das zinnia!

back to normal(ish)...

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

I'm really digging this quote this week. It really applies to my non-existent work life and somewhat to the home life as well. For with everything that's changed these past few months (employment status, the State of the Courtyard apartments and it's inhabitants, the coming and going of new and old friends), I realize how concrete certain people and things are becoming in my seemingly "unattached" lifestyle. It's hard to put into photos in a simple yet convoluted manner the minute flux of life over time without revealing to much about myself, since I haven't been taking as many photos lately, just thinking about them...

Things that haven't changed much:


I'm still cooking a lot. This was a veggie and Mahi coconut curry. It was delicious.


The garden's been kind of on and off sucky lately since I haven't had time to build the planter boxes for organic veggies like I wanted to. In the mean time, I have these tiny burgundy beans and some vines that will hopefully someday produce cantaloupe. I'm fascinated by the way the send out little "grabber" shoots to help propel themselves upward!

Some serious changes:


My 17-year-old cat with the recent kidney disease? SO MUCH BETTER! It's insane - with no treatment other than some new food, this sweet little buddy is back to her old antics. Excited about her new office assistant job, here she is expressing her boredom with my line of work and then attempting to engage me in a game of "knock over the wacom pen" - an afternoon favorite.


Remember the gutter cat that showed up shortly after my 30th birthday? It managed to adopt the only family in the courtyard with a little kid. The dad managed somehow to tame the ferile thing just enough to feed it and name it Jonsey. That neighbor is English and I think they have a certain obligation to naming things Jonsey, male or (even in this case) female. Even the little neighbor-dog has made peace with gutter cat, knowing to keep his distance from the little thing that's gone up against racoons and won. Everyone in the complex, however (human and animal), are doing their best to adjust to the new neighbor. Well, maybe not the animals. Neighbor-dog barks like a crazy chihuaua every time he sees the guy and gutter cat just runs and hides. Too bad it doesn't work that easy for people!

I think the biggest change, though, is the thing I can't express in images, really. Or just really wouldn't here, I suppose. It started a while ago as the unemployment rate rose and friends within the industry started moving away for better work opportunities. It's weird when you realize that you've spent all this time trying to keep from getting comfortable with your job or your surroundings, only to have to admit that it's the people and the interactions that have become so familiar. With or without the corporate or social structure, the relationships we've built are still very much in tact. Months after working with my former boss, I'm still stopping by his house to exchange camera gear the night before he sets off for location; and months after tossing back a last beer on some balcony at work, I'm still at a bar on a weeknight saying good bye to more and more colleagues that will always be more than just people I once worked with.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

photos from my past: boyfriend edition

I've admittedly been a very bad little photo-blogger lately. Mostly because I've been extremely busy working on a portfolio website and trying to find work but also because facebook makes it so darn easy to post photos these days that a photo-blog seems kind of redundant. So as an apology, and since most of my "readers" here are my sister's, I thought a personal offering along the lines of Georgia's "stories from my past" would be a nice gesture and help to explain why so many times, you end up here after one of her poignant personal stories only to find macro photos of bugs and flowers instead of evidence of the life of an equally deep and complex, emotional person.

* I usually hate it when a chick has to define herself by the guys she's dated, even much more so when there's been a whole movie made about the subject; though for some reason it's just slightly more tolerable if it's some dude's story and he has a funny fat friend (see: High Fidelity). I promise not to define myself by these little photo-blurbs, K?

I found this photo recently of high school BF #1 and I at a school dance. The photo was from our senior year and we were really just good friends at that point - he had turned out to be one of my best friends throughout high school even though we had dated for not much more than a month our freshman year. We met on the first day of high school and I thought he was a drug dealer because he had a pager. I completely tripped out when I saw this photo because it wasn't really that long ago, yet so much has changed for both of us. I went to his wedding a few years ago and he and his wife have a little girl now. I am so happy for him because his life was kind of a mess in high school but he's probably the happiest of all of our old friends now and completely deserves it.



Just after I found the last photo, a friend posted one from this night of just the girls on facebook with a joke about us liking that one more than the ones with our dates. I joked, "my date is dead now..." not realizing that many people either didn't know this or didn't know why. High school BF#1 was the one to call me and tell me the news about 5 years ago. At the time, I thought I didn't care. I thought I had spent so much time after our 2 year high school relationship making him dead in my mind that it was the same either way. I thought I was just pissed that I never got the chance to properly tell him off for all the shit I put up with or what a strong person I am now but years later, when the impact of his life and his death are still evident in my dreams, it is obvious to me that THIS GUY is one of the reasons I have these HUGE personal walls that are so obvious in the distinction I make between my public and private lives - no matter how much I reveal about myself it will only scratch the surface. It's only now, 14 years after our "relationship", that I can allow my closest friends to get to know me without making them feel completely shut out.


