The good life has sprinkles on top.

Happy birthday, handsome.

happy birthday
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Dashing

There's something so stirring about looking at old family photos. This one is of my grandpa and his cousin, probably from sometime in the 1940s. In it he looks so much like my cousin Bronson who died a few years ago. When I see this picture, it comforts me and makes me smile, and for a moment it allows me to imagine Bronson growing into a handsome old man just like my grandpa has.

Second Act

Last week I didn't write a single word of the book. I don't know if it was finally reaching page one hundred that made me feel I deserved some sort of break, or if I was just too wrapped up in prepping for the wedding. I alternated both of these excuses in my mind all week.

Today I'm starting back in and realizing that the truth of it is that I'm just in a really difficult part of the story. I hate writing middles. I think I'm pretty good at beginnings and endings, but there's something so intimidating and complicated about writing the bulk of the story, the gut of it, that I'm nearly paralyzed by it. I wish I could rush on to page two hundredandwhatever and be done with the draft.

I tend to be this way about most things in my life. I'm always uncomfortable with the inbetween. I like to be going somewhere, or to have just arrived. The rest I'm often baffled by and anxious about. The only upside to this is that usually my unrest causes me to (eventually, often much later than I should) take action.

So on to one hundred and one.

It's always shocking to me, whether I'm there as a guest or as the photographer, how fast weddings go by. So much build up for a day that passes so amazingly quickly. I asked April if she had regrets about anything on her wedding day, and her only one was that she wished they'd had more time to just soak it up and enjoy it as it was happening. I'm sure most couples feel the same way. I hope when I get married someday, I'm able to remember to breathe it in a bit.

wedded

wedded
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Another

favorite
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

April & I have another wedding to shoot tomorrow. It feels good to know I'll be spending the day doing something infintely more important than I do on 99% of my other work days.

Hopefully I'll have some pretty pictures to share with all of you here next week.

what i love

what you love
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

made chicken tikka masala the other night and my hands smelled of garlic for a couple days afterward, reminding me of how my dad's cooking made the kitchen smell while i was growing up. like home, like comfort.

finally made it to page one hundred of the book. haven't printed it all out yet, but am eager to. want to feel the full weight of it in my hands.

filling up photo albums from last summer. pictures that didn't get touched when i was sad, struggling with the break up. now they are going into books in the order in which i grab them. attempting to be less particular and precious in my arranging of things, and just enjoying each for what it is and where it falls.

In Cotton

Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I'm craving a trip to the fabric district downtown. Wanting to be surrounded by the colors and the sounds and the questionable smells. By the shop owners who don't speak English and are at once nonchalant and proud of what they've got to sell. I want to run my hands across the silks and the fake silks, the cottons, the blends, the tulle, even the polyesters, and be surprised by what catches my eye.

And Then

rest
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Several months ago, I happily canceled my memberships to a couple of book clubs that I'd signed up with years before. You know the ones -- the constant junk mail generators, the never ending "featured selections" to accept (yeah, right) or decline (always). When I finally wrote CANCEL in huge letters across my reply forms to these clubs, I felt a wave of relief rush over me. Gone was the constant pressure to buy books at barely discounted prices, usually by authors who write at what I consider to be a fifth grade reading level! Gone was the filling recycling bin after recycling bin with their "generous offers"! Gone was the fear of forgetting to decline my "selection" and therefore coming home from work to an ominous book-shaped box several weeks later!

Yesterday, I signed up again. With both of them. Hey, there are a lot of good books out right now! I HAD to.

Good Reason

Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

My arms hurt from lugging around a huge lens yesterday at an engagment portrait session. It's always somewhat satisfying to have sore muscles from something other than carrying my groceries, which is what usually does it.

Drove an hour each way for the shoot, managing to keep my newly formed freeway anxiety in check the whole time. I feel proud of myself for that, but still a little sheepish that the anxiety is a factor to begin with. I almost sent April to the shoot on her own.

Will take the small victories when I find them.

for the weekend

nearly
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

i'm going to ignore the fact that i have gained five pounds which feel like twenty and i can't seem to shed a single one

the giving up of pasta and potatoes can wait until Monday

i'm going to pretend that there is no little voice in my ear telling me that i'm better off admiring the work of others than creating anything myself

i'm going to make believe that the sky isn't hazy with smog here, that the air is as ripe and fresh with summer in los angeles as it was up north

and allow myself to breathe it

for the weekend anyway

Two

safari tent at el capitan canyon
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

So anyway, camping was great. It was technically "luxury camping." There was little to no roughing it. Since (regular, real) camping is one of my absolute most beloved things to do, I was very curious about how I would feel about Camping Lite. It turned out to be pretty much exactly what we needed. Relaxing and rejuvinating without being too taxing as far as having to pack and set up a bunch of stuff.

