Chapters.

So I got the exposed-brick wall studio apartment I’ve always wanted in Downtown Pomona Arts Colony. Dropping off the deposit and first month’s rent sometime this week or next. Tumblr likes and Pinterest boards going crazy with apartment ideas in regards to aesthetic. Here. We. Go.

01. Donald Glover and Danny Pudi - Spanish 101
02. Childish Gambino - We Ain't Them
03. Jenny Lewis - Head Underwater
04. Walk the Moon - Shut up and Dance
05. King Harvest - Dancing in the Moonlight
06. E-40 - Hope I Don't Go Back
07. Theophilus London feat. Kanye West - Can't Stop
08. Theophilus London - I Stand Alone
09. Robert Glasper Experiment feat. Common and Patrick Stump - I Stand Alone
10. Tim Be Told - System (Acoustic)
11. Sam Smith feat. Mary J. Blige - Stay With Me (Darkchild Version)
12. Damien Rice - The Greatest Bastard
13. Rilo Kiley - The Absence of God
14. You + Me - From a Closet in Norway
15. Joe Dassin - Les Champs-Elysees
16. Sam Hart - Mario Kart Love Song

Listen on Spotify

Pomona it is, then

Downtown Pomona: $1050/month

Downtown LA: $1045/month

Downtown Pomona Pros:

• ALL utilities paid (including WiFi)
• Bed, couch, fridge, tables, stove, pots and pans (!) included
• In the heart of the Arts Colony, Art Walk every 2nd Saturday
• Minute walk to Glasshouse and Fox Theater
• Minute walk to Metrolink
• Walk to Starbucks
• $600 Deposit (instead of $1050)
• Exposed brick
• Laundry room, gym, WiFi lounge
• Mexican restaurant and Irish pub attached to building (haha)
• Plenty of parking

Downtown Pomona Cons:

• Close to home
• Still far from work
• 370 square feet
• Carpet

Downtown LA Pros:

• Less than a mile from work
• Nice hardwood floors
• Very nice floor plan
• Exposed brick
• Close to Meltdown and everything DTLA
• Walk to Starbucks

Downtown LA Cons:

• $1045 Deposit
• Unfurnished
• Electricity and Internet not paid
• No parking spot
• 400 square feet
• Shady neighborhood
• No parking

"Nerds getting ridiculed for not getting laid… I always thought there’s something so fault in our culture, the idea that if someone doesn’t experience their life like — okay, so if sex is not the objective and they want to play Dungeon and Dragons, I would argue that Dungeons and Dragons is a more either fulfilling or interesting, engaging, and intellectually beneficial way to spend your time than pursuing meaningless sex by far."

-Dov Davidoff on You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes podcast

blurbs

I have undiagnosed OCD and ADD and/or ADHD. I don’t say the words “I love you” enough or at all. I hear lots of insincere “I miss you’s” though. Or maybe they are genuine but I just don’t see them that way. I need more sun. And walks and/or hikes. I need to take more photos. I want more tattoos. I want inspiration and happiness and I need to appreciate more often. I really really really want to believe in the God I grew up with. Anyway, just thoughts.

Broods - Four Walls

I wanna make you feel how I feel when I’m listening to love songs
I wanna take you to the peak of everything that you are
You’re everything I need tonight

And I’m trying hard to make you want me
But I don’t wanna try too hard
I was thinking you got what you came for

But you’re here now

WCW everyday

She can be wild and crazy and I probably can’t hang. But then again, maybe that’s exactly what I need/want in life. (I say that as if I’ll ever really have her.) Whatever, I’m a dreamer.

She makes my life

#sywedding2014

Attended the wedding of one of my closest friends last night. Weddings feel so different when it’s someone you’ve known and loved since childhood. Like you’ve known them so long and you finally get to see them ultimately be with and plan futures with the person that makes them happiest — and it’s like that happiness extends to you. It’s a good feeling. Wishing them all the best.

God damn.

She's a beaut and I'm glad she's in my life again. | theharajukumermaid.tumblr.com

*photos not by me

"You have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you. Too far, and they abandon you."

- Hanif Kureishi

I'm usually the overwhelmer or the abandoned.

Beyond blue dream

Even though I'm technically officially medicating with an indica strain for my insomnia and anxiety, I bought a strain of sativa because I wanted a more contemplative/euphoric high for when I wasn't going to bed. I've smoked Blue Dream multiple times over the years but apparently the 1/8th of medical-grade Blue Dream I picked up this time was incredibly potent -- although the body high felt amazing, the paranoia and the feeling of actually having the task of remembering to breathe seriously fucked me up. I ultimately ended up forcing myself to sleep anyway just so I wouldn't have to think about it. Haha, geez. | Taken with my iPhone 5.

This made me smile

Outside the Standard Hotel, Downtown LA. | Taken with my iPhone 5.

"Apologizing does not always mean you are wrong, it just means that you value your relationship more than your ego."

-Unknown.

Closer to the truth, further from the sky

It's hard enough to attempt to love people that I see everyday -- I probably shouldn't finish the rest of this goddamn thought.  

Tumblr photography

There is just so much beautiful imagery on Tumblr it's ridiculous. Although this blog is where I primarily choose to share my thoughts and my own personal photography, browsing my Tumblr feed and seeing the immense talent and captured beauty and obscure perspectives and absolute love and appreciation for photos and photographers -- truly inspires.