Nice rack even as a 16 year old, right?

Two years of *not* dating (seriously anyway!), and I met the guy in the next photo. I had actually met him years before and since then had been "the girl of his dreams", unbeknownst to me. At the time it was flattering and though contrary to my belief/requirement for a relationship (the chemistry should be obvious/undeniable from the very start), we were like best friends so it seemed right. I know it sounds odd but I think, in retrospect I've become somewhat detached from the whole 6 years we were together since I was so young when it started and changed so much throughout. Add to that all the experimentation with various substances, a career I know I always put before him and the friends we always called ours (but I never really felt were mine), and the fact that I just didn't know how to separate the life we had made together straight out of our parent's homes so it probably lasted a lot longer than it should have. When it comes down to it though, once you know you're unhappy, nothing matters anymore - all I wanted was my cat and my clothes. That and the refrigerator (because, for some reason, you can not rent an apartment with a refrigerator in LA) is all I took from that relationship.



It was quite the opposite with this next one. I was lugging two pelican cases along a pathway at my former job and about to intersect with another pathway when our eyes met and I almost tripped and tried to cover it up with an equally messed-up hello. We spoke maybe 5 or so times in the next year and a half that he worked there but did a lot of eyeing each other in various hallways and elevators. That's my favorite kind of chemistry - when a guy is so intimidating-hot that you can't even talk to him. (Except for this one time when I didn't realize how cute a guy was right away but liked his sense of humor. Once I realized how incredibly good looking he was, I completely lost my funny and all ability to talk to him! Bummer.) About 6 months after this guy stopped working at the former job, we started emailing and eventually got together.

Sounds ideal, right? Oh wait, did I mention our lives existed in 2 separate places? Or that he moved back to LA to be with me and it still wasn't perfect? Right after he made some huge decision to stay here/get into huge amounts of debt going to a very expensive law school, yours truly set off for a two month location job leaving him to watch my 16 year old cat in a city where he was kind of alone. Selfish? I still don't know. I still really believe that everyone (except for parents) should put themselves first. This isn't what killed it for us, this was just the beginning of the end and I obviously realize this was not a one person relationship - I didn't fuck it up all by myself but I'm not going to air his dirty laundry all over the internets because the best part about this is that I got to keep this one. As a friend, at least. He went back to his city and I stayed in mine but what we both learned about ourselves has been invaluable to each of us.



Now I promised this wouldn't be a "define yourself by the men you've dated" blog and it isn't. I'm going straight back to my bread and butter - the "unhealthy obsessions" that made me start this thing in the first place: the cat and the garden and my cooking and the intricacies of my own little microcosm of a life here on earth. It's not because I'm shallow nor because I lack the capability for the deep emotional connection that my sister so eloquently writes about in her stories but because I'm a photographer and I have been since the day I was born. It is my job to simply "point" to things (as I once heard a wise man say, possibly quoting his favorite photographer, Paul Strand, but I can't remember), which I would rather do as quietly as possible so as not to fuck up the vision with language. As much as I love language, it tends to be too ambiguous and not open to interpretation in the same way that imagery is. This is already hard for me to do because I am opinionated and chatty, not because anyone made me this way or as a reaction to some experience I had when I was younger. I neither bottle it up inside nor do I go looking for conflicts, I simply choose to keep my art and my life somewhat compartmentalized until such a point when I need to combine them (see: above), at which point I believe I excel.

Anyway, that was my long winded apology for not posting more photos recently. So are we cool? ...and that's why I stick to photos!

favorite things blogpost #5

I bought my "degree" a few years ago while walking past an antique store with my sister. She is a notorious aficionado and collector of all things pertaining to any historical war-era, and of any personal belongings important enough for a person to have kept until death.

When I bought it, it immediately went up on the door of my office at my big corporate job because, who else besides doctors and lawyers can hang a real degree on their wall? This, I felt much more than my actual college degree, expressed exactly why I held that position.

Lately I've been curious about it's origin, however. Of course I've noticed all of it's oddities and inconsistencies before, I've just never thought to look the place up until now. The Far East Academy of Photography Ltd. in Yokohama-Atsugi, Japan? Nothing. The best I can surmise from the English names and writing, and the former military men involved is that it was just some US military school set up in Japan during World War II to train soldiers to "shoot" photos?

Well alright then...

apartment for rent: masochist a plus

I first started photo-fixating on these church marquees maybe five years ago when I noticed just how many there were in my local area. I stopped almost a year ago when I tried to edit, print and exhibit them and instead realized how void the images were of any real sentiment.

