summer is my happy time

and I am officially in celebration mode. new polaroids (plus one holga) in le shoppe plus a super happy 2-for-1 sale. I am not kidding around with all this summer happiness. details are here.

happy summer, peeps!

I am so ready

ready for a road trip, so ready. I cannot adequately express how ready I am. to throw some junk in a bag and slide into the passenger seat of the car. to prop bare feet up on the dashboard and dangle hands out of a rolled-down window. to fly down the highway, slurpee in hand, eyes on a wide open horizon. I don't even really care where we go. just so long as we go. just so long as we're properly able to switch up our geography. I'm ready.

I miss the magic place

"... but of course there is no logic to san francisco generally, a city built with putty and pipe cleaners, rubber cement and colored construction paper. it's the work of fairies, elves, happy children with new crayons. why not pink, purple, rainbow, gold? what color for a biker bar on 16th, near the highway? plum. plum. the light that is so strong and right that corners are clear, crisp, all glass blinding- stilts and buttresses and turrets- the remains of various highways- rainbow windsocks- a sexual sort of lushness to the foliage. only intermittently does it seem like an actual place of residence and commerce, with functional roads and sensible buildings. all other times it's just whimsy and faith. just driving to and from marny's, in the castro, is epic, this hill and that hill- oh, the sorrow of flat, straight illinois!- this vista and that, always the hills, the curves, the maybe our brakes will fail- it's always a kind of adventure in faded technicolor, starring a vast cast of brightly dressed losers."

from the book a heartbreaking work of staggering genius by dave eggers


san francisco, I hardly knew ye. still, I love thee.

sort of swooning

over pink ice cream trucks and snow cone-selling vintage shasta trailers. I am a big fan of treats on wheels. read more here.

photobooth friday

all I can say is that we were at archie mcphee's. which is a place that just makes you want to do odd things. and buy odd things. before you know it, you are insisting your husband don blonde braids in the photobooth while you fill your little red shopping basket with things like bacon-flavored dental floss, bubblegum cigarettes, underwear for squirrels, corn dog air fresheners and enormous sombreros. in the end, you will come to your senses. though not before you have dragged several props into the photobooth and purchased the tiniest deck of playing cards ever, several cute plastic rings and a bottle of robot bubbles.



we hit the road back in february, found ourselves in seattle for a day and a night. found our way to the aforementioned infamous archie mcphee's (I'd heard about the photobooth) and settled in for the afternoon. road trips and photobooths go together quite nicely, which is something I wrote a little about in the latest issue of light leaks magazine.



if you are a fan of low fidelity photography at all, this publication is for you. page after page of toy camera goodness. page after page after page. you can find me (and my family) on pages 6 and 7 but you will only want to linger briefly because the rest of the issue is ridiculously fantastic. get your copy here, my toy camera-loving friends.



and another crazy one for today. just because. from the carnival a couple of weeks ago. a little expensive but totally worth it.

more photobooth awesomeness in my little group. the little group that just keeps on going, much to my utter and total delight.

exactly

I watched the annie liebovitz documentary recently and she said something I really loved.



she said that dance is art that sort of lives in the air.



exactly, I thought. that is exactly right. and as much as there was to take from that documentary, that is probably the one and only thing that will stay with me. forever and ever amen. that one sentence, that one idea. and I really sort of love when that happens.

p.s. deets on the above amazing photos:

1. Tami Stronach/Modern Guest Artist@DNA
2. Walking with ghosts
3. Dancing Soul
4. abellernyt
5. Stefanie Nelson/Modern Guest Artists@DNA
6. Untitled

