There is a lot of embarrassing content on this site. I bought this domain in 2004, which means I’ve been though several bad haircuts, secret crushes, creative phases, and the resulting awkward self-portraits, very transparent personal writing about specific persons and incidents, and things I’ve drawn or made that I think are terrible now. I mostly leave up anything horribly mortifying once I’ve already published it because if it’s embarrassing now it probably always was, I was just too caught up in whatever phase to notice at the time.

That said, I’m actually pretty proud of the archive I have here, including the humiliating stuff. I’ve been honest and I’ve tried, which is all that matters in the end.

Today is my 26th birthday, and I’m equally proud of where I’ve ended up despite all the botched-up attempts at adult life I’ve made up to now. Shit is hard, I don’t even know how my parents managed to turn me into a somewhat upstanding person while living their own lives. My mom was already taking two kids to school when she was my age, meanwhile I still consider eating in public without getting sauce on my shirt to be a major life accomplishment.

Here’s to me–because it’s my blog and I’m allowed to do that. May there be a thousand more awkward vanity shots, a hundred cryptic posts on bubblegum as an extended metaphor for being rejected by a dude (not so far removed from what I actually write about), and days and days of horrible sketches I wish I could undo drawing sometimes. Practise makes perfect, and I’m pretty that applies to real life, too, and not just learning to play piano (which maybe I’ll take up this year).

Happy birthday to me.

Via the magic of Photoshop: Left, me at six years old; right, me at twenty-six. In twenty years I haven’t even changed my hair part.

	Clockwise from left: My pal, the supermoon, from near my favourite moon lookout in Eagle Rock; Full moon rising from the Hollywood Forever cemetery; Moon through lilac branches in West Hollywood. All on Instagram

My first phrase as a baby was “la luna,” which foreshadowed more an obsession with space than any eventual handle on my mother’s Spanish language. In every childhood drawing there is a guardian: a mother or a sun smiling through sunglasses or a moon or a sky of pointy stars drawn from a practised matrix of lines, because how else could I understand light without wanting to touch its sharp corners with my tiny hands.

The library was filled with information on things I could never hold except between cardboarded covers. Dinosaurs, the universe, mythology, these same stars for so many years. How many stars have already died, I wondered. How much is just a memory and how long before it goes away? As an adult I can answer now; this is something I cannot touch but I can feel. Dear childhood me: it is like wrapping a fist tightly around your crude crayon stars and their infinite lattices of spikes and it hurts and hurts until one day stars will be made of gas and when you open your fist it will be empty. This is not about stars.

I went to look up the last thing I wrote about space which was never even about space either, more about when we lose our weightlessness and even then, not even. It was almost exactly one year ago, just after the last hours of my birthday and in the very early morning with wine or whiskey I could never be that astronaut, floating.

This year just before my birthday it was the moon, a rock that will never leave lit by a heat you can feel. There is an astrological pull on our bodies; there is a blood that drains from the ocean and at the same time, fills. This is not about the moon, it is about the same moon and the same moon and the same moon and everyone I wanted to be with touching it at the same time.

Left, Irina Graewe’s kitchen via Design Sponge; right, my own version of her paper bag poster

Every time I complain about something stupid my sister reminds me that I live in California where it’s always sunny and I’m surrounded by palm trees and mountains and beaches and I’m probably wearing summer clothes already–and I have a great job so please just shut up. On her advice I’m trying to complain less. And as much as I hate those cheeseball mantras of positivity, a friend posted this Design Sponge feature on Irina Graewe‘s home and I loved this crumpled up poster in her kitchen.

Many years ago I bought something (I don’t even remember what it was) when we spent a weekend in Berlin and it got packed it in this nice paper bag. Ever since it’s been hanging in our kitchen and i think it’s wonderful as it keeps reminding us of how lucky we are that we have jobs that we really like. –Graewe

I loved it so I decided to make my own version to hang at work. Hopefully it will encourage me to laugh off stupid things not worth complaining about.

I know I’m the worst to buy gifts for because I always impulsively buy myself everything I want that’s under $40, so since my birthday is coming up I figured I’d come up with a list of things I promise I won’t buy in the next few weeks. Plus everything is available online–pointing at eye, winking, pointing at mom, annnd scene.