The irony was clear - the historic purpose of the marquee is to announce or advertise the featured event or performer. Some of these church signs simply do just that, stating the time and leader of the upcoming Sunday's sermon. The others, however, usually try to use humor to do what - lure the unaffiliated or perhaps wayward soul into a specific denomination through comic relief? "Let's meet at my house Sunday before the big game! - GOD", "Swallow your pride, it contains no calories", "Trouble sleeping? Try counting... your blessings", "God answers knee-mail", etc.

Like many of my fine art photo projects, I went to the same churches, week after week as the signs changed so I could photograph them at different times of the day - the same thing only slightly different, over and over again in still photographs throughout an indefinite period of time. Just writing that long, run-on sentence-fragment makes me excited.

Early one morning, I stopped at the store between churches to grab a package of cashews and as I sat in my car munching on them, I barely noticed a man coming out of the store with a chrysanthemum plant. He got into his car and drove off. I did the same and when I arrived at my next church, I saw the same man walking from his car with the plant. As he set it down in front of the church before that Sunday's service, I realized it was the actor Morgan Freeman looking (in my opinion) a little annoyed at being (accidentally, in my own neighborhood, mind you) followed. I wanted to get out of my car and calmly explain to him the coincidence; that this was my church too and I had been photographing it, not him, for some time. Instead, I drove away without taking my photo nor explaining to him the difference between me and the paparazzi.

There is one of these signs across the street from where I live now, across from where a neighbor of mine is raising a fresh baby boy. I can't help wondering each time when I see a new message, "A wise child hears his Father's instructions", "A child brought up in church is seldom brought up in court", "In the dark? Follow the Son", "Christians are not perfect and innocent but guilty and forgiven", what kind of impact these suggestions will have on this young, impressionable fella.

(sub)urban-mythology amongst other things...

the real deal...

Animate-blanket waits for you to fall asleep to snuggle with you...

ready-made...

homegrown ways to make yourself happy...

the kind of thing you just can't make up...

A while back, I expressed some overzealous excitement about all the crazy old junk on the other side of my shared garage belonging to the dentist, who uses it just for storage. Well, I discovered another "treasure" yesterday while cleaning out my side of the garage for another project. This must be new because how could I have never noticed until now the DECONTAMINATED SOLID MEDICAL WASTE sitting right in front of the old box of syringes??

the thing I use it most for...

My point and shoot, that is. Sorry, what I meant to say was, my Canon PowerShot SD 850 IS Digital Elph (wink wink!).

Yes, it obviously shoots good macro photos of the bugs in my garden, and it certainly is much more convenient for sneaking photos of my cat under the covers or throwing in my pocket to capture random oddities than, say my Canon AE1 35mm film camera (love you Canon! Mama needs a 5D ok?), but the thing I've come to use it most for is shopping lists.

I got this $1 "The Office" themed dry-erase board from Target a while back and now when I need to go to the store, I just take a photo of the list on my fridge and head out. I know it sounds smart but you end up paying the price when you find yourself wandering around Trader Joe's, staring at your hand, wondering how stupid you must look to other people.

Spring...

The rise and fall of Ziggy Grasshopper... one garden's almost unnoticeable example of birth, progress, change and evolution, and the breakdown of life over time.

favorite things blog-post # whatever (I think #4)

While all sandwiches in general are at the top of my favorites list, this veggie BLT with avocado which I made a couple nights ago was so good that it warranted it's own post. I am easily a self-proclaimed sandwich-expert, and know a number of veggie and meat eaters alike who would happily agree while consuming one of my masterpieces. I was not surprised to find out that my sister covered an eerily similar subject on this week's Domestic Tuesday, wherein she compared BLT's to blow jobs. In either case (Leah or Georgia, blow job or BLT), enjoy!

Neighbor Dog

The next best thing to actually having a dog, in fact - maybe even better, is having a really great little neighbor-dog. This one likes to hang out on my (dying) lawn (if you could call it that) and on my door step and just generally in front of my apartment so when I come home sometimes, it looks like I actually have a little apartment-sized dog, when in fact, I don't.

The ol' cracker factory...

I've always thought of my office in these terms because of the TV show, the Simpson's - Millhouse's dad worked at a cracker factory. Plus, this always makes me think of the episode where they go to Japan and Lisa looks out the window at the Hello Kitty factory just as a bunch of muffled cats cry out and a burst of smoke emerges from a smoke-stack - hilarious!

I like to think of this constant stream as the souls of young, bright-eyed artists as they graduate from Stanford and M.I.T. only to be consumed by the corporation for which I work and the greater good of entertainment, just like those Hello-Kitties!

I, coincidentally, work in the quirky little building in the foreground to the right.

and so it goes, the new year's blog post...

So it seems that in the last month-or-so of 2008, I've grown a zucchini, gained a fuzzy little tenant under my apartment, and found out that my own 16 and a half year old cat has kidney disease. She seems content to just sleep and follow me around but I think I'm going to see if the cat wants to sit outside in the sun a bit - I hear old people like that...

other things in my garden besides the spare cat...

I noticed my white (really, light green) zucchini managed to not die during the unseasonably hot fall weather, along with some cucumbers. I wasn't consciously thinking of green, phallic objects when I bought the seeds but one can never tell these days what kinds of things influences our decisions, I suppose...

...in great repetition over long periods of time...

inter-species communication: the day we made contact...

I think backyard-cat realized that someone lives inside the box today. She walked up to the window and meowed a bit but since I didn't understand, I tried to get my inside-cat to meow back a bit and then tell me what backyard-cat keeps demanding of me but apparently cats don't really do that. At least these ones don't.

there once was a woman who lived in a shoe...

I noticed this cat living in my backyard and under my apartment almost immediately after turning 30, as if it was pointing out that being single and 30 officially makes me an old spinster cat lady and it was just doing me a favor by keeping me company - adorning my backyard as if it were some pretty plant I don't even have to water. Thanks spare kitty, now I really don't need a man...

Yom Kippur Grasshopper

I always feel a little guilty working on the Jewish high holidays - like I'm setting myself up for a bad year by not believing in or following the traditions of my ancestors. But while at home on my lunch break, I noticed this giant grasshopper in my lavender plant. For some reason, having one of these creatures adorn my garden makes me feel lucky. I think they're considered lucky in some cultures, though doubtfully in mine - I'm pretty sure they're one of the ten plagues... you know, from Passover?

simple pleasures

things I love

big difference...

I went to two very different neighborhood-festivals this weekend. The first was across the street from my apartment - a very family oriented affair with rides, food, a little beer garden and a petting zoo. Oddly enough, there was some kind of spam-truck too. But that was about the weirdest part in my quiet little LA suburb.

The second street fair was Hollywood(ish)'s Sunset Junction Street Festival. There were 3 stages for live music, tons of yummy street-food vendors; but in contrast to my local fair, there was the whole gamut of STD testing booths (AIDS, hepatitis, you name it...) plus more shirtless men than I have ever seen in my whole life - and not just ever at one time, but even when you add them all up... and I used to play water polo. See what I mean...?

what to do when you're blue...

Sometimes on the weekends, when I don't have any plans and I'm feeling kind of lonely, I go to the pet store to get supplies for my cat. They always have animal adoptions on the weekends and, while I know all the cute little critters with no homes should bring me down, it always cheers me up... I know, how selfish. Last weekend there was this:



I know SOMEONE must need a pile of kittens or a father-son pair of chihuahuas?

then one day...

i think espresso tried to tell me it loves me back...

lose yourself...

this summer... packages for every price range...

album of the week...

The History of the Real Billie Holiday, because a lady's gotta right to sing the blues...

Blapricot...

Sometimes I like to buy a whole package of a single kind of fruit at one of my (many) neighborhood Trader Joe's rather than picking out a variety of solo fruits because it's easier. This example is called a Black Apricot but I've renamed it the Blapricot because my sister had been combining words a lot recently - any that may form a slightly cohesive and, therefore, more efficient new word. Frankly, I find this practice to be hilarious.

I pondered for a moment the possibility that this was just a plum with another name, for either marketing or biological reasons, but after getting these babies out of the package, I realize they have a fuzzy apricot feel to them and none of the tartness of plums these days. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you (well, Trader Joe's does anyway...) the Blapricot...

you can take the girl out of the OC...

...but you can never take the Del Taco out of the girl.

The straight-edge vegan kids got one thing right... bean-fries. Their version was just beans on fries with guacamole but I always liked it with the works since I'm not a total wuss and only skip the chili concoction instead of also missing out on the wholesome goodness of Del Taco's dairy-related products like the sour cream that comes out of a tube. As far as I'm concerned, this is one of those guilty-pleasure/vegetarian-cult-food-faves that far surpasses In 'n' Out's "secret" grilled-cheese.

The cat's not-so-secret guilty pleasure? French fries.

OPP's!

You remember... other people's pets?!? This cat has no fur but is perfectly soft, nonetheless! Fascinating!

take me out to the ball game(s)

I somehow managed to go, not just to my first Dodger game of the season last weekend, but to my second also. That seems like a reasonable amount of time for me to decide that the Dodgers kind of suck this year, right? What a bummer. At least there's always the view, the nacho cheese (and nacho cheese footprints!), and the beer to rely on...