Oh, high.

Medication | Taken with my Fujifilm X20.

“O Captain! My Captain! Rise up and hear the bells. Rise up, for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills.”

-In memory of Robin Williams, R.I.P.

Social Networking Woes

All Facebook does is remind me that Kari-Anne’s baby is hella fucking cute. Self-loathing and loneliness calls for wine and Ferrero Rochers. But that’s also my reward for self-loving, so idk.

Discouragement Blog

Haha, this blog (my previous blog – hashtags and ampersands) was supposed to help me delve deeper into the positive and optimistic aspects of my life and way of thinking, but all it’s really doing is revealing more and more the cynical, jaded, and realist side of me — so we’ll just go with that from now on instead of isolating certain ideas into “good thoughts” and “bad thoughts” categories. Hoping that my life inspires writing that IS hopeful and happy, but ultimately I just want to write, as genuinely as possible, because honestly, who’s going to read and reflect on this drivel except for me.

SF/Santa Barbara Shenanigans

Had an amazing getaway from Los Angeles: SF consisted of scenic road trips, puppies (Winston), pork bellies, airBnB, long walks, bridges, bars, Bart, sharing tables/conversation at La Boulange with a nice older lady, and hilariously getting drunk off sangria with the sis and bro-in-law. Part one of SB consisted of train rides, beaches, downtowns, more pork bellies (plus other amazing foods), more bars, more long walks, wine tastings, photography, relaxation, reflection, and one Tinder meet up with a gorgeous young lady named Alexandra, then getting high off weed (and oxygen) on my balcony while conversing about everything and nothing in particular. My one regret was not hooking up with her when I definitely could’ve (as proven by text messages afterward, haha.) Part two with Katrina, Daniel, and Bic was incredibly wholesome yet equally as fun, filled with inside jokes, selfies, and laughter. It was a good vacation. | Taken with my Fujifilm X20.

“The Lord works in mysterious wayz. #proverb #hiphop”

– @DemitriMartin, twitter 

Music and Spirituality

I listen to the musicality and lyrical content of hardcore bands like Thrice or Being As An Ocean or The Beautiful Mistake, and I constantly find myself moved and motivated to live a more spiritual life — or at least continue my search for the Father/Creator/Savior God that THEY revere. Their lyrics, their struggles in life, their hope, and their loving God seem more real than what I’ve heard in most Christian music for some reason.

Bill Watterson

Placeholder/reminder for myself to write about how the author/artist of Calvin and Hobbes has affected my childhood and perspectives/opinions on life and spirituality and integrity and passion and love and everything in between.

"Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.”

Drea Lovely

Knowing that I get to see her tonight is ridiculously nerve-wracking. Hoping I won’t be just another blubbering doofus infatuated by every ounce of her being. (I’m assuming there are a lot of those types in her immediate vicinity, haha.)

Practicality v. Dreams

Life is really weird lately. Like a really good, yet difficult weird. I turn 30 tomorrow (shudder) and you’d think that all the big decisions I would’ve had to make would’ve been decided before this point. Or that certain options would no longer be available so I’d be free to live out the rest of my days comfortably and routinely. Of course, such is not the case. Hoping and praying I don’t blow this/these shot/s.

"It’s about misunderstandings between people and places, being disconnected and looking for moments of connection. There are so many moments in life when people don’t say what they mean, when they are just missing each other, waiting to run into each other in a hallway."

-Sofia Coppola, about Lost in Translation

Water Colors

Learned to properly watercolor tonight. I’m feeling accomplished and happy to have found a new medium to express my ideas and creativity. Hopefully I’ll get to do it often.

Enjoy Your Burrito

“Enjoy your burrito” is a phrase that’s said at the end of every Nerdist podcast, but it wasn’t until last November that I finally found out what it actually meant. I stumbled upon Nerdist podcast #39 (The most current podcast is #473) featuring Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute on the Office and is the creator/founder of Soul Pancake. Hilarity and ridiculousness is littered throughout the podcast, but spirituality, contentment, and happiness — the different types of happiness, how to attain it, the definition of it in modern culture, etc. — eventually become the topic. Rainn speaks of a profound type of happiness, a connectedness that he’s not expecting or sometimes even aware of. He mentions past happiest moments, one for example, fishing with his son. He didn’t know it was one of the happiest moments in his life at the time; this was a realization in retrospect. There were so many interesting and substantial moments regarding this podcast: How do you connect particular dots in life to achieve that final product, to attain a type of “human flourishing”, a constant learning and growing experience of well-being?; among others. At the 00:56:06 mark, Jonah Ray (one of the Nerdist co-hosts) talks about moving to LA from Hawaii to pursue acting and comedy, but unfortunately finding very few opportunities for work. At this point, he wasn’t moving forward career-wise and felt depressed because of his current situation. He’d go to his favorite burrito place for lunch — After eating half of his burrito, he’d get disappointed because the burrito was almost finished, and he’d have to go back to his depressing life. So he created for himself a thought process: Yes, the burrito is almost done, but it isn’t done yet, it’s still here, you still have it. Enjoy it. Enjoy the present. We’re always waiting for the next thing to happen. But don’t let expectations or things that might happen take away from what you’re happy with in this moment. Enjoy your burrito one bite at a time, then apply that mindset to whatever comes next.