I've been

listening to third graders sing classics
thinking they probably sing them better than anyone else in the world
feeling thankful for awesome school teachers
seriously loving some zines
dreaming of strawberry fields, drive-in movies and the ocean
celebrating birthday number five with the world's greatest kid
freezing lemon slices for pitchers of lemonade
missing houlihan's class in the ark so incredibly much
falling in love with the bagdad
planting nasturtium, cosmo, zinnia and sunflower seeds
swooning over tiny green buds pushing their way out of the ground
admiring ava's new red sandals
clomping around in my own
struggling to find balance
sneaking alone time in the hammock with books and popsicles
writing about volkwagen buses for the second issue
crushing on john krasinski and questlove
indulging in cherry snow cones
throwing pretty sheets over big messes
then pretending the messes don't exist
basking in church basement sale victories
and the purchase of one very rad banana seat bike
feeling ridiculously proud of that guy I married
and the first childrens book he illustrated
blowing through packs of film at an alarming rate
perfecting my skeeball game
slicing up watermelon
missing lightning bugs
writing about home
salivating over the promise of so many backyard blackberries
constructing lego-shaped birthday cakes
maybe spending too much time at target
inventing reasons to order polka-dotted cupcake liners
and little plastic cupcake toppers and other stuff
loving the way my home looks through her eyes
stuffing the magical jar of thinking full of golden words
listening to the new one from mos
planning a monumental trip back home
thinking a good tailor might be the answer
trying to establish a more productive work flow
and sort of failing
wishing a few good films would get here already
thinking about the perfect day
loving the way the sun hangs on for hours these days
contemplating colors for toenails
overthinking it, actually
slowly chipping away at the list
feeling totally blissed out about summer
totally

I've been a little busy.

carnivals are fun

some carnival color for your monday afternoon.

p.s. same photobooths as last year and just as pretty as I remember.

it's here

first day of june= unofficially the first day of summer.



but summer came early this year. and I was ready. I have been ready for months.

perspective

when things get to be too much, I ride. I get on my bike and I ride and ride. when my head is a mess and the house is a mess and the kids are a mess and supper is not magically appearing as I was hoping maybe it would, I head for the garage. this is where my favorite bike waits patiently for me. if I can, I ride during the magic hour when the long legs of daylight stretch out before me and the tops of the houses glow. I pedal as fast as I can. I coast, pedal and repeat. my old bike rattles and creaks like an old carnival ride which makes me love her about a hundred times more than I already do.

I ride past manicured yards and not-so-manicured yards, past papery poppies and complicated irises, past my favorite aqua-colored house and the convenience store on the corner. I collect the scents of the neighborhood as I go. grilled beef from the vietnamese restaurant down the street, laundry drying in a basement, grass wet from sprinklers, hints of honeysuckle. trash day is coming and discarded items sit in jumbles at the end of each driveway. they know what's coming. a broken shovel, a tangle of white tubing, a seatless tricycle, a metal shoe rack that has obviously been replaced by a shinier, more promising shoe rack. they know they are headed for the dump but they are oddly hopeful. someone could still come in the night and take us home, they think. it could happen, they think. past trash and recycling bins I go, past a little league game and the school playground and onto familiar (and unfamiliar) streets. I am always changing my route. I never take the same way twice.

it's been exactly one year since I bought this bike. best eighty dollars ever spent. I can't really explain what happens when I ride except that things sort of shake loose. things that really need to shake loose. my shoulders relax, my chest opens up. and when I'm riding fast, the wind blows my hair back and away from my face. it feels a little like flying. I am a big fan this feeling. but the plain truth is that my bike keeps me sane. daily rides clear my head. things seem to fall away when I ride. I think maybe they call this perspective.

when I get home, dinner still has to be made, messes still have to be cleaned up, deadlines still wait. but I am a thousand pounds lighter and my mind is quiet. and that's definitely worth eighty dollars. definitely.


p.s. all this riding has me dreaming of bicycle accessories. checkit, it's my magic three.

le shoppe!

enormous update in le shoppe, peeps. loads of brand new prints, most of them polaroids. took forever to do all the test prints but finally, they are listed. and there will be more listings in the coming weeks. more more more, I say.

p.s. a little something extra will go out with all orders placed before june 1st. and that's all I'm going to say.

hello sunshine

I'm all about sunshine today over at poppytalk. I am covering my walls with sunshine and I am not looking back.

photobooth friday

I ask for two things on mother's day: photobooths and cupcakes. more specifically, a quick trip to the photobooth at the ace followed by a stop at saint cupcake. these days, I have to bribe ezra to get him into the booth anyway so the entire afternoon works out rather nicely for all involved parties. I get a photobooth strip, he gets a cupcake. actually, we all get cupcakes. very win-win.



so we get to the lobby of the ace and I dig through the apocalypse that is my purse to find the three wadded-up dollar bills I have been holding onto for like, days. we squeeze into the booth, adjust the chair, spin it around a dozen times or so and settle in. then we look for the slot but it isn't there. instead, there's this:



I know. it's not a big deal. they only take credit cards now, big whoop. but it leaves me feeling deflated. the inside of an old photobooth is one place I don't want to swipe my debit card. I just don't. I would also like to add that it's especially tricky to swipe said debit card while balancing two kids on your lap. you might as well forget about that first frame. but whatever. as we leave, I tell ward that I am not so good with small changes like this. I am no good with change in general but am particularly resistant to anything that interrupts personal ritual or tradition. this is something he already knows but I say it anyway. it makes me feel better.

parenting is a neverending exercise in accepting change. just when you've learned to navigate the rocky terrain of one age, a new one emerges. daily routines are forged and followed meticuloulsy but often shift in mercurial ways. learn to roll with it or suffer the consequences. I am mostly learning to roll with it. last week, ezra wanted to know what he was like as a baby. he wanted more than the pictures we have scattered throughout the house, more than the stories we always tell him. so we dug up the box of tapes in the basement and watched some old video footage. let me tell you: I was not prepared. I was not prepared at all. to see ezra just five months old, all bright-eyed and doughy, gurgling, cooing and reaching towards an impossibly tiny four year-old ava. whose voice, by the way, is but a heartbreakingly miniature version of the one we know now. all kinds of soft and just the right amount of sweet. I'd forgotten about that little voice.

then we stumbled onto something I'd filmed just one day before ezra was born. ava is wearing an enormous faded pink tutu that's been clipped in place with an old wooden clothes pin and her ponytail is the sweetest mess. the sounds of yann tiersen on the accordion fill the room and she is dancing. wildly. she spins, she bows, she balances on one leg then the other, she collapses melodramatically into a heap on the floor only to rise again and again. she is oblivious to everything around her, she is completely lost in this dance. my heart breaks at the sight of it. for a hundred different reasons but mainly because there is no going back. because what if I hadn't decided to pick up the video camera that day? because this girl, she has changed so much since then and the changes, they just keep coming.

balancing ava and ezra on my lap in the photobooth last sunday afternoon, I realized just how much they've grown. I could barely hold the two of them on my lap. it's official, they are not so little anymore. I remember how each one fit perfectly in the crook of my hip, how I wondered if I'd ever not be holding one or the other this way. will I ever not have a baby on my hip? the answer is yes and that time is now. this is another small change I grieve. I know, change is inevitable. there's no stopping it and it's all I can do to stay as loosely rooted in the moment as I am able and meet each change with as much acceptance as I can muster. it's all I can do, it's all I can do.

but I am no good with change, I tell ward. repeatedly, I tell him this. I know, he says. I know.

the sweetest gig

checkit, friends-- I'll be over at the seriously rad poppytalk once a week, running my mouth about all kinds of things, mainly good things, mainly things I love. yes, lists will be involved. yes, I am officially stoked.

today has everything to do with hello. hop on over and say hello, if you like. poke around a little (or a lot) but please do not blame me if you are still poking around seven hours from now. poppytalk is like that. chock full of the good and the lovely. come midnight, you might still be looking around and you will not know what happened.

p.s. it's true, jan was my first blog friend ever. watching poppytalk explode in this here place we call the internets has been nothing short of marvelous. to say I'm honored to be an official contributor is the understatement of the year.

thanks

for coming to the polaroid party. if I could send you each home with a goody bag, I would.

parties are better when flowers are involved

day three of polaroid week and the party is in full swish.

blue skies are for losers

and everyone else in the world. blue skies are for everyone.


p.s. the donut is for you. feel free to lick the screen. just don't get caught. and don't hurt yourself.

p.p.s. polaroid week continues, friends. clearly, polaroid is not dead.

welcome to the party

it's the week of the polaroid and I'm having a party. you are cordially invited. sorry, there will not be cake. but there will be eye candy. lots of polaroid eye candy.

from arkansas with love

the listener is coming to a town near you. and he is awesome.

personally, I like someone who can take the stage barefoot, talk about things like people who swallow handfuls of night and somehow (seamlessly) work in a little trumpet playing. all while paving the way for talk music. my kind of musician.

listen

whaddup knitta

first piece of guerilla knitting spotted recently downtown. probably not from an original crew but still. very exciting and completely rad. rogue knittas of the world, I love you. if I could knit, this is totally what I'd be doing.

on an unrelated (though totally relevant) note, there's this. I think it should be on billboards. I think it deserves to be said over and over and over. and I think it probably needs to be said loudly. preferably very loud.