We did some wine tasting, we rode bikes along the coast, we made killer s'mores. We also got pooped on by two adorable owls. Owls pooping from high up in a tree can do a lot of damage. They covered both of us and our entire table of carefully prepared food. We'd just sliced a bunch of delicious cheese to go with our bottle of wine (which we bought at a grocery store, not at a winery, I am only somewhat embarrassed to say), and the whole lot of it was destroyed by the downpour from the tree. We were, at first, quite horrified. But then we laughed, and are still laughing.

not about owls or cheese, yet.

winery bathroom
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

every once in a while, usually deep into a chapter as i am now, i have a fleeting moment of thinking "my God, i could very possibly be writing the worst novel ever composed."

thankfully, i've been lucky enough to have read literally hundreds of painfully bad scripts at work, and since i imagine the literary world is not much different, i'm fairly certain that my book will probably be only the 338th worst ever.

when we were camping, i sheepishly sang g. a song i was making up about he and i. it was terrible. terrible. and yet i impressed him, somehow, because he loves me.

Now

Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

"Happiness... not in another place but this place, not for another hour but this hour." -- Walt Whitman

Varying States

varying states
Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

All last week, I didn't feel well. Getting up (early, so early) every day to go to work felt as though it might actually kill me. I started to worry, which is rare lately, given that I've all but abandoned my former love of hypochondria.

But then this weekend I got out of town. G. & I went camping (more on that next time) and it was glorious. I felt healthy and strong (even though I was pretty wimpy while riding bikes, something I haven't done in close to a decade)and alive. The air was cleaner, the food tasted yummier (Though not the wine. I believe, after visiting Santa Ynez wine country this weekend, the SIDEWAYS folks chose the wrong part of California. The wine further north that we had last summer was much better.), my mind felt engaged and full.

Today, back at work, I am sore, allergy ridden and tired. I got a massage yesterday (My first real one ever.) so I feel better than I did last week, but I'm still somewhat stunned at how profoundly my current work life affects my physical well being. I find it fascinating and sad. I'm grateful that I have a very satisfying life outside of the office. I feel deeply for people who have nothing to go home to when they are done with their work day. I can't imagine how one would make it through.

Tommorow's entry: A tale of two owls and some ill fated cheese.

Girl Cat

girl cat, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I think max knows more about the world than she lets on.

Swing

sway, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

For our anniversary, G. gave me a gift certificate for the two of us to take dance lessons together. This is something I've been wanting to do since we first started dating, so I'm very excited about it. I'm also a little nervous because while I'm the one with years of dance training, G. is the one with a natural sense of movement. All of mine is hard earned, and frankly not that convincing. These classes should result in some interesting stories.

This weekend we saw the documentary MAD HOT BALLROOM about children in Manhattan schools who are part of a mandatory ballroom dancing program. The movie follows three of the schools as they prepare for a city-wide competition. I highly recommend this film. It's by far my favorite movie this summer, and I think that would be the case even if the other movies I've seen in recent months hadn't been totally blah. Go see it.

The Daily Battle

Freshly Squeezed, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I let my brain rest this weekend. With the exception of a few moments, I didn't think about character arcs, about photos that needed photoshopping, about the change of address cards I'm making for my friend, or about the bizarre and frustrating turn of events that has lead cat hair to be a disturbingly more prominent tenant in my apartment than I am. Instead, my weekend was about reading great magazine and newspaper articles, day dreaming about my grand schemes for the future, and eating good food with G.

This was all very dandy and charming until last night when I was forced to remember that I have a lot to do right now. Itchy, unclear things that will require much brainstorming and learning in order to figure out. In almost all ways, I am absolutely thrilled to be doing this stuff. My mind desperately needs and wants to learn new things. But there's another itty bitty part that is scared that I'll be rather bad at it all.

Anew

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

This Wednesday, two of my friends got long-awaited jobs in Chicago. I'm so excited for them that I almost feel as if it is me who will be embarking on the big adventure of moving to a new city and starting a new phase of my career. I'm trying to embrace this borrowed sense of anticipation and renewal, and channel it into my own life. I have a lot on my plate right now, and nearly all of it is stuff that I will have to do on my own, with deadlines I've set and motivation that I've conjured up myself. I'm not very good at this, really, although I've been much worse in the past. I do better when I have someone who is expecting something from me, waiting for me to complete it. I've still yet to fully grasp that it's just as satisfying and important to do things for myself, that in fact, it's crucial for me to feel that way. So much of writing and art must be realized and propelled only by the person creating it. After a certain point, there's very little that outside forces can do for an artist who isn't willing to show up for herself every day.

I am learning, slowly but surely, to be a girl who shows up.

Baby Needs New Shoes

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Congratulations, Morgan!

Blurred & Bewitched

los angeles blur, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I sometimes worry that I am steering my characters in the wrong direction, or not telling the things about them that I need to tell. I worry that I won't realize how far off track I am until it's too late. In my mind, my characters are fully formed people. I know what they look like, how they react to things and the choices they are inclined to make. It's actually BECAUSE I feel I know them so well that I fear I will underexplain them, keeping them too close to me. Trying to create something as big as a novel still overwhelms me, even though I am about a third of the way into it.

