't come soon enough:

why i love my job -- watching this with amy & the hot australian d00d at the useless post-5 pm work hour:

kings of convenience, 'i'd rather dance with you'

his bowtie is really a camera

SHE KNOWS.

it's like choosing between children. the trusty nissan can only hold so much weight. GAH.

also, holy motherfuckingshit, the entire fever ray album is off tha chain AMARZINGNAGNNAGNGNGNANGNGNNGG, as expected. 

here's the fantastically macabre/outrageously brilliant video for 'if i had a heart' from director andreas nilsson:

master of pidginz

speaking of animal collective, chad von nau created an unbelievably trippy aquatic beautiful vimeotic situation of 'my girls' here

some japanther love, filmed by von nau:

von nau via mb! (say that 5 times fast)

who rubs our noses in the night? we do we do

and i don't make particular plans 'cause they don't matter

if you keep on fooling in bed with my sleeping patterns

and we dance upon the plains

then i shake your little shoulders

you push me down into the grains

(ac, grass)

the weather was nice, we slept in the grass painting by groundwork

between the click of the light

Here We Go Magic's infectious song "Tunnelvision" seriously, i've listened to this track like 8 times in a row now.

also, some "eccentric austrian" d00d saved the polaroid! huzzah.

ok its 2.40 am why am i still up. must...stop...reading...the internets...

photo by amanda farah

cool as a

quit playing with yr vegetablez

(never)

SHARK ON A WIRE

via fuckyeahsharks tumblr of awesome

nothing but green lights from here

HAY. WE FOUND AN APARTMENT IN LOS ANGELEEZ

!!!!1111111

finalleeeeee.

Now let's just hope we win it. In the heart o' los feliz, too! wheeeeeee. 

I'm tired of leaving people & places now. I wonder if in the next week, Chicago will appropriate the melancholically lovely, desirous patina in which London shined during my last days there. I suppose it's different here, since I know I'll be back home again and again...London is a slightly further haul. 

Hey, there is me & zach up above, walking arm & arm through a rainy royal park in londontown in one of my last months.

We filmed the intro to & edited my reel today...very exciting. My car passed its safety inspection and I've got lots of Last Suppers lined up. I'm getting closer & closer each moment. I can almost feel the 80-degree heat and the clammy warmth of my beautiful best friend's hand. I'm mere days away from you, dear one!

someone pleaseplease do this to me.

(film still from five more minutes, via mb!)

Ok, time to add some more plaid and go drink beer in a dark-lit bar with church pews for seats.

press on me: we are restless things

fact: work on wine & whiskey (lost count after shot 5) and 4 hours of sleep is a CHALLENGE. If one were so inclined, one might even refer to it  as "brave."

fact: reading sam pink's dementedly brilliant chapbook yum yum i can't wait to die on the el is a ridiculous effort in self-control. i'm sure i looked like the biggest asshole sitting and laughing to myself on the commute home, and it was the 2nd time i'd read it. more on that tomorrow.

fact: inauguration parties for a president you actually admire: (i solemnly swear) VERDICT GOOD. (you were worth every minute of gary, barry!) maren's veggie chili: VERDICT ALSO GOOD. free ticket to eddie's play @ the MCA this week: VERDICT VERY GOOD.

fact: minutes 11:57 - 16:53 of joanna newsom's 'only skin' give me goosebumps every single time, and i think that no other cluster of musical minutes can give me that same soaring kind of palpable, immediate joy. the moment bill calahan's voice chimes in with hers...ah.

        what'll i do with a trinket such as this?

             think of your woman, who's gone to the west

                   but i'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed!