yay! (part one)

a few things you will find on the pages of the absolutely fantastic premiere issue of uppercase, a magazine for the creative and curious:

a cherry red typewriter

a treehouse extravaganza



a brilliant use for a balloon



candy-like vintage typewriter ribbon tins

reinterpreted book covers



whirlers and twirlers plus the ten commandments of square dancing



rad poster designs

beauty in the unfinished



a spectacular polka dot umbrella

the healing properties of cupcake decorating

the humble nature of the paper towel

peewee herman versus shakespeare

tear-out art involving colorful spherical balloons and bubble ink drawings



the most lovable monsier character ever





a piece on record players written (and photographed) by yours truly



I'm telling you right now that I am gaga over uppercase. even if I wasn't a contributor, I'd still be gushing like a school girl and that is no lie. get your copy here, peeps. you'll not be sorry, I promise you that.

p.s. processes (like hangers) can be pretty.

hangers are pretty

see, what happened was I got tired of looking at pictures of peeps. and then I sort of got tired of eating them too. which is when marginally random photographs of secondhand swimsuits on hangers come in quite handy.

I will write something with some sort of depth and meaning soon. please stand by.

also

I've been eating peeps. happily, methodically.

I've been:

wallowing in the aftermath
contemplating red, aqua, pink
eating lemon curd straight out of the jar with a tiny baby spoon
learning about legos
struggling to keep up
loving daffodils in vases
spotting birdie nests with ezra
scrambling to meet deadlines
singing out loud
turning the house upside down
organizing art supplies
reading and watching
painting walls white
hand-mending an old quilt top with an unimaginable number of holes
wishing for magic dresses
dreaming of balconies and fire escapes
making paper collages with ava
photographing strangers again
anticipating pink heady blooms
developing roll after roll of film
feeling horribly inadequate
waiting for something good
swiping orange jelly beans from easter baskets that are not mine
crushing flower petal confetti underfoot
drowning in laundry
praying for sun

photobooth friday

how is it that I am not in chicago this weekend for the international photobooth convention? because how great would it be to be at the photobooth convention today on photobooth friday? how rad would that be? very.

but my resources are tapped and I've done more traveling in one month than I ever thought possible. I probably ought to sit still for a minute. but holy smokes, I'd like to be there. I really really would. instead, I'll be living vicariously through all you chicago peeps who choose to do me proud and represent. please do report back with vivid, complicated details. because vicarious living is in the fine details, you know.


p.s. I dig the poster, yes I do.

p.p.s. I do not own the sombrero pictured above. though someday I hope to.

part two

I think I will talk in pictures

for a while, just for a little while. because I'm telling you, I have lived a years' worth of happy in about 30 days. easily. I am still processing processing processing. so I think I will talk only in pictures for a while. just until the words come. which should be shortly. I think. I hope.

oh, and lists. there might be a few lists.

back soon

am currently having an adventure. which has everything to do with number 16 from the list. back soon, friends.

part one

to get on a plane and fly south, to step out of the car and onto the beach, to smell/taste/touch familiar air, so sticky and sweet. oh gulf, I have missed you. to blow through six packs of polaroid film in two days, to wear sandals, to work with shiny people, to drink mexican coca cola, to work with my brother. these are luxuries. I know this to be true.

p.s. there's a nice story behind how we found the orange VW bus.

flight 749

I squeeze past him and he doesn't even look up. which is fine with me. when I'm flying, I keep to myself. I always ask for a seat by the window and I say as little as possible to those around me. I do not invite conversation. I turn my body towards the small oval window and slip my headphones on. I line up potential reading material, I organize snacks. I look out towards the wing of the plane and pray that it does not fall off while we are up in the sky.

forty minutes into the flight and we are still pretending we are not sitting next to each other. he asks for a tiny bottle of jack daniels and a can of pepsi. he chases it with a pinch of tobacco which makes the air between us smell sour and acidic. he seems mildly agitated with everything around him. there's a thin, steely layer of something akin to anger just beneath the surface of his skin, I can feel it. he asks for another miniature bottle of jack daniels and mixes it with watered down pepsi. he downs it and closes his eyes. he is the kind of man who enjoys magazines like maxim. he eats lunch at hooters. he tells his girlfriend she's put on a little weight even when she hasn't. he is this kind of man, I am sure of it.

