LA LA LAND (2016). Colorful, dazzling, and Hollywood’s ostentatious self-promotion at its best.
Four whole days of stumbling around a blissfully white landscape at Sugar Bowl. I was struggling not to get blown over when I was taking this photo, lens and self both drenched. The conditions were too cold and wet for me that day, so I stopped skiing mid-morning and decided to wander in between the Village and Judah lodges, as advised by one of the staff. I was obsessed with getting visual evidence that it was actually snowing, because I’m not around it much at all and it was so precious and exciting. The skiing, I don’t miss (perhaps I fell one too many times). But the sights - late night gondola rides, fresh and empty winding paths of snow along the forest trail. Just rows and rows of trees, specs in the distance now, as the lifts begin to rise, far as the eye can see. They were something else altogether.
Bit into a perfectly rotten red apple today. Tasted fine minus the distasteful brown color.
New birth. (With contributions from Ricky.)
Pencil on Paper by 53. Just keep swimming…
Professional sailors, Brazilian chefs
Finally, some photos again. Gone are the days of trying to tag everyone in way too many uploads. Let’s do this old school, with non-compressed files for once.
And so the adventure begins.
Elena a little under the weather, but still cute as heck.
Eva met up with us for incredibly cheap and delish dim sum in Oakland Chinatown (this was a candid when she walked out to ask me a question).
9 Things Frequently On My Mind This Week
- Land-based exercise is difficult. Swimming 1.2k everyday is less so in comparison.
- In a moment of arrogance: What if instead of biking, I start swimming to work? (across the SF bay, that is)
- Sometimes speed walking after I get out of the pool reminds me that I’d rather be swimming than walking. Something akin to sea legs.
- 3 months without sex is totally doable if you can at least find yourself reading books that somehow talk about it all the time (Infinite Jest, The Golden Notebook).
- In fact, almost all my current literature intake is serving a highly therapeutic purpose, and I couldn’t be more pleased. It’s almost as if other people have experienced my same problems!! Curious, though, the timing at which I read what I read.
- Sometimes being at home reminds me how lively and not lonely being at the office feels like.
- If sitting is the new smoking, are mattresses the new chairs?
- ‘Bed’ time no longer involves a bed, really. Just a yoga mat with some sheets on top. Thought this was a drastic set-back at first, but really it’s been a positive change that has taught me to question 1) western furniture 2) the necessity of shoes, even.
- I get a greater kick out of reading about people reading than reading about anything else.
- When I stare out the window on my daily commute (which I can do now that I stopped taking BART and started preserving my sanity), I often think about drawing, how I’m not doing it enough. Then I go back to reading and am instantly happy again.
As of today, I am 7,962 days old. My 21st birthday was quite some months ago, but here is the first week where I really became an adult. Took my first real driving lesson, then test, and now licensed (after possessing a learner’s permit for 2 years). Flew all the way to San Francisco and back in one day for my first real interview. And now I’ll be moving again, to my first internship, and eventually, hopefully, full-time job.
And yet I’m so terribly aware of how young I feel. How my main concern is what shoes I’ll wear to the office (obviously not Converse or Birkenstocks, but my god dress shoes are so horribly uncomfortable). How I’ll have an income to put on my housing apps, but I have to explain it’s my first job and that in reality, my parents will still have to co-sign for me. How, this past weekend, a brief encounter with a childhood friend who I barely knew could be such a powerful connection (to be honest, just a lot of awkward smiling on my part). Several months in a steady relationship later, I still manage to forget that I am way, way too young to be done with loneliness.
There was a large chunk of time where I stopped writing, between the last few days of the semester and the second week of June. I was drowning in moving errands, saying goodbye, packing for travel, all the flights and performances and subway rides, and finally back home, where I spent just about 3 weeks unpacking and fretting over my joblessness. Now, time is slowing again, and that’s all I can bear to write about. The way the hours drip down the walls. Most days I had been sitting around waiting — for a call back about the interview, or an open house. But really I am loafing around, waiting for an opportunity to land in my lap. It’s only on the weekends or the late evening where there are people around me again that I remember to take my time seriously, to put some structure back into my life. It is so damn hard to think positively when I’m by myself for 14 hours a day, when I have too much time to imagine all the things that could get complicated or go wrong.
Reading helps, a lot. Gotta remember to keep doing that.
(via lifethroughphotos)