“Our lives and our choices, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction. Yesterday my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Fear, belief, love, phenomena that determined the course of our lives. These forces begin long before we are born and continue long after we perish. Yesterday, I believe I would have never have done what I did today. I feel like something important has happened to me. Is this possible?”

“Boundaries between noise and sound are conventions, I see now. All boundaries are conventions, national ones too. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so."

- Cloud Atlas, from the movie

late night movie

cloud atlas, from the book:

“She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.” 

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” 

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.” 

“All revolutions are the sheerest fantasy until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities.” 

“. . .my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zone

d days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.”

“Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right.”

“History admits no rules; only outcomes.”

“…and there, in the background, the sky’s sediment had sunk to a place where all the woe of the words ‘I am’ dissolved into blue peace.
He said it. ‘The ocean.”

“If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth and claw, if we believe diverse races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass.”

“Why fight the 'natural' (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this--one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.”

“Time is what stops history happening at once; time is the speed at which the past disappears.”

“Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.”

“Whoever opined, "Money can't buy you happiness," obviously had too much of the stuff.”

“We looked at each other for the last time; nothing is as eloquent as nothing.”

    I’m embarrassed to remember
                        the time before I grew
                        uncertain about you,
                        and that I had a right to say
                        where I had been
                        and what I saw there.

- Eliza Griswold

Wisdom Teeth (Eliza Griswold)

We're too young for this discourse of ex's—
        ex-habits and yearnings for why
nothing fits as it did in our dreams,
        neither horrific nor wonderful.

How could we dream this life
        and yet we have; its marble stairs
with tongue-colored veins; its panes
        of lead glass and French doors

opening onto nowhere in particular
        and everywhere that matters.
Somewhere over the blue lawn
        (beneath which, a congress

of woodchucks maps out next season's
        excavations), something calls us
to the best of ourselves. Settle for less,
        and the terrace returns, stung

with the scent of night-blooming cereus
        or gas leaking from the main
under the lawn. The first dream I remember
        is everyone's: falling

into a gorge's glossy black water,
        thicker with life
than the air—never, of course,
        landing there, but falling

the way they say is simply falling asleep.
        The dreams we keep to ourselves
become who we are. Keep everything
        under your tongue and don't

come home. Go far and farther still.
        We'll meet in dreams as we do now.
I'll be waiting for you on the windowsill
        we already knew we knew.

“There’s something beautiful about keeping certain aspects of your life hidden. Maybe people and clouds are beautiful because you can’t see everything.”

- Kamenashi Kazuya (thank you Addie)

i started another project to document my meandering. (when will a project be about stability? i'm not sure).

 at times i stop taking my camera with me because sometimes it is too cumbersome. when documentation gets in the way of adventure, a photographer stands at the edge of crisis.

fortunately, some tools have made it easier to capture the mundane spectacularity of travel. a Facebook acquaintance recently challenged the idea of photographing sunsets and things that surround us daily, "because they are so common." i fiercely disagree. 

sky above me
earth below me
fire within me

This weekend I took a Vinyasa Flow class and we downward dogg-ed to Empire State of Mind. Now that's what I call a pumped up yoga class.

People make fun of me because I don't carry Louis Vuitton or Coach or any designer leather handbags to work. I carry handmade canvas bags to work. Most of the time, people in the corporate world assess how I dress and the accessories I carry and assume that I'm an art-loving bohemian hippie, and I think I am okay with that assessment. I'm also okay with blowing their expectations out of the water when I open my mouth to speak about technology and business and streamlining work processes.

The handmade bags that I carry are made by Moop, which is a small business run by a lovely woman named Wendy. She started making these incredibly sturdy and useful bags, and I fell in love. I own more Moop bags than I care to admit. The only ones I've had to replace are the ones I have lost. I tell all my friends about Moop.

Today, Wendy wrote a post about her "breakup" with AdWords. It describes everything I feel about doing business and living life. And how the whirlwind pace of online technology can affect all of that, if you're not careful. 

I did not start Moop to master the art of SEO.  Someone else can take that on as their life's passion.  For me, I'll take everything listed prior to that.  The truth is, somewhere along the line, I lost sight of the most important things that make me love the business I have built.  At the very core, I am interested in relationships.  I value more than anything the relationships I have with everyone around me.

Thanks, Wendy, for reminding us of what matters.

I used to be very confused about my objective for blogging. Did I want to increase my pageviews? Did I want to encourage people to comment? Did I want to ask people to link to my blog?

In the end, I realized that what I cared about for this space here was freedom. Freedom to be myself, freedom to be thoughtful, freedom to take notes on the things I find important in life. I didn't want to erect any boundaries around the writing I did in this particular forum. Later down the line, I found avenues for other trains of thought. The mediums to express yourself now seem endless, and I think it is worth it to look back and start revisiting how each medium helps you realize your goals and dreams. I think it's okay to reinvent yourself. I think it's okay to express different sides of your personality in the places you've set aside for that expression. And, like Wendy, I think most of all, I am interested in keeping sight of the most important things that make me love doing the things I have created. I am interested in the relationships that are borne from that love.

To this day, I don't talk much about my writing here. I don't advertise it, because that's not the point for this particular blog. The reason why I feel like I can exercise my freedom here daily is because this is my sanctuary. Once I went back to find that sentiment that I had lost along the way (when I started counting pageviews or simultaneously hoping and fearing an increase of readership), I felt free.  

I've been thinking a lot about photography. And lack thereof. I recently attended my friend Sam's annual studio opening, and I felt this emptiness about how I don't find time to shoot anymore.


