p.s.

If you are ever bored or lonely:

Go to LACMA and visit the Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement (visible through September 1, 2008). Absolutely fantastic. Great day with Ashley. Walked to the museum, 80 degrees and gorgeous. Took care of some school business and then explored. Came upon the exhibit and was just completely blown away. Ate at the cafeteria where I paid  $3.25 for an apple flavored organic soda, BUT, I didn't even mind. Art has a funny way of making you appreciate things that are really important while gaining the ability to ignore those things that really do end up a bit more trivial.

www.lacma.org/art/exhibphantom.aspx

**Listen to the Pela album Anytown Graffiti. 

Really loud, through headphones.

Also hear:

Earlimart - Mentor, Tormentor

Lightspeed Champion - Falling Off the Lavender Bridge

Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts

The National - anything...

She & Him - Volume One (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward's collaboration act. Surprisingly brilliant. But didn't we all know she could sing since the shower scene in Elf)?

Then:

Plan out your summer shows here

(And tell me what you're seeing)

all good things

i'm happy. everything is good. 

good friends. good grades. good city.

everything is constantly up and down in LA. i go from loving the city to loathing it in about twenty-three seconds. sometimes it's almost impossible for me to let go of the constant annoyances i'm faced with, and i've just got to stop and think about what i already know. people can be cruel, but people can be really great. don't ever let yourself lose the ability to be surprised.

it's so easy to get caught up in the ugly things sometimes, isn't it? but then in the end you've just got to stop and think that there isn't any pretty without knowing what is ugly. nothing would ever seem decent if things didn't turn out shitty every now and then. 

i've started this whole 'live in the now,' thing. i'm not denying the importance of remembering the past and learning from every second of it. but at some point you've just got to stop and realize that the past is in the past, and living through moments past is so incredibly dangerous. in that same light, isn't it true that we can look towards the future with hope, always remembering that hope is virtually all we can do. 

we can live in the now. we can make the decisions we feel are right using the knowledge we've accumulated through the past, and we can do this all in hopes that the future will turn out however it is that we like. but really, that's it. the end.

i'm not sitting here saying that you shouldn't count on your life being decent. but we can't, can we? i mean i would like to say that global warming won't eventually kill us all, and i can certainly hope that it won't. but what i cannot do is wish myself back to when the world was genuinely good (if it ever was genuinely good), and loathe the life i'm living for not being as great is it might have been. and i cannot live in a manner that is entirely dependent on things going my way. because they won't. that is all i know.

i can inhale and exhale. i can appreciate whatever is going on within this minute of this day, and take what comes to me as i stumble upon it. i can learn from the shit in a way that makes me appreciate the good things a little bit more. and i can appreciate what is real and what is now.

saved by the _____________

so i was going through this ancient cigar box of all this old shit that i have accumulated over the years. 

the following is a brief and simplified list of the remnants of nearly 14 years past: 

a couple ghostly looking antique postcards from the old towne orange shops, a couple love letters from exes that have probably been folded and unfolded nearly 200 times, dried prom corsages with the photos to accompany, hello kitty stationary, magazine cut outs, seventh grade cartoons by megan, 2 notable mix tapes from 2 notable old friends, baseball cards from the st. johns era, stamped letter envelopes with no letter inside, photos with faces torn away and blacked out, valentines day cards from 5th grade, 7th grade, and 12th grade, tiny toys from quarter machines, an 11th grade activity where each member of Herro's english class had to write something nice, even assorted colored and flavored condoms from god knows when or where.

it was a tiny bit awkward and painstakingly honest to trip down memory lane, thumbing over each item and pausing a bit to wonder why in the hell i'd saved it for years past. honestly, some of the shit in that box can be traced back to the fourth grade. each item has a story, and the greatest part is that whether or not it means anything to me now, it meant something to me then. obviously it meant enough for me to place it away in a spot that i'd find it again someday, sort of like whoever i was wanted whoever i was going to be to remember. and going through it now, i blushed, i laughed, i retraced letters. i forgot familiar names. i forgot some age old faces. i cried reading through the playlist my senior year boyfriend created 3 days before we left for college. and then i smiled and remembered. life can be funny.

in the end, i guess, it's just sort of proof.

proof that emotion still exists in a world where at times it is so easy to allow yourself to remain incredibly numb; to drift.

proof that i was once capable of feeling something other than anxiety, indifference, or paralyzing self doubt.

and maybe that's all we need sometimes. little reminders from whoever we used to be, letting us know that things were okay once, and will be okay again sometime soon. what matters now might not ever matter again, and what seems so incredibly pointless in the present might end up meaning the world sometime down the road.

life goes on if we allow it.

so write things down. record your dreams. collect. save for the future.

you can not ever know what is coming, or even where you are truly headed. but i learned tonight that sometimes it does help to remember where you have been.

best of: coachella 08

There are moments in life when you find yourself cliched. Caught in the moment. When every single thought running through your mind is momentarily paralyzed and you are submersed into the present. Past and future render useless as every single second is literally the only thing in the world that matters. Here are some of the headlining moments of Coachella 2008 that made the money, the mileage, and the late night drive back to Los Angeles worth every painstaking dollar and gallon.

1) Stars closing their set with Take Me to the Riot; dedicating their song to the fans, the hope, and Obama. Touching the railing. Feeling your heart beat in your throat, pulsating to the bassline. Rayban-ed guitarists. Two phenomenal singers in love. 

Nobody in front of you, thousands of people behind. 

Love is everywhere.
BR>

2) Chromeo to JUSTICE in the Sahara tent. Duh. Thousands of people in a sweltering, overpacked tent @ 12 am after 3 days of nonstop, better-than-sex moments, chanting repeatedly "We are your friends, you'll never be alone again."

And realizing that in the end, it's true. 

Each person in the crowd, through the sweat and the tears, is that much better for it.

3) F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

4) The helpful guy in the parking lot doing literally everything he could to get us out of the deadlocked field on Saturday night. After sitting in the same line for 45 minutes and not moving more than 3 inches, he came to our window and told us the plan: "We aren't moving because they've closed the exit on us. My girlfriend and I are going to cut through the parking spaces, knock down a few cones, and get out on the dirt road that we came in on. Are you down?" Hell yes we are. Seriously. 3 minute later we were cruising down Jefferson Ave. doing 50 mph. Sometimes, you need to go against the majority and do your own goddamn thing. And never, never, never forget that you really can help other people. You have the power to make the night of 4 tired and cranky sunburned girls. Life is beautiful.

5) Midday naps in the sunshine, listening to groovy music. Does it Offend You, Yeah? Getting a tan. Shoes for a pillow. Just not giving a shit that people were constantly moving around you. Taking time out of the day to listen, love, learn, and cat nap.

6) Squirt guns during The Cool Kids and The Bird and the Bee. Purchased out of love. Meeting Inara George didn't hurt.

 

7) The fathers of 2 of Kate Nash's band members grooving in front of us with their VIP bracelets, cheering louder than the crazed group of girly fans to the right. So stoked on their family. Stoked on music. Ancient dance moves that never seemed more graceful, nor sexy. 

8) The Indio sunset during The National's set. Blood red, African sun dipping below a cloudless horizon. Matt Berninger banging away on his fucking piano, competing with The Raconteurs to be heard like it really was the only thing in the world that mattered. Cigs and veggie bowls on the bleachers in the tiny, dispersed crowd. 

9) Kids climbing the walls of the tent, dancing on shoulders and sound boxes, breaching security fences and filtrating the stage during M.I.A. An audience overflowing the Sahara tent reciting the chorus of Paper Planes, lighting up, spinning in circles. Being young, growing up, being free.

10) The Verve closing their set with Bittersweet Symphony and dedicating it to Hunter S. Thompson. No explanation was needed. The beauty found within that simple dedication and the following 8 minutes of the breathtaking song was literally indefinable. Long live The Verve. No matter how overplayed that song might have been, hearing it live makes you realize that the overplaying was for a reason.

Beauty was everywhere. 

The hot air balloon coasting during Vampire Weekend's fantastic set. Yellow, yellow sun during the 8 minute long intro to Death Cab's new single. The Teenagers getting 12 people from the audience onstage with them to help them cheer, "I fucked my American cunt, I love my English Romance!" The beautiful long haired boy with windy arms and white teeth against tanned skin, so incredibly thrilled to be dancing alone to Brett Dennen. Old people grooving awkwardly to JUSTICE with earplugs, gray hair, and smiling wives. 

All ages, colors, styles coming together creating a sweaty mass of people who truly were all united by virtually the same exact thing: music. DJs. Shout Out Louds, Shout Out Louds, Shout Out Louds. People in love. People enthralled. People captivated. People feeling actual human emotion and being completely unafraid of doing so for 3 entire days.