In other news, I wish I were Samantha, and could wiggle my nose while here at work, and arrive home later to find my laundry completely done -- folded and put away and everything.

Flailing About

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Some days (most days) I feel as though there is too much I want to do, and it overwhelms me to the point where I end up doing very little at all.

I'm such a bully to myself in that way.

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Happy anniversary, Babar!

Each Year

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Last year, in late spring, Gym and I started noticing these beautiful purple flowers on some of the trees in the city. At first there were just a few of them, but as the weeks went by, the flowers became more plentiful until it seemed like every street was glowing with violet. Neither of us had ever noticed these trees before, despite having lived in Los Angeles for years, and we decided oh-so-sappily that they must have bloomed just for us. On more than one occassion, we half-joked that we could get married underneath one and not need anything else by way of flowers or decoration. Just standing by these trees was magic enough. When the flowers on the Jacarandas eventually faded, and the trees looked normal again, I worried that they might not bloom again, and that we'd missed our chance.

Early this year, when winter had passed and the trees in LA were just starting to think about becoming green again, I was suddenly struck with a fleeting thought of the Jacarandas. Gym and I were broken up then, and in my saddness over that I couldn't imagine that I'd be able to handle seeing those purple flowers, should they decide to reappear.

Cut to a day at the beginning of May when I was driving home from work and a flash of lilac colored tree caught my eye. My heart bounced with happiness. Life had taken unexpected turns in the preceding months, and Gym and I were back together. He was doing reshoots on a movie in London at the time, I couldn't wait to call and tell him to get home because the Jacarandas were in bloom again. Over the next several weeks, we watched the trees get full and fat together.

Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of our first official date. We are going to celebrate it despite the five months we spent apart because blessings, the ones you can count on and the ones that surprise you, ought to all be cherished.

Marking Time

sunset in los angeles, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Yesterday marked one full year that I've been keeping this journal. In going back to read my first few entries, I'm struck by how, on the surface, it appears that very little has changed since then. In truth, almost nothing remains exactly as it was.

Last year at this time, I was struggling with job dissatisfacion, just as I am this year. But now I'm at a completely different job, in an entirely different industry, and my mind set is also quite changed. I no longer put so much pressure on my day job to be a social outlet, a confidence booster, or a form of entertainment. I simply slug it out every day and bide my time while I pursue other endeavors. This doesn't mean that I don't still groan every morning when I get out of bed and prepare to spend my day under the buzzing florescents because I do. It just doesn't cause me nearly the internal anguish it did then. I do wish I could see the light at the end of the Assistant Tunnel, but I no longer feel that if I don't see it by tomorrow, I'll risk plunging into a state of psychosis.

I was spending these same days last year preparing for my first anniversary of dating G. My very first entry ever was about the gift I was making him. I'm working on a new gift for him this year, one I'm just as excited about, one that we're working on together. I never imagined last June that there would be so much heartache and turmoil in our relationship between that anniversary and this one. But the result is that we are stonger and happier, as individuals and as a couple, than we were then, when our relationship already had incredible stains on it that I just hadn't acknowleged.

Last June, Sweet Monday was still not much more than a domain name that April and I owned, and a dream we talked about constantly in order to help get us through our work days. It's still just a seedling of a company, a baby, but it's growing. We're actually getting paid to do what we love, to photograph and create. While our goal of being able to do this full time is a long way off, it's much closer than it was when we were doing little more than hoping for it.

I also wasn't writing much back then. Aside from this blog, I suppose I probably wasn't writing at all, unless you count my daily marathon email sessions with MS. I did a lot of READING about writing, I did a lot TALKING about writing, but I was loathe to actually put down words. Now I am 85 pages into my novel. I don't know if it will sell, or if the only people who ever read it will be my dad and G., but I can't even say how good it feels simply to be doing it.

I read a great quote recently, and stumbled across it again the other day on the blog of Andrea Scher, a girl who I've really come to admire as a wonderful artist and all around great person. The quote is by Van Gogh, and it says: "If you hear a voice within you saying, 'You are not a painter', then by all means paint...and that voice will be silenced."

In the past year, I have learned to silence, or at least quiet, some of the voices I've carried with me for a long time. I'd like to think this journal has helped me, and I'm grateful for that.

And Ducklings

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

It's the first day of summer and I am craving Traverse City.

Missing the cherry trees, the roadside fruit stands, the antique stores and the quiet water lapping at the shores of Bass Lake.

Monday Brain

at a stop light, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Only got to page 82 last week. I'm supposed to be much closer to 100, but have only been averaging three pages a week instead of five. I'm strangely okay with this. (Although don't get me wrong. I will throw a party for myself when I reach the triple digits.)

Why I'm alright with not having written as much as I ought:

I spent time this weekend with a friend I hadn't seen in two years.

I played with Photoshop and learned how to do a couple of new things, which makes me feel confident that I can learn to do a couple more.

I saw Wicked at the Pantages theatre on Saturday, after watching April try to eat surpise rabbit stew at Cafe Des Artistes.