                        then i'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head

oh, and here's DJ Z-Trip, just wakin' up, you know, havin' a morning cuddle. Here's this doe-eyed fellow's trippy rad Obama mix download.

these posts are kind of schizo. you didn't care about continuity or anything, did you?

top photo, o'keefe's hands by alfred stieglitz, 1918

cartoon in a cartoon graveyard

tapioca pudding. fffound. in my dad's fridge. a couple of days years days ago.  AUGH!! also, yogurt from 4 months ago. "i never have time to grocery shop."

fffound. in my mailbox. a couple days ago. from my adorrrrrrable niece matilda. this is henceforth how i shall spell love: (also always with a rad 6-legged panda bear(?) next to it)

a sky that is gaping and yawning

This weekend: a romantical Saturday nite date with two 11-year olds at the lovely uncommon ground,  a ridiculously delicious birthday dinner at sushi samba (melted mozzarella on my salmon maki? YESPLEASE), and two movies I am completely ashamed of having paid for, one of which I actually enjoyed. (under no circumstances should you cave to some sort of base comic instinct to go see Mall Cop. Granted, the 11-year olds dragged me to it, but I was thisclose to offering the mother next to me my services pacing up and down the lobby with her crying kid, it would have been more entertaining than the suckfest on the screen.) And yeah, as much as I normally can't stand romantic comedies/any movie Kate Hudson ever makes (except Almost Famous, obvs), Bride Wars was...actually pretty goddamn entertaining. ::Dodges flying fruit:: Above-average dialogue and two cute stars helped alleviate the uber-ridiculous premise. Shhh, I know, I know! 

It felt sort of good to see such stupid movies, though. I normally never go see those types of films but it felt like I was cheering myself up out of the recession with some Hollywood banality. Well, Bride Wars made me feel that way. Mall Cop just really, really bored me. Driving to the theater, the sweet 11-year old girl I babysit asked me which movie theater we were headed towards. 

When I told her, she responded "Is that the theater with all the black people?"

"Uhhh, I don't know...maybe??"

"Oh. Well, I don't like that one."

"Why...??!" I asked, mildly panicked about the Potential Serious Conversation ahead.

"They don't have the type of pretzels I like there."

Phew.

I am looking forward to escaping the Midwest in T minus 9 days if for no other reason than my exasperation with this bout of weather evocative of a 19th century Mongolian gulag. Everyone walks around looking more than slightly pained. My eyeliner is practically all cried away by the time I arrive, bleary-eyed and frozen-fingered, to the train stop. Plus, the -40 windchill is seriously cramping my sartorial range. Boots, or other boots? Two, or three layers of socks? I grow weary of my dog hair-ridden wool coat and too lazy to seek out a de-linter. 

Other activities I find far too boring to bother with:

*Flossing

*Stretching

*Backing up computer files

*Checking bank statements

Photo 1 here, Photo 2 via ffffound

i grow old, i shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled

men should probably all dress like this. gohh. love that gay english edwardian thing. if you dress as though you live within the lines of an eliot poem, you are doing things RIGHT.

Photography by Anna Wolf

why should i share you

why don't you get rid of someone else for a change?
i am the least difficult of men

all i want is boundless love.

(top svarta, bottom two dj hanus)

apple isn't resting on its laurels

i thought this was real until about the 1-minute mark. 

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

innovative new computer just takes 45 minutes to send an email! screen goes dark after 4 seconds of non-use to conserve energy! yesssss, onion tv, yessss.

champagnyah!

Post homemade veggie burritos and pre-vegan birthday cake, Ben (who studied furniture design at RISD) was discussing different wood-making techniques last nite and referred in passing to the Campana Brothers, Brazilian brothas-from-the-same-mutha-design partners who have been creating innovative sculpture/design installations using found objects since the '80s. This led to an unbelievable discovery: their insanely trippy, hellz "cutting edge" website. We all sat around the computer kind of dumbfounded and slack-jawed, even though we couldn't even load all the pages since it "requires a(n impossibly) fast connection and Macromedia Flash Player 7." Website stills found above. Keep the sound on, yallz. Also note the wee arrows pointing you to the next page, it took us awhile to figure that out. The website is maybe a bit  TOO complex/labyrinthine, i.e. not so user-friendly, but mad props for the design, it really is pretty outstanding.

Here they is (Fernando & Humberto)...i want that headdress.

The Anemona Chair, which reminded me immediately of the badass tutu chair my lovely Londontown flatmate Olivia created for her thesis project for Liberty's of London: