recurring dream. that hand felt the same.

stage 1/2/3 - spring (concert band!)

stage 2/3/4 - summer (bipolar times with frenchy)

stage 5/6 - fall/winter (mello/upcoming drum majoring)

rinse&repeat

still always love it

wasted days, empty nights.

islands don't get smaller.

those blues make rusted steel reverberate like

how waits' bourbon-soaked vocal cords rumble a

backside's vertebrae

-

nikes grind against the

electric sidewalk, illuminated under the fox tower neon

cobalt shades in the air

-

couples brewing around

friday evening buzz, a caramel harmony of

'let's go back to my place' and

'how was your week'

"inebriated and swimming in peanut butter"

hardest thing? deleting old text messages..

if you're happy and you know it,

performed in walt disney concert hall. that was cool.

gladys knight and the pips (and a cameo from bebe winans and gladys' brother bubba) just put on the show of a lifetime at the hollywood bowl. boy, was that great. bubba doing al green's 'let's stay together' and of course, that 'midnight train to georgia' was groovin' along. and couldn't have shared it with anyone better, those kind of conversations on the bus back about life and growing up and all the big things that make me feel still feel like a kid sometimes looking at the big, wild, scary world out there. everything was in perspective and wow, life's rich. evenings at the bowl are summer.

one republic and a strong, strong brew of green tea. strong.

one of my goals for the latter half of this year - smart punctuality. for everything.

made of 17k recycled ny times

i lie spread-eagle in the space between my mattress and bed frame. it's a pressured kind of vulnerability. either the bed frame or i will break first.

"you know, sometimes you just need to tell that first horn, 'fuck you!', and show 'em where that downbeat is."

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

i love science

gotta get on it so i don't collapse. summer work inspiration take ii.

"we should see earthly faces, the wind whistling across long sunbeams, sponge-like mosses, green as ever, clinging to their host stones, wisps of soft hair swaying across a lover's forehead."

thewildernessdowntown

#fuckyouwashington

1953

qingdao algae

THE SPOON

Some days I think I need nothing
more in life than a spoon.
With a spoon I can eat oatmeal
Or take the medicine doctors prescribe
I can swat a fly sleeping on the sill
or pound the table to get attention.
I can point accusingly at God
or stab the empty air repeatedly.
Looking into the spoon’s mirror,
I can study my face in its shiny bowl,
or cover one eye to make half the world
disappear. With a spoon
I can dig a tunnel to freedom
spoonful by spoonful of dirt,
or waste life catching moonlight
and flinging it into the blackest night.

-- Richard Jones

the last oil painting i ever worked on, two years ago. a duplication. still unfinished. barely past a sketch and a raw scrub of paint. and i really miss painting.

room in brooklyn

edward hopper

love

the stills in

35 millimeter film don't burn anymore

it's as if the edges have been stages for too many

fleeting ballets of terracotta oranges and chili reds

they've lost their goosebumps and

well, not many sparks anymore

but back in the paradise of cinema

those stills danced with the leaps of

gunslingin' westerns and stubbled heroes

the stills filled with movement, stills

collapsing chests the first time a blush cheek is turned and the

warmth of tears were

plenty enough to ignite the roll

just finished outliers by malcolm gladwell, which was stubbornly great. time to hit up john green and david sedaris so hard. oh, and a little hemingway too. so excited.

hollywood bowl tonight was awesome, with sam. just so much soul everywhere and each and one of the performers left their hearts in the packed amphitheater. and stevie wonder was just incredible. no words.

there are words though, for that woman who sat next to me. middle-aged and obviously cross-faded given the stench of her clothing, that bottle of red wine that was emptied incredibly fast, and her well..outgoing personality (to say the least). the non-classical crowd at the bowl makes for the best people watching. almost better than 3rd street.

"i always lose my memory when i fall in love."

new phone and i accidentally deleted your poke. that's..hah.

transitioning my way out of my old phone (got a temporary new phone, some fancy htc that i don't know how to use, before i get my permanent new phone, a fancier upgrade of this temporary htc i have now that i'm sure will perplex me for a long while) and it feels a little weird to leave my old one behind. a hell of a two years with it.

guess it's first with my braces, now my phone. a refreshing start(?)

i want my life to return to normality. circadian rhythm has lost its beat.

i remember the first time i ever cried during a tv show/movie was when misty left ash in pokemon. those nine year old saturday mornings.

"make sure you play every single day in your life."

whale sharks..what

saw a roach last night before i went to bed, promptly freaked out then threw myself into bed (thankfully elevated a few feet of the ground) and shut off the lights and attempted to fall asleep while trying to get images of the roach growing three feet and attacking my in my sleep out of my head. now it's not dead and i can't find it and neither can my mom and i'm so paranoid that every time i enter a room i scan the entire floor for it before walking in and jesus. two inch bug is making me so uneasy in my own home. damnit. i hate bugs.

roach 1, victor 0.

magic.

"opinions are like butts - everyone has them and they all stink."

-pat sheridan

circle of life

absolutely beautiful. if science doesn't want my body, i'll become a tree. a populus alba, what i'm named after.

caren alpert

need to revamp my summer lifestyle.

i can feel my heart beating from the right side of my ribcage - night.

we were born and raised in a summer haze

oh, blackberry heart

veined with faint pastel blues and greens

watercolor waterfall - yellowstone jealousy

don't spill your soul, this hill is too steep

- - -

yeah

"i can tell you the story but it won't be true. it won't be the facts as they happened exactly, each day, each footstep, each breath. time elides, events shift; sometimes we shift them on purpose and forget that we did. memory is just how we choose to remember. we choose."

-r. r. rizzuto

a best friend makes a crapstorm feel that much less crappy. sun's still not out, but it's brighter.

they're so cute.

i found a stored away cardboard box no bigger than a shoecase and inside was an old letter, badly torn open by my clumsy hands (from what felt like decades ago).

it's hard for me to cry anymore but that envelope held enough to make my core tremble and my lungs shiver and god - i can't explain it.

"...always!"

this is why i do it.

liu

where you go when she sleeps

"...it is too good to hold her while she sleeps, her hair falling

richly on your hands, shining like metal, a color

that when you think of it you cannot name, as though it has just

come into existence, dragging you into the world..."

my summer won't be complete until i have one.

endeavor

"hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig"

malcolm gladwell

outliers

i hate mosquito bites.

and how badly my body reacts to them.

hatehatehatehate.

when i said 'i can see me in your eyes'/

you said 'i can see you in my bed'/

that's not just friendships that's romance too/

you like music we can dance to

everybody was well dressed/

and everybody was a mess/

six things without fail you must do/

so that your woman loves just you/

oh all the girls played mental games/

and all the guys were dressed the same

love's always a bit better with comic relief.

hug it out

hope

womens' world cup final was intense. so intense. glad the japanese got it in the end though. sometimes you just get what you need.

in other news..

yeah, fatburger's triple king xxx challenge. took down (king)^3 in 7 minutes 41 seconds and enjoyed (almost) every moment of it with d.b. and b.c., mmm. washed it down with that beautiful 85% lemonade/15% sprite cocktail. got a little intimidated when i watched them cooking it though..didn't really fathom how much 1.5 lbs of beef really is.

i should go work out soon.

carmageddon is over early? cool.

i kinda wish we had carmageddon every weekend though, traffic was nice - for once.

i

most used words in toy advertisements aimed at young girls

most used words in toy advertisements aimed at young boys

"no story lives unless someone wants to listen"

thanks, for giving me a year of what i want to think i can call childhood. even if it was just a year.

i dreamt that i became a wanted homicidal fugitive and i have dreamt it for too many consecutive nights.

sleep?

i think it's cold blue, sober

and fluorescent lights won't get any less solar

there's a sedaris-caricature filed in on the inside

of my forearm, or maybe just in a cornea

- - -

there's that gravel voice pouring the blues

and i swear,

the grid of linoleum just skewed to the left

- - -

those capillaries aren't getting any tighter

it's as if they're trying to asphyxiate each other,

vines killing for sunlight when they don't want to rise

last night

• two zankou falafel wraps, pound cake, and a cane sugar pepsi to start off the hollywood bowl evening
• wild and tipsy middle aged lady next to my mom, spilled a whole glass of wine on her..
• dudamel conducting borodin's polovetsian dances from prince igor - really made me smile
• borodin is also downlow really damn cool for being a beast chemist and composer at the same time (even when his highly touted chemistry professor doubted he could succeed at both concurrently)
• lang lang doin' his thing. never gonna get sick of it.
• loved his encore, liszt's liebestraum.
• last piece was alright. mussorgsky's pictures at an exhibition. great brass sound though. the final mvmt's brass chorale was awesome.
• major shift given my last two musical experiences were dci competitions.
• even bigger shift when i went from the senior crowd at the bowl to the excited young folk of the hp7b midnight premiere
• but on my way back from the bowl, on the bus ride. the whole seat to myself and the darkness zooming down and my ipod singing away and it felt like drumline and it made me sad.
• car straight to marina del rey for hp7b premiere
• i don't have much to say (or ability to form what i want to say) right now, but there were just so many tearjerkers. i've never cried so much with a movie before, so emotionally draining.
• car ride back with the crew, in n out closed (3am..damnit) and westwood was abandoned. it was weird.
• home, didn't sleep til 4:30. i kind of wanted to see the sunrise.

living sculptures

janet echelman

porto, portugal

matosinhos, portugal

fit the trick to the moment, not the moment to the trick.

chris and kenneth bray.

first and last shuttle launch.

DENTAL RADIOLOGY TECHNICIAN - so..you're a fine young man. you got all the height, the looks. you set! what do you think about interracial marriage?

ME - i'm all for it?

D.R.T - how about arranged marriage?

i make a face attempting to show how i feel about the most awkward small talk ever, but she sticks a mirror in my mouth to take another photo and i'm about to gag

D.R.T. - well i got this daughter of mine. your age, half black half japanese..FLUENT in japanese, loves asian food: japanese, korean, you name it! she eats kimchi everyday, i swear.

still gagging

ME - oh i like kimchi..

D.R.T. - oh of course! you're korean, right?

ME - no, chinese, but close. i'm really korean-looking for a chinese.

D.R.T. - oh what's the difference, right? what's your gpa?

ME - four point six or something, but that's really only after one year so it doesn't mean much.

D.R.T. - oh perfect! she's four point oh. you two will be great together.

sticks another mirror in my mouth

more gagging

you'll never walk alone

this is all too funny at 2 am.

thanks, a. coops

that unusual feeling of your chest cavity giving your heart a bearhug and how it's always a tighter embrace the closer it gets to sunrise.

manhattanhenge

in honor of hp7's finale

harry potter - tell about a scar on your body

when i was younger. 8, i think. third grade. me, alex, danny, sam, brendan all at alex's place in his little room in his garage where we spent the best time of our lives playing gamecube. we decided to wrestle in the room with all the lights turned off (great ideas). forehead, meet cast iron table frame. i felt fine, until i felt something trickling down my face and i went into the bathroom and looked at something out of a horror movie. sam calming me down and then e.r. and they glued it together instead of stitches and i have a one and a half inch vertical scar in between my eyebrows, a little closer towards my left one and lighter than the rest of my skin. it's been fading way. not quite harry's lightning bolt, though.

ron weasley - something you're afraid of

bugs. bugs and poverty.

hermoine granger - a subject you know a lot about

i don't really know how to answer this one. i'm a student and i always want to be one.

draco malfoy - closest green item to you

adla championships medal. one of the greatest experiences of my life. reminds me everyday of not only music but how music is so much bigger than itself.

severus snape - your favorite alcoholic beverage

i haven't tried it, but it's probably going to be something involving either coconut or strawberries.

rubeus hagrid - your favorite animal

red pandas. too much cute. too much.

luna lovegood - something about you other people find weird

how little i trust myself on knowing what homework is due tomorrow.

neville longbottom - your favorite flower

jasmine. for its purity in looks and its killer tea.

nymphodorah tonks - something you would change about your appearance

my hair style. i don't know how i'd change it but i'm bored and i want something..modern. being ripped wouldn't be bad, either.

fred and george weasley - the last prank you pulled on someone, or someone pulled on you

seattle trip + various alex dale items + lots of post-its..

voldemort - if you were to make a horcrux, it would be...

my backpack, no doubt.

moaning myrtle - the last thing to make you cry

guilt.

that look.

"there's the things that you want to say, the things you will say, and the things you can say. it's not being who you aren't, it's being smart"

and i'm not sleeping now, the dark is too hard to beat

e. coupe photography

alcatraz island

inspired by b.f. today to hunker down into summer work tomorrow. got my little binge of team fortress ii tonight and tomorrow i'm off.

damn, i love this song. and a flowchart makes me love it even more.

back around this time of the year, when i was younger (a lot younger. seven or eight), i remember my mom used to pack me just a whole ripe tomato as a snack when i went to day camp at ucla. i'd eat it like how i'd eat a whole apple and i loved it, the sweetness of the juices as they exploded as i bit into each little cell of the fruit. i remember how the other kids always made fun of me for eating a tomato so unusually, escalating once to a kid taking the whole tomato out of my lunch and throwing it into the bushes while i was distracted with other campers and our cocaine-laced gameboys. i don't know why it suddenly reminded me of those times but i can't imagine that was a decade ago. i can't even grasp that i've been alive for more than a decade.

d'aw.

like father like son..

at least i fell asleep before 5am. but it's not like that green led 4 was too pretty either. this is going to be gnawing away at me for so long.

first..

i can't sleep. the softest pillow is an empty conscience and i'm in a bed of blood diamonds.

(i finally understand that story ___ always told me about the man who _____ ______ and always woke up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat and belted bloodcurling yells in his sleep.)

there's something magical about going to space that's always been in the back of my head. to leave home - not in the sense of flying to illinois but in the sense of really leaving, flying away from the little piece of the universe we as humanity call home.

"let's light this fire one more time"

nihil homini certum est

joe flacco under center at his wedding. heh.

it's another beautiful day in

sunny sunny

red-skied california

and the gravel's caked together in

last night's downpour of mud and there's the

scattered feathers of this morning's roadkill

little yelps of surprise and painless

shining lights, littering wilshire avenue

phones are starting to buzz and

look, there's that homeless man

he's throwing up on the side of the bus stop

again, maybe there's going to be a

good samaritan like that nice lady yesterday that will help him move his bags

but no,

the 720 just came and he's left alone, we all

have mornings like this

the bruin bear looks less bronzed today

maybe it's the hour hand or just too many

trojan beatings, but

it looks tired

virgin pina colada, my god. i can't stop.

it's either

the mugginess of the early summer day

quarter til two overcast, slow

reverberations of muzzled cars and big blue exhaust

or the cold of the house

chilled like the inside of the middle aged

grizzled hispanic's ice cream cart,

sunken eyes and concrete cheekbones

a yellowed cotton ball head and

forearms dotted with the sea of ohio valley hills

my chest feels hollow, an indent in my life where

damp pressure is smothered against it,

a steaming washcloth asphyxiating the void and my lungs are

starting to retreat

non satis scire

phoenix, az

headin' to chi-town for a few days in august as a part of a little college tour of the midwest that'll finalize with dci finals in indy. can't wait.

ahh, seattle.

"we wouldn't last two days without her"

those endless afternoons on carpeted colina living room floors. that was my childhood.