I boxed with G. (Well, you know, I hit his focus mits, and he pretended I'm strong.) Am reveling in the sore arms that resulted.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

happy father's day, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I'm so lucky, at age 26, to have a dad who I still learn from every day.

june gloom

wrestling with the blues a bit this week. not sure why, and am having trouble remembering that there doesn't need to BE a why. sometimes it just happens, and there's nothing to be done, really, but wait for it to pass.

green clouds

i love it when the sky threatens to rain, even though i know it's all for show, and nothing will come of it.

as i was walking to the market just now, i saw a man probably not much older than me hopping across the street. he was wearing nothing but shorts. no shirt, no shoes. as he darted across the intersection, he babbled wildly to himself, and his pants slipped down a bit with each step. he jumped about as if the bottoms of his feet were on fire. ah well, i thought, at least he still knows when it's safe to cross.

it's a good idea, not going shopping when you're hungry, and running the risk of buying too much as a result. but if you've just eaten, and are stuffed to the gills, perhaps that's not the best time to go either.

Congratulations, Megan & Tony!

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

What could be better than watching love grow before your eyes?

I don't know that I can think of a bigger blessing.

June Bride

fuschia, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I'm off to see my cousin Megan get married in Indiana this weekend.

How did we suddenly become old enough to be getting married? I still sometimes think of us as little girls who played with worms (which you'd find truly shocking if you knew us, and I guess most of you do) and put on elaborate plays and "musicals" for our parents and grandparents. I really don't feel so changed from the girl I was then.

Aloft

aloft, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

A couple months ago, G. suggested that we read a book together. I was thrilled by the idea. I've always wanted the kind of relationship that would include shared literature. But G. and I have different ideas, for the most part, of what constitutes a good read, and I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to find something we'd both really enjoy.

Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee was one of the first books to catch our mutual eye (which is green, just like our non-mutual eyes) while on a search through Borders one afternoon. It was one I'd heard many, many good things about, but had for some reason put off reading on my own. I'm glad now that I did, as it turned out to be the perfect novel to launch our little Nosotros Book Club.

Reading this book felt like a privilege. It is one that I wish I could buy for everyone I know and have them devour it immediately. When we read the last words of it out loud to each other, I cried, in part because it was such a lovely, well written page, and in part because I wasn't yet ready to say goodbye to the characters, or to the experience of reading about them with G.

This one will stay with me for a while.

setting sail

setting sail, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

april & i booked another wedding for september.

hooray!

this summer is shaping up to be a good portfolio booster.

It went well.

As do many, if not most, of the things I force myself to do.

The kids were great. There are twenty one of them living with their mothers in the shelter, and we had fifteen making colorful paper fish (with streamers on the tails, of course!) with the four of us who were volunteering. They ranged in age from two to nine (the age range for all the kids currently in the shelter is 6 months to fifteen years), which are ages I know well from having little sisters who either are that age now, or were not too long ago. I couldn't help but compare these children with E & H, wondering if the weight of what they've been through so early in their lives gave them a visible heaviness that my sisters don't have.

Some of their faces were tired or sad, while others were joyful and sparkling. I think this would probably be the case with any group of children. Children wear their immediate emotions for all to see, and you can't always tell how deeply the feelings run. It's probably impossible to know if these kids have already been scarred for life by what has happened to them and their mothers, or if their lives will move in a direction so positive that these days of living amongst so much bold heartache will slip from their memories entirely.

There was one little boy, three or four years old, whose face was so alive, he was almost glowing. I wish I could have taken a picture of him. I'm not sure I've ever seen a child with such expressive, happy eyes. He worked very hard on his fish, and laughed to himself while he did so, and I made a silent plea that he would stay that kind of boy even after he was old enough to realize how difficult life can be.

Emily was one of the girls at my table. She turned nine on May 26th and has two younger sisters who were at the next table over. She named her paper fish Timmy Tom Fish, and when she wrote the name across his colorful gills, I noticed that she is left handed like me, and holds her pencil in the same awkward way that I do.

Out There

half, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I'm incredibly shy.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before.

For the most part, my shyness is of the usual sort. I get nervous about meeting new people and doing things that require me to interact with strangers in a way that I'm not used to. Sometimes it goes beyond that, to the point of my feeling timid about something ridiculously simple, like having dinner with a friend I've known for years.

The shyness has been debilitating at times. There've been numerous things I've wanted to do but have backed away from in order to avoid the awful anxiety that would come along with it. Every once in a while though, I suddenly find that I've signed on for something that puts me out there, and I have to do it whether I'm scared to or not.

Tonight I'm volunteering to do craft projects with some kids who live in a shelter for domestic abuse victims. I'm nervous about this. I won't know anyone there, I don't know what to expect or what exactly is expected of me. Basically, it's your garden variety anxiety producer. I've had butterflies about it since yesterday.

I hope it will be worth it. I think it will be. It almost always is.

Taste of Summer

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Ripe tomatoes, sliced, a few dashes of sea salt.

Divine.

Monsieur Marcel

his legs and mine, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

There's this French restaurant in the farmer's market that G. and I discovered last year, just as my little love for all things French was kicking into gear. This place is great. It's small and cramped and the wait time is always nearly unbearable, but these are actually some of the reasons I love to go there. The waiters are French, and I don't know if it's just good luck or what, but I always seem to end up sitting next to French people when I'm there. Because of this, I feel transported while sitting in that tiny place, devouring delicious food.

All afternoon I've been thinking it might be a good night to eat there. The clouds that plagued the morning have long since burnt off, the past few hours have been sunny and warm, and it looks at though we're going to sink into the evening in just the way one hopes every weekend will start. It's the perfect atmosphere for enjoying a cozy cafe.

And then just now, G. called to let me know he was on his way over to pick me up. "Why don't we go to that French place at the farmer's market?" he said.

For all the ways we are different, the boy and I, we sure do think alike much of the time.

25,000 or thereabout

green with..., originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I'm having another okaynowwhathappensnext moment with the book. Finally finished up the Sally Bishop story, and the next chapter needs to return to the primary story, but I'm stuck. Although I think I know how I want things to end (many, many pages from now), I am not quite sure how to get there. Second act is always hardest, and I'm still in the first. This is an overwhelming feeling for me. I always think there's no way I'll figure out which direction things should go, but so far I've always become unstuck without too much time in limbo. I hope this week will be the same.

Also, here is something I am learning:

When it's time to write, I am a brilliant procrastinator, and suddenly can find many new things that need to be cleaned or organized or fussed over. Anything besides The Page At Hand.

But when it's REALLY time to write, I'm there, and I do it.

the mondays

train station, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

i'm a bit homesick for the weekend.

it comes from good things. from having had a couple of days of feeling loved and content. from accomplishing stuff i set out to do, and taking care of myself.

it comes from wanting to do more of that, and finding myself paralyzed by work induced boredom.

CMW

CMW, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Tomorrow is my amazing sister's twenty first birthday.

Happy birthday, Corinn! I love you.

to go forward

pair, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

always there are the resolutions

to drink more water

to insist on high quality dark chocolate

to take better care of my hair

to look more carefully before taking a sharp turn

to wake up ten minutes earlier

to eat the vegetables before they spoil

to clean the bathtub with more vigor

to plant something

to be just a bit more

On Tuesdays, they cut the grass around my office building and it smells divine.

I don't want to be at work today. My mind is filled with the tiniest buds of ideas and sitting at my desk under the fluorescent lights is the quickest way to ensure they don't grow into anything. I feel I should be exempt from my office job on days when I feel inspired creatively. It's a shame to waste them. It pains me.

It's been slow going with the writing. I've been averaging three pages a week rather than five, and last week I only wrote on two days. The result is that I'm only at 75-ish pages when I should be closer to 100. This only bothers me because I'm still aiming to have a first draft finished by the end of the year, and I have some catching up to do to make that happen.

My landscape has shifted the last couple of months, and I'm happy about it, but still figuring out how to best move about the new terrain.

I don't like to have a post with no photo to go with it. The new camera has changed what I expect from myself in regard to visual things.

Last Days of School

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Every year around this time, I get a little restless, as though my mind will forever be programmed to anticipate summer vacation, no matter how far my life continues to advance into adulthood.

In many ways, I associate this time of year with a renewed sense of possibility much more than I do January 1st. There's something about the feelings evoked by summer smells, summer foods, summer happenings that make me feel as if something new and exciting must be just around the corner. As a child, and even up until I graduated from college, the source of this anticipation was always quite obvious and much less cluttered a feeling than it is now. It was always pretty clear what was next. Long lemonade days followed by a rush of new things -- new clothes, new teachers, new friendships. I often miss that comforting combination of things that are familiar and safe leading up to a change that is signifant, but non-threatening.

These days, I often struggle with the What Comes Next? of it all. I feel, rather strongly, that there needs to be a Something Coming Next. All around me, friends and family are getting new jobs, getting engaged, getting new homes, getting new couches. And although I wouldn't call my life static by any means, it could use a little push forward, a little oomphf. But I'm also quite fond of my life as it is right now, and I don't want to disrupt the delicate balance. I want new things, better things, more exciting things, but without altering the amazing things I already have.

I'm not entirely sure what to do with this year's restlessness. I wish I could say that a summer break (or at least a mental one) would magically make things clear, steer me where I need to go, but I'm sure it will take more work than that. Life is much trickier to navigate once there's no longer a report card in June bearing the name of who your teacher will be in the fall.

May Flowers

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Megan and Tony -

Looking forward to a month from today!

The Birds and The Bees

This weekend I worked on a short film that Hosea's friend was directing. It was my first time really being on a set since moving out here, which was a bit funny considering that being on set was my whole motivation for making the move in the first place. But that's a whole other thing.

The actual shooting experience was fine, nothing spectacular, nothing that made me too sad that I'm not much a part of that world right now. I do like filmmaking, but working on this made me realize that the vast majority if what I like about it has to do with liking the people I'm working with (and having a true sense of team work going on) and working on a project that I believe is solid creatively. With the exception of being happy to spend a weekend working on something with April and Hosea, which is always fun, neither of those elements were really in place, so it wasn't brilliant, it was just fine. But I'm glad I did it.

A couple of weird things that I will remember after I've forgotten almost everything else about the weekend:

There was a woman and her two kids who were in one scene of the movie. They were friends with the writer, whose house we were shooting in, so they brought their dog, Timmy, to the set with them. Right before we started shooting the scene, Timmy shows up with a live bird in his mouth. Much yelling at the dog ensued before we could get him to drop it, and of course by then it was too late for the bird, and one of the fine gentlemen on set had to put it out of its misery. I hate stuff like that. It makes me really sad and hangs over my head long after it's over. I know it's the circle of life and all that, but I can never get over feeling sad for the poor birds or other little creatures that are just going about their days and suddenly find themselves trapped in the foamy mouth of some other animal.

An hour or so earlier, we were shooting a scene in the back yard and had already started to roll camera when suddenly the actress who we were shooting said "Oh my God!" and her eyes got big as saucers and then there was this horrible sound, like a plane on fire, only softer and more organic, and I heard April gasp beside me and finally I looked up and there was an enormous swarm of bees coming towards us. Literally thousands of them. We all took off running for the house, and everyone made it in without being stung, and within a minute the bees were gone. Their target was clearly something else, something they hadn't gotten to yet, but for a few brief moments I felt pure fear and a rush of adrenaline like I don't think I've felt in years, if ever.

Before all that though, there was a moment when we were shooting a very uncomfortable scene, physically, and we were all hot and in a cramped space and there were sound issues because planes kept flying over head and dogs kept barking, so we all had to stand there sweating a lot longer than we wanted to, and then on one of the last takes I noticed a hummingbird in the bush I was standing next to, so I watched that for the rest of the time until I felt calm, and it flew off.

Darling Things

new plates, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

I had a friend in town last weekend and we ate at two of my favorite French restaurants in town. They are most likely NOT two of the best in town, but I have personal attachments to them, their food is tasty, and they are inexpensive enough that I can frequent them without feeling guilty.

At both meals, our food was served on lovely white plates with blue around the rims. While I have no idea if there is anything French about this type of plate, eating off of them made me feel more appreciate and captivated by my food, made me savor it more, and I KNOW that is a French thing.

I was thrilled, later in the weekend, to find some similar plates at Target for only $3.99 each. I scooped up two in blue and two in yellow. Last night I had my first meal on one of them, and it was divine.

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Mira likes to flaunt her belly.

I believe it's called Soft Floral.

On Monday, a few hours into my work day, I became painfully aware that someone around me was wearing ghastly cheap perfume. Pungent, offensive, floral perfume. The kind that is found on the shelves at K-Mart. Not in the glass cases, just on the open shelves. That cheap.

I've nothing, in theory, against cheap perfume. There are gems to be found in that world. And let's face it, my own favored brand, while definitely a tiny bit expensive for me, is no Chanel No. 5. But this was, My Goodness, Just. So. Bad. As the day wore on, and the scent grew stronger, I began to wonder what could possibly be behind the decision made by one of my co-workers to suddenly sport something so... challenging. Perhaps in the store, lightly sprayed on the inside of her wrist, it had smelled better? Less like a combination of molasses, gardenias and alcohol? It started to burn my nose. I could actually feel the little hairs in there withering away to nothing, brought down to their follicles by a $11.99 spray.

I longed to complain out loud, longed to commiserate with someone near me. Surely I couldn't be the only one in such pain, both physical and emotional?! But of course, I could say nothing without offending the owner of the stench, and so I suffered in silence all day, growing ever more nauseated and befuddled with each passing hour.

Leaving the office that day was more of a relief than usual. As I stepped into the open air, I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd survived. I climbed into my car, and there, in the comfort of my own space, I realized that some of the stink had gotten on me. I could still smell it. I frantically started sniffing my jacket, my arms. Yes, it was on me! It was stuck on me! I raised the top of my tee shirt to my nose. It was on that, too! And... wait... it was REALLY on that. I smelled again. Man. Then something terrible occurred to me. I gingerly sniffed my armpit. Yeah. Um... that smell, THE smell... that would be my new deodorant.

ode to hormones

piano fingers, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

my insecurities come like clockwork. i can tell you just when they will hover and when they will lash. when they will politely decline to comment and when they will shriek so loudly that attempting to ignore them is pointless.

i know, long before it happens, when exactly i will cry upon reading someone else's sad blog entry, when i will shudder every time the phone rings at work. when i will interpret the things that are said to me in the worst possible way. when i will feel as if i can't fit into any of my clothing, when i will have hair that is an offense to humankind. when i will tell myself mean things that make me feel small.

this knowledge, hard won, is rendered meaningless in the face of Week Three of Four.

sweet

lollipop, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Time goes by so quickly.