1. I recently completely destroyed my Blackberry and replaced it with a Motorola. Having an Android phone is the greatest ever, but for all the Instagrams and Couch to 5K apps (uh, “totally” going to use that one “super soon”), there are just no nice phone covers. I’m hoping these Sociey6 iPhone cases will come in Motorola versions soon!
2. I’ve been wanting nice grips for my bikes, plural, for so long, but even though these Velo Orange cork grips are only $11 I can’t go on that site without creating a shopping cart valued at a trillion dollars, so I’ve never gotten around to getting these.
3. I rarely buy clothing but every time I’m browsing in Anthropologie I find a new dress I really want and just have to cross my fingers that it’ll be on sale next time I’m there. Lately this yellow Anthropologie shirt dress has caught my attention, among others. And I also love these sandals but beggars can’t be choosers.
4. I pin a lot of art and random home stuff on Pinterest but I wish I could justify buying more prints. I’ve always really wanted to have a wall of framed maps as art, and You and Me, The Royal We’s world map is a good starting print.
5. Whatever, so I love succulents.
6. I’ve been hiking a lot this year and my next big leap is an overnight trip. I’m not really into tents so I’d just get myself a baller sleeping bag from REI and call it a night (har).
7. Okay, every time someone asks me what I want for gifting purposes I’m like, “oh, just a Turkish hamman bath towel, please” and do I have a Turkish hamman bath towel yet? Thanks for nothing, family.
8. See (2) above, except replace “fancy grips” with “vintage-style headlamp that isn’t dynamo powered.” Fortunately the bike gods answered me in the form of this battery-powered Adeline Adeline headlamp.
9. I’ve been talking about reading Murakami’s 1Q84 for so long there’s now a special edition paperback set. Which I want–that’s an unsubtle hint.

Weekends, forever.

I read very few blogs outside of Google Reader, so I selfishly enjoy layout update posts, even when very little else is new. The last layout change I made was fueled by a rotating selection from the entire Mazzy Star discography, cold winter rain, duvet-covered aspirations, a palette of greys and serious serifs, and generally just kind of a dark time. This one is Guided By Voices on a loop, a glitter-textured header, corals and oranges, a giant glass of lemon water, a million new plugins, and I even set up (and subsequently broke this site from 1am to 4am with) CloudFlare so I have hopes that image-heavy posts will load a lot faster than before.

Much sunnier, and more actual updates to come, I promise.

Some disparate thoughts about climbing a mountain last Sunday and/or a thematic metaphor for my life at present:

I climbed a mountain, taller than the last one; I came out no less scathed. Years ago I spent over $2000 piecing together a vintage Hasselblad, which now sleeps in a basement outside Montréal. Every time I cropped a photo square I get a little sad inside, both for my lonely Hasselblad and also because I have to leave behind something I used to know. These photos were taken on whatever mountain I impatiently scaled, hoping there would be an easier path down at the end. There was no such path.

And now, the photographs.

Mount Echo, or rather a smallish hill or bump next to it that didn’t reach high enough for a name; Los Angeles, CA

When my mother was twenty-one she hung up a magazine cut-out of the 1985 Gerber baby in her bathroom cabinet, because the baby was cute and healthy and, being pregnant with her first child, my mom hoped for the same with me. The implausibility of a half-Black woman hoping for a very Caucasian baby was raised to my mother by some, but months later I was born about as identical to this Gerber baby as someone who shares no common genes could be. (My sister, being the second child, did not get the poster-to-child treatment and was born much more true to race than I was. See also: mixed race issues and/or Rashida Jones.)

The photo fell behind the sink after that, and lives or lived at my parents’ first home until some new family renovates that early-80s master bathroom.

Make resolutions; the most incredible things can happen if you want something badly enough. It’s going to be a good year.

Me, 6 months; vintage Gerber baby ad and abuela, my maternal grandmother

Last Sunday we drove to Vegas for Drake’s 25th birthday. I totally checked into the hotel wearing that Selena-video outfit, whatever.

On my way back from Montreal I had to travel with six of my boss’ suitcases, which were all, every single one of them, lost by the time we landed in LA. The most stressful part of the whole thing is that I had packed fresh St-Viateur bagels* and cheese curds, the latter of which were not going to survive a luggage chase-down longer than 24 hours.

When I got to work the next morning the lost suitcases had already been delivered to our lobby by some air travel fairy, and in the following days we ate through all but one bagel.

When you’re a full day of air travel away from Montréal bagels, this is how you eat your last one.

• St. Viateur bagel, toasted
• creme fraiche
• capers
• smoked salmon
• flower pepper (from Trader Joe’s–actually all of this is, minus the bagel. Love TJ’s)

Serve with tapioca affogato, which has a real recipe here, but I just made the lazy way.

• one single-serving cup tapioca pudding (I used Kozy Shack No Sugar Added Tapioca because I don’t like too-sweet coffee)
• few tablespoons sweetened condensed milk (I used Trader Joe’s squeeze tube which is going to make me so huge)
• two shots espresso

Mix until everything’s just one creamy colour

* St-Viateur is the best in Montreal, although I will concede to the critics that Fairmont Bagel does have better flavours, although if you want a flavoured bagel you’re probably missing the point. Also, Americans, they now deliver to the US, if you’re interested.