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.

Butch

With K. Alaia.

“I’m almost never serious, and I’m always too serious. Too deep, too shallow. Too sensitive, too cold hearted. I’m like a collection of paradoxes.”

– Ferdinand Von Schrubentauffr

Comic books. | Taken with my Canon T1i.