Artsy Fartsy

This weekend I went into L.A. to meet up with my current roommate, Angel.  After making one Spanish speaking friend on the train, being utterly confused and nervously overwhelmed on the bus, and making a big dent in the book I was reading ("Pigs in Heaven" by Barbara Kingsolver), I made it to the L.A. County Museum of Art.  It had some pretty cool exhibits set up and I was able to sneak into a couple of them.

 This is Angel.  She's a walking piece of beautiful art herself.

Those beautiful lights right outside the museum are one of my favorite spots in L.A. 

Iconic and beautiful in both the light and dark. 

Oh, You Know, Just Another ADVENTURE!

First, go way back and read this post from January of 2010.

You've read it? Okay, awesome.  So, now you're caught up.  Approximately two years ago, I was at a crossroads in life.  What to do next?  I vividly remember writing that post laying in what was once my bedroom and I only saw two options, so I informed my small, but mighty blog audience about them.  But there was secretly a third option that dropped in my lap at the last minute and that became exactly what I've been doing for the last 2 years.  North Korea focused.  Solid, solid times of activism, growth, introspection, and change for the North Korean people.  And, in completely superficial terms, I think I got to accomplish a little bit of that Zooey that I wanted.  I was able to spruce up my wardrobe, wear skirts and cute thrifted threads on the reg.

Two years later, yet another crossroad.  It's a trend in my life.  If you know me, then you know that.  And now I'm going to accomplish a little bit of Dennis.  That's right, folks.  I am going to WWOOF in Hawaii come the end of this month!  Bucket list. Check.

The short long-ish story: last April I purchased a WWOOF-USA membership on a whim, because it was something I always wanted to do and I hate putting my money to waste, so I knew that if I bought it, I would HAVE to use it.  In the mean time, I'm the biggest poser of a WWOOF spokesperson out there - every time someone talks about traveling, I'm like, OMG have you ever thought of WWOOFing? Gab, gab, gab, and I pretend to know all about it, even though I'd never done it and never met anyone who had.

Then it was December and I was finishing my time with LiNK.  My talks of WWOOFing over the last year was mainly for me - to plant those seeds inside my own head so that I would actually follow up on something that I knew, deep down, I wanted to do.  I initially wanted to go to New Zealand.  Who doesn't?  BUT airfare alone let me know that now is not the time. And I had my handy-dandy WWOOF-USA membership which included Hawaii and I decided that wouldn't be a terrible place to go in the winter time, right?

Mmm, don't you feel warmer just looking at it?

So, at the end of December, I started reaching out to some pals who I thought would be good travel buddies and emailing some farms.  Farmers have emails?  Yes.  I know, ironic.

I would do it in waves.  I would read a farm's profile in my directory, decide if I dug it, then email them.  I emailed my favorites first and then my second favorites the next week and so on and so forth.  Some farms led me on in the meanest online-dating sense of the phrase.  So much hope and so much let down.  That happened a few times and was unfortunate. I wanted to go so bad.

So, finally, after my friend from college, Josh, got on board to come, one of the farms I emailed initially wants us! Josh has got all the labor-skills that farmers want and I've got the ability to write a classy email that causes intrigue.  It's a dynamic duo, of sorts.  At least until we get to the farm and the owners realize that I burn easy and can't carry 10 pounds for more than a few feet.  Kidding (sort of - the daily push ups start now).

What they don't know, won't hurt them, until it's too late!  And I will be leaving in a few weeks to live near Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii for at least a couple of months, volunteering on a farm (in exchange for room and board), living with a seemingly precious family (husband, wife, 3 young kids), learning how to farm organically and living off the grid.

Aloha, my friends!

Single and Ready to Mingle...

with my turkey/cheese/hummus sandwich and butternut squash soup!  And mingle we did.  Or, rather, I scarfed them down in less than 4 minutes. So, tell me, my friends that live thousands of miles away from me (AND those that don't), what did YOU have for lunch?

Is my blog becoming an Instagram for the iPhoneless?  Sigh, I need some more content.  I've been thinking a lot about this silly idea of love and attachment lately, so maybe, juuust maybe, I'll share those thoughts later :)

Home Sweet Home

Thrift stores are my mecca and retail therapy is a very real and healthy way to resolve life. Doctor recommended. So I took the 61 bus down the street to be in my home away from home.

Walk Around the Block

Well, I have upheld my vow for one day. Hoorah! And it was the most perfect day to get outside and walk around my temporary neighborhood. Until I reach my next destination, I'm crashing with my friend in Long Beach and she lives in the best neighborhood - I wish I could have captured all of the sounds and smells of the day. Dishes being washed, kids playing, lunch being cooked, ducks quacking, couples talking, motors running. And I can't complain about the 70 degree weather either. Mmmhmm!

Here are some of my favorites from the day:

A Vow (Hopefully).

No, no, no. Not "The Vow" starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum, which ohmygah grab me some gal pals and some/all candies everywhere and let's make a stereotypical "girls night," yeah?

I went to the Annenburg Space for Photography today near Beverly Hills and they had an exhibit called "Digital Darkroom," which was incredibly dope. It magnified modern photographers' use of digital modification to create surreal images that would likely be impossible otherwise. It was amazing. It had an emphasis on 3D images and holy cow, amaziiiiing!

So, this is my vow: To take more pictures. To go on walks everyday and take pictures with my not so glamorous point and shoot in order to capture the world around me so that I won't forget it. And I want to share them on here, not because they are going to be incredible works of art, but so that I can bring you into my daily life.

Here's a picture I took from the summer - it's of the river and valley just beneath our summer cabin in Virginia.

Does the North Star Serve Gelato?

I recently was given a book called "Finding Your Own North Star" by Martha Beck. It's all about evaluating how you make decisions in your life and figuring out the different voices (she refers to them as "selves" - essential vs. social) which help (knowingly and unknowingly) you to make those decisions, so that you can live the life you were made to live. It all falls in line with this theme in my life: wondering what makes me tick.

So there is this part in the book that I just read which is all about establishing what my self perception is and the fallacies within it. She shares this beautiful story about when she was in college, she and some friends would pitch in, rent a studio, hire a model, and draw. Most of the models matched the social ideal - slender, fit, perfectly proportioned. But one day, they got somebody really different...

"She looked well over sixty, with a deeply lined face and a body that was probably fifty pounds heavier than her doctors would have liked. She'd had a few doctors, too, judging from her scars. Shining purple welts from a cesarean section and knee surgery cut deep rifts in the rippled adipose fat of her lower body. Another scar ran across one side of her chest, where her left breast had once been. When she first limped onto the dais to pose, I felt so much pity and unease that I physically flinched. But we were there to draw her, so I picked up a pencil.

And so, as I began to draw this maimed old woman, the most amazing thing happened. Within five minutes she became a person of absolutely wondrous beauty. She didn't look like a supermodel; she didn't have to. Her body, in and of itself, was as beautiful as a piece of polished driftwood, or a wind-carved rock, or a waterfall.

When this perceptual shift happened, I was so surprised that I stopped drawing and simply stared. The model seemed to notice this, and without turning her head, looked straight into my eyes. Then I saw the ghost of a smile flicker across her face, and I realized something else: She knew she was beautiful. She knew it, and she knew that I'd seen it. Maybe that's why she had consented to pose nude in the first place. Knowing that a roomful of artists couldn't draw her without seeing her--I mean really seeing her--she may have decided to give us a gentle education about our perceptions."

Mmm, self perception. Makes you think, doesn't it? How to truly become in tune with what I've got and what I love about myself vs. what people/society deems lovable and acceptable.