This picture I took at the farmer's market a couple of weekends ago made me think of my sister, who used to love these huge lollipops (as well as huge jaw breakers) when she was little. She would lick them for a few minutes and then wrap them in tin foil until the next time she wanted them. Sometimes mom would give her some Tupperware to hold the half eaten jawbreaker, and it would roll around all sticky and spitty inside the plastic. Once on a trip to Florida to visit our grandparents, Corinn got a lolli that had Mickey Mouse on it and she was in heaven. The thing broke long before its time (and if I remember correctly I might have been partially responsible for its demise)and Corinn was devastated. We had to track another one down for her.

In a few weeks, C will be turning 21, and I am in disbelief.

Holly Wood

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

When I was younger, in 8th or 9th grade, every week I would walk to the grocery store down the street from our house in Traverse City, and buy a pack of green Extra gum and People magazine with my allowance. My awareness of celebrities -- what they wear, who they love for the moment -- stretches back at least that far. I was always sort of fascinated by movie stars (the glamour and whatnot) and moving to Los Angeles, where the celebrities roam as free as is possible, hasn't really changed that. Five years later, I still love to pour over US Weekly, and I still blush when I see someone famous walking out of the bathroom at the movie theatre.

What's changed is that now some of these people are actually part of my social life. Through various circumstances, I find myself at their birthday parties, or at dinner with them, or simply at their place of business. This has brought an element to my life that is on one hand sort of cool, and on the other hand quite stressful.

Famous people, you see, are wee folk. Male, female, young, old, really famous or only sort of... they are, nearly universally, very short and very thin. In the men, I find this sort of cute and funny. I think it's amusing to know that women all over the country are being wooed from afar by men who are barely over five feet tall.

In the women, I find it to be downright intimidating. I'm a tall girl, and thin but not skinny. Petite girls have always terrified me. I feel like an oaf next them, as if I've suddenly become the most ginormous women in all the land. If these girls also happen to be beautiful and immaculately dressed and, oh, I don't know... FABULOUS SOCIAL BUTTERFLY MOVIE STARS then it gets a bit scary for me. I get shy and sweaty, and all at once I'm back in second grade when my feet grew too fast and my mom made me wear huge pink Converse All Stars and everyone called me Dumbo (nevermind that Dumbo had large ears, not large feet).

It's rather wretched, when this happens.

Before you go ahead with the comments about how I'm darling just the way I am (and aren't I, though?), I must add that you couldn't pay me to switch places with any of these girls. The other thing my fairly close proximity to these people affords me is the ability to see just how rather normal they really are, all physical beauty and riches aside. The vast majority of them are horribly insecure, and with good reason: In most cases, they will be tossed aside for being too old, too undertalented, too difficult, too addicted, too "last year" long before they are ready to be done with their careers. Their lives are riddled with bizarre pressures. The pressure to be microscopic in size and enormous in personality and talent. The pressure to always look ten years younger than they are. The pressure to wear a full face of make up when they drag the dumpster down to the curb, unless they want to be seen by all the world in their pale, puffy faced glory. And Lord help them if they want to have a normal romantic relationship!

So it's not about jealousy (although I wouldn't mind some Prada dresses and perfectly glossy hair) as much as it is about feeling a bit uncomfortable in my own skin when I'm around a certain type of person.

Hollywood breeds that, maybe even for The Stars Themselves.

In Bloom

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

This weekend I walked the majority of the places I went. Probably about 7 miles in all, maybe a bit more. It felt really good. I'm always surprised at how much is missed when driving in a car. There are so many things that must be experienced up close or will be lost altogether.

The roses in Los Angeles are amazing right now. It's possible to walk for block after block and smell nothing except their scent. Marvelous.

Enough said, but I'm going to say more.

it's a shame about..., originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

There's a deeply disturbing trend I've noticed in Los Angeles. Somewhere, and I prefer to pretend that these places reside deep in the dark bowels of the city where light and dictionaries dare not tread, there are multiple sign manufacturers who cannot spell, nor, in some cases, can they tell when a letter is backward or forward (I shall provide examples of the latter in a future post, as this is not an issue I will let die quietly).

I realize I live in a City of Diversity and yadda yadda. Doesn't matter. There's no excuse. It's one thing, as a sign seeker, to not know enough english to write down your requested message and spell it correctly. That I understand. I'm all for shop owners who don't speak english. They tend to just let you enjoy browsing in their stores in peace and quiet. It's an entirely different thing to be a sign maker and have not a clue in the whole wide world of how to spell "everything" or "beauty" or so, so many others, and to refuse to inquire about the spellings of such before plastering them on plasic or metal or wood or glass, and giving them to your poor, unsuspecting, peace and quiet loving clients, therefore condemning them to years of looking foolish.

WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!

I think this has to be one of the highest forms of cruelty I've ever seen.

"The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago..."

If you are me, here is what you live for:

A Friday night, you are slightly tired, it's been a long week. You've got plenty of energy for making dinner though. Cheddar and bacon panini with a complicated chipotle relish that you've been making for a half hour. You're cutting an onion. It doesn't sting your eyes, but it does sting the skin around a tiny little crack in one of your cuticles.

