observations

things i often murmur to myself—
"easy, mae. easy." 
"cool your jets, mae. cool your jets." 
"let it go. let. it. go."
"it's no big deal. no biggie. smalls." 
"peace. peas. easy peasy." 

-i'm running errands in the summer heat today and might possibly attend a birthday party tonight, then a baby shower tomorrow. social anxiety on full force this weekend. 

-speaking of anxiety, i might need to cut down on coffee. four cups a day cannot be good...

-bathrooms have the greatest acoustics. i'm recording my first album in a bathroom. 

 

l'été est arrivé

summer's here and i've got the outdoors on my mind. not that there aren't things to do in the wintertime... i'd like to try snowboarding/skiing some time. my friends always brag about how much fun it is. as long as there's a low chance of avalanches, i'm up for it.

in the meantime, i'll make the most of the daylight lasting longer. i'm still in the middle of the city, but pocketed within it are glimpses of nature, wondermous nature to trample on. i mean, hike... on. it's an odd notion, though, for "nature" to be in the midst of a concrete jungle. it feels superficial, but at the least, i have a place to get away to in a short amount of time.

your soul is a ghost town. your heart, a sunken ship.

one of the things i live for: cycling downhill at an adrenaline-pumping fast speed and be fearless enough to not even let your fingers tip toe the hand brakes.

my bike gets used up a lot during the summer. i usually ride through the l.a. river bike path and griffith park, but someday, i'd love to run away to the countryside of france or italy and use my bicycle as my main mode of transport.

there are good things ahead. more road trips are in the works which can only mean one thing. hiking! and perhaps camping and some more bike riding...

biro

This guy. So good. Illustrations using a Bic biro pen.

http://markpowellbirodrawings.moonfruit.com/#  

sketch party for one

I remember hearing horrible stories about a certain art school here in L.A. There was a teacher who set his student's project on fire during a critique to teach him not to get too attached to his work. I don't know how effective that was or if it was even true, but I know that if a professor did that to me, I would set his pants on fire 'cause he's a liar! It's a pretty extreme, and maybe even pretentious, act. I mean, do you really have to commit arson to teach someone a lesson? That's a felony!

Where am I going with this?

Ah, yes. Do you sketch or draw? I love to except when I do, it takes me almost the same amount of time it takes a great artist to paint... forever. And it's not even a good sketch or drawing. I, by no means, label or consider myself an "artist," but when I've watched my friends sketch on their moleskins, it always makes me want to try harder. Sadly, it never got to a point where I love it so much that I did something about it. Or maybe I get frustrated and lose patience when I can't get something to look a certain way. I need to work on that, I know. There are certainly the basics, like everything is a shape, and if you know anatomies well, drawing should be easy peas for you. If I had the motivation and patience, I would absolutely immerse myself in this more.

All of this still exists. None of it was burned:

fun open source stuffs

here are some sites to browse through, participate in, get inspired by, collaborate with...

 http://tympanus.net/codrops/  tutorials on web trends + techniques

http://codepen.io/  fun stuff

http://theonion.github.io/fartscroll.js/  silly stuff

http://www.distancetomars.com/  out of this world stuff

http://andrevv.com/  fun scrolling stuff