across the aisle are three loud twenty-something girls who cannot stop talking about some party. she was like and then I was like and then she was all and then I was all and we were like I was like he was like she was like. I cannot tell where one begins and the other ends. they are a fabulous tangle of diet mountain dew bottles, great lash mascara and people magazine. I am fascinated and see a former version of myself in them but the girls, they are killing him. they are killing the small bald man who sits next to me. he has no patience for these kinds of three-headed creatures, pretty as they are. finally, he dozes off. he snores quietly while I look out the window. below us, the land is laid out like mismatched linoleum tiles. I marvel at the sight of this. my ears start to pop and I know we are getting closer. closer to land, closer to home.

we land and right away, half the passengers on the plane stand up. this is when I realize there are two types of people: those who stand as soon as the plane lands and the seat belt sign goes off and those who don't. I get swept up in the anxiety of the moment and stand up too. I wonder what this accomplishes. what is the thinking behind this? obviously, the standers want to be first to grab luggage from the overhead bin, they want to be first off the plane. they have jumped to their feet before the appropriate time and they avoid any sort of eye contact. they pretend to look bored, annoyed, anxious. on the other hand, the sitters look content. as if they know something the rest of us don't. there's really nothing to be gained from standing the minute the seat belt sign goes off. standing doesn't guarantee anything. the sitters know this. I decide I don't want to be one of the standers. I want to be a sitter. I sit and immediately feel better. the small bald man next to me is standing, of course. he's got one hand on the overhead compartment and is poised for action. this is when I notice his hands. he has nice hands, tan with veins that protrude in a way that suggest strength. I begin to look at him differently. maybe he doesn't tell his girlfriend she's fat. maybe he leaves her love notes on the night stand. maybe he reads the new yorker. maybe he faithfully eats lunch at the small family-run deli on the corner everyday. maybe he is kind-hearted. maybe.

I wait until most of the people have gone before I start to gather my things. I take one last look out the window and silently thank the wing for not falling off. I am one of the last to make my way off the plane.

ear to ear

I'll have you know that I was all set to break from list-making for a while. I do believe I've developed a bit of a disorder. but then melissa went and tagged me and I'll not say no to melissa because she makes excellent scones and has cute babies that I like to pretend are mine.

six that are smile-worthy:

1. sushi bar conveyor belts and video cameras. I cannot stop watching this. I am in love with it and would like to hole up in a dark room with it and watch it until the sun comes looking for me.

2. husbands who find things you thought you lost forever.

so ward gave me the most fantastic ring for my birthday which of course, I promptly lost. because somehow, I am able to hold onto every last cheap, crappy ring I own but the minute I receive a gorgeous handcrafted piece that feels as if it was designed especially for me, I lose it. I lost my first engagement ring too. yes ma'am, I certainly did but that's another story. but then, over a belated valentines dinner last week, ward said hey, lookie here and there, in the palm of his sweet hand, sat said lost ring. and the heavens parted and the angels rejoiced, I swear it. he'd found it in the trunk of the car a few days back and decided to save it and surprise me with it at dinner. I have not taken it off, not even once because honestly, I'm just trying to enjoy this ring before it inevitably slips off my finger and falls prey to the curse of andrea, the girl who cannot hold onto pretty rings. I figure I have a couple of weeks. a month, tops.

3. pink balloons that don't die.

there's a pink balloon in my room and it will not die. not that I want it to die, but it's been two weeks and shouldn't it be dead by now? really, it should be somewhere near the floor looking sorry. instead, it continues to hover shyly over my side of the bed and let me tell you, it's as pink and buoyant as ever. I've taken to calling her pinkie and I'm rooting for her to make it. I really am.

4. collaborations with siblings.

I'm collaborating with my brother on a project of his this week. this is big news, this is great news but also, this particular collaboration requires me to get on a plane and fly someplace warm and near the ocean. I leave in about 24 hours and am still in a state of disbelief.

5. ezra's word for tights: sockpants. I'm sorry. I know I've mentioned it here before but I can't help myself.

6. orange ranunculus. omg, orange ranunculus, I love you.

and speaking of list-making, joslyn over at simple lovely recently invited me to put together the list of all lists. if you're not totally sick of me and list-making, you can read it here. oh, and christina, I'm officially tagging you. your world is filled with all kinds of smile-inducing sort of stuff. I know that for a fact.