In the living room, the boy and his roommate are playing the piano and the guitar, and then the bass and the guitar. They play songs you know the words to, songs you love the words to, but which you're perfectly willing to not hear the words to just now. The music is enough.

When you put the onions in with ketchup and the Worcestershire sauce, which are bubbling on the stove, it smells divine and your stomach growls. The boy takes a break from the piano to check on the dessert he's making while you're doing dinner. He puts his hand on your back and you remind him that it was when he first played one of those songs for you that you realized you loved him.

You remember when you were younger and imagined that being an adult would include exactly these things. Cooking late night dinners, someone playing good music, a glass of wine while you chop vegetables, bare feet on hardwood floors.

When he's back out at the piano, he plays the other song he played for you that night so long ago, maybe without even knowing what he's doing. You smile as you drop in the pinches of oregano and cinnamon, and the moment feels complete.

Sally Bishop

Running into something interesting with the book right now. My story has several shorter narratives woven into the larger one, and because these stories are meant to be able to practically stand on their own, they feature characters who don't appear in the primary story. The one I am working on right now centers on a rather complicated girl who, I discovered the other day, I do not like.

When I started her story, I had no idea this would be the case. I knew she would be a bit prickly, and that her choices would be poor ones, but it wasn't until I got into the guts a bit that I realized I'm not at all fond of her. This is the first time this has happened to me. I've written other characters who weren't, overall, the most likeable folk, but I always liked them just fine. I have a soft spot for difficult personalities. So it took me a bit by surprise, my disdain for this nineteen year old and her brazen nature, her selfishness.

I thought for a moment that I should change her, warm her up a bit. She is, after all, the protagonist of her brief little tale, and it would make sense that she'd need to be likeable. But it was too late. By the time I realized what was going on, the character was already fully grown, already sitting at a table looking at a man she doesn't love, who disgusts her in fact, agreeing to marry him. There was no stopping her. So I, her creator, am writing her not how I intended her to be, but instead, just how she is.

And also traffic jams.

My life is too often centered around errant cat hair and ill-fitting pants.

Delightful Neglect

I've been letting some of my self-assigned tasks slide the past couple of weeks. I've only written about five pages instead of my usual ten, haven't been posting here nearly as much as usual, and have fallen behind in a lot of my reading. I can't even begin to tell you how okay with this I am.

I've spent months and months working very hard to get things in order for myself, and I'm really quite happy with the job I've done. Nothing is perfect, in any area, but I've made more progress than I thought I could, and I'm still moving in the right direction. I have no intention of backing up or even slowing down, but when I find moments where it feels good to take a deep breath and stand still for a moment, I'm going to do so. This weekend, during times when I would normally be writing, I instead took a long walk with my pretty new camera, then had a delicious brunch. I learned to play poker. I went to a baseball game (go Royals!)where I ate a perfect ketchup-drenched hotdog and got sunburn on my arms. I literally, dorkily, stopped to smell the roses that are blooming ridiculously all over Los Angeles.

This week, I will get my five pages done.

Things for a Happy Tuesday

The smell of a freshly peeled orange.

My new camera arriving, and the bubbling anticipation I feel while waiting to get my hands on it.

Walking past the landscape guys mowing the office lawn, thus being treated to one of my favorite scents (the grass, not the guys).

The soundtrack to Wicked.

Later we attempted to run through the field like Maria in The Sound Of Music.

Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Last weekend, A & H & I went to Death Valley to see wildflowers. We'd heard they were blooming in greater abundance than they had in 100 years, due to the unusual amount of rain we've been getting. I think each of us had a vision of what this might look like, and none of us thought it would be a bunch of people hunched over daisies with their cameras glued to their eyes as if they'd never seen such a flower in their lives. All three of us having been raised in areas where flowers are common, we weren't overly impressed with the yellow, almost weedish blossoms. Add that to the miserable "campground" situation (a gravel parking lot with sites literally two feet apart)and I think we were all a bit confused about what we'd just done to ourselves. But we've gotten pretty good, as a little trio, at making the best out of bizarre or annoying situations. There was a moment of near defeat as we stood on our rocky "campsite," which was across the street from a Chevron. We quietly ate our sandwiches while standing in the shade of the Jeep, absorbing the mess of it all. Then we decided to make an adventure of things, abandoned our site without knowing if we'd find a place to camp that night, and headed off for what was literally the road less traveled, a 47 mile dirt trail that ended up leading us to a proper place to camp in the middle of no where, just us and the mountains and the eager yellow flowers (my pants got covered with pollen). It wasn't until we were sitting in our little camp chairs, eating our hot dogs, breathing the fresh air that we could really look around and see where we were. It was pretty awesome. Desert and flowers and mountains covered in snow. California has taken my breath away so many times. It's been an enormous blessing, and something I didn't expect when I moved to Los Angeles.

That night, curled up in the tent, all I could hear was the breeze blowing in one window and out the other. That alone was worth the drive.

That and the learning how to properly pee in the wilderness.