Traci posted this today:


(On Value Not Yet Given)

Picking up a camera is hard.

(I'm saying a camera because it's what I use more often, but I could write pen, paintbrush, woodblock and chisel, etc.)

It takes time. It takes confidence (or blissful ignorance). It takes a suspension of disbelief.
Mostly, it takes practice.

Composing an arbitrary frame onto reality (often, within half a second), seeing or falsifying the light, knowing your camera well enough to make or procure settings, not forgetting processing, printing and much more -- these are decision that make photography a process.

Forcing yourself to pick up the camera: taking it with you on a walk, taking it with you to university, taking it with you to share breakfast with friends, taking it with you to the zoo, taking it with you while you sit on the couch with your sister and read a magazine: this is the process.

But the editing. The Choosing which image. The seeing your photograph less with the eyes and more with the self.
This is the genius of photography. This is what makes it, for me, art.

You shoot a roll of photos, but how do you decide which one rises, which one you share or tuck away so as keep it solely yours?
What gives value to a particular image?

This is the art of photography (and of all other disciplines, I think).

How do I decide an image of mine -- shot off the cuff and in between a bunch of crappy frames -- has value?


I shot my first roll of film when I was eighteen. Which means that next year I will have had the knowledge (if not always the machinery, money, interest, etc.) to make film photographs for half my life.

Looking back, my sense of image-value has been a clear trajectory connected to what other art I engaged.
You make a photo and give it value. I see it and, in turn, give my own similar work value.
This is how artistic themes develop.

I remember the first time I fell in love with a photograph of a tree shot (I think) in a hand-held long exposure.
I still make photographs that are in dialogue with this very first image.

The explosion of multiple exposures over the last couple of years (including by me) is an example of this.
We're now following a trend that someone somewhere learned how to do with a new effectiveness, and they were willing to share.

What awes me are those who seemingly develop an aesthetic that doesn't obviously relate to anyone else's.
Maybe I'm overlooking their overlap. Probably.

When I downplay what I'm making -- more so, what I'm capable of making -- it's because I'm aware of how deeply my work is engaged with the other work surrounding it.

I'm honest about this; that perhaps gives me a slight advantage. (Not to say that I'm aware of all of my influences or how they change me.) But I do know that, no matter how I connect the work to my own psychology and decision-making, the value has been instigated outside me.

Therefore, I never claim ownership.

I can only say, picking up a camera is hard, knowing how your camera works and pushing its limits is hard, sharing and exposing what you've made that you've given value is hard.

These must be enough, temporarily.

“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom.

We lived in the gaps between the stories.”

― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Today, K sent this to me:

"First thought: you." was the message accompanying the photograph.

10 Reasons You're Not Getting Results In The Gym
Hardcore fitness trainer Pauline Nordin shares her list to help maximize your training efforts.

Not getting the results you'd like despite regular training and a pretty clean diet? Chances are you haven't maxed out, but just need to make a few alterations to how you train and eat. That being said, here are Pauline's top 10 reasons you may have plateaued with your results.

#1: You're using the same weights now as you did a month ago.

#2: You forget to take notes on how many reps you do so you actually just go in and do the exact same reps with the same weights every time. Your body is laughing at you.

#3: You may be eating "pretty" clean, but that's not good enough. Especially if you're sneaking junk food in every now and then. Conclusion: You're not eating strict enough.

#4: You're training at comfort level. Weight training shouldn't be done while your mind is drifting away to paradise. If you don't feel like you're in hell on most reps, you're not doing it hard enough.

#5: You're disco training, trying to isolate and tone muscles you don't even have!

#6: You forgot muscle training is not a software you can skip step 1-10 and then start working on it. You need the basics and you need to go through all the stages of muscle development. There's no fast lane. And if you do choose the fast lane you will see it all fall like a sand castle sooner or later.

#7: You're choosing foods that keep you fat if you're fat and skinny if you're skinny. Eat for your goals, not for what you wish was the food for your goal.

#8: You live off protein shakes because you think protein is what builds muscle. You end up using protein to turn it into glucose. And then there goes your energy.

#9: You emphasize recovery a little too much which means your legs get hit once every two weeks. Since leg training is exhausting it muscles up your whole body unless you curl and extend only, so you miss out on the muscle growth from skipping.

#10: You never change the order you do your exercises.

My friend S. sent this to me in an email:

you may or may not have heard about marina keegan already. but you will love this, i think. don't read the italicized part at the beginning until after you've read the story. 

i recommend reading it while curled up in bed with your computer or iphone.

it really will be better if you skip the italicized editorial note and go straight into the story first. trust me.

The story he sent me is here.

Late night and rain wakes me, a downpour,

wind thrashing in the leaves, huge

ears, huge feathers,

like some chased animal, a giant

dog or wild boar. Thunder & shivering

windows; from the tin roof

the rush of water.

I lie askew under the net,

tangled in damp cloth, salt in my hair.

When this clears there will be fireflies

& stars, brighter than anywhere,

which I could contemplate at times

of panic. Lightyears, think of it.

Screw poetry, it’s you I want,

your taste, rain

on you, mouth on your skin.

Late Night, by Margaret Atwood

the NYC ballet

funny when someone is no longer in your life but they continue to revisit you in your dreams. feels like their absence is no longer so real.

The stars in Pennsylvania were bright against the midnight sky. They seem to be saying goodbye, too.

Love
Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.
I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands; how did your lips feel on mine?
Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks, the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.
I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten your eyes.

Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will do me irreparable harm.
Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.
I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window.
Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting stars, falling objects.

Pablo Neruda