BIRKS and BIKES!

WHAT I WANT TO DO RIGHT NOW:

1.  Read Sylvia Plath's journals.

2.  See this pink dolphin for myself.

3.  Put on my birks, get back on my bike.

4.  Fall asleep in a bear sleeping bag (more photos on creator Eiko Ishizawa's website).

5.  Lie on my back and look at the sky through tree branches.

6.  Learn to play the ukulele.

7.  Write long letters (and send them!).

8.  Write like James Franco.  Or Randa Jarrar.  Or Sean Michaels.

9.  Apply bug spray, drink Rickard's Pale, listen to crickets, smoosh a golden-brown marshmallow in between two digestive cookies, call it a night, crawl into a tent.

10.  Make galaxies with a photocopier and sugar.

TEXT MESSAGES I WOULD EMBROIDER:

1.  That's why i dont carry a purse.

2.  Come home to me       please

3.  Do You Know How Much I Love You?

4.  You're hot. PS are you at players? Lets party after i am drunk and naked and in need of some Vla.

5.  Look, I'm texting you! La la la i am a cute little house hippo, I like eating dust yum yum yum.

6.  Vlada, by the light of moon i can only try to put words to paper how i love you so. I shall send you my loveletter tied to the modest leg of a songbird..

7.  I cant help it: i miss u

8.  if that joke was on the referendum i would vote no to it

9.  God doesnt like chili stains

10.  There is a dinosaur museum here!

image credit: YOUNG AND LOST CLUB record label

good Hanukkah gift: a pug

Oh man, if there was a live pug puppy feed, i think i'd drop out of school. Conflicting interests. Not that the original puppy feed isn't good enough. It's just that you can't beat pugs. Pugs are like the moonstones of the gem world. Okay, what i'm trying to say is: pug, please! For Hanukkah! Then i can spend the rest of the winter break knitting it cute sweaters to wear! Please go look at some photos of this "chien depressif" for a template of which pug to buy me.

Also,
some amazing vinyl album cover photos here.

simpler times

thanks, Kat.

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose

Robin Bowman is a photojournalist who spent four years traveling in the states interviewing and photographing teenagers. Then she compiled all 414 portraits into one book called It's Complicated: The American Teenager. NPR posted a slideshow of 17 of the portraits and they're amazing. People can be so poignant. Okay, I am obsessed with teenage culture, but i think this is something everyone would like. Check it out here.

I'm not going to post about every threadless shirt i might like, but this one has to be brought to everyone's attention. I mean, it's a cat with a WHALE in its mouth. And it's called -- get this -- "I Got Another Whale." Oh!!! Hahaha!!! No, but seriously... this shirt is very funny with zero fancy stuff. And, if you can believe it, it used to be even cooler when it was just an idea. Wrap-around cat? Oh man. This shirt helped me make the important distinction between the idea of cats (i love cat ideas) and actual cats (ugh yuck).

Apparently, BBC does an April Fool's joke every year. 2008's is amazing:



Traffic.

Friendship bracelets this summer

Some lovely lovely lovely things:

1. Sarah Illenberger

Uh, yeah. Amazing.

2. Stranger photos. Maybe i'll do it one day this summer.

3. Discovery Channel commercial:

4. Pierre the penguin gets a wet suit made for him. Pierre was balding and his lack of feathers made him cold and unable to swim with his penguin friends. He would just shiver on the sidelines.

The other penguins accepted him, in case you were wondering (people were concerned they wouldn't).

"There are no plans to make him a matching surf board."

Oh, ha!

Enjoy, friends :)

I would love a lion, thanks

The two gentlemen pictured above purchased the lion cub sandwiched in between them at a department store in the late 60s. His name was Christian and he lived with them in an apartment attached to a furniture store in London, England. Look at him, sitting on a couch! (Also, look at them: this photo looks like it should be an Oasis album cover, or something.) Christian was incredibly affectionate and incredibly adorable. Should i repeat that he is a lion?

Man, look at Christian being all beautiful! Christian loved to play football, watch television, and rummage through drawers, just like a human being! After a year he grew too big to be kept as a pet and John Rendall and Ace Berg (the two friends who bought Christian) tried to figure out what to do. Through a stroke of luck, they managed to get in touch with George Adamson, who spent his time rehabilitating lions raised in captivity back into the wild, among other lion-related things.

Christian was sent to Kenya with George Adamson to join a pride of lions. Despite an initial struggle (Christian knew nothing about lion etiquette), he adjusted beautifully and had lion cubs of his own and disappeared for a long time. A year later, when John and Ace contacted George Adamson to get an update on how Christian was doing and whether they could visit, Adamson warned John and Ace that visiting would be completely futile; Christian had adjusted to a new way of life and wouldn't remember them at all. John and Ace flew to Kenya anyway.

Here's a video of them in Kenya, a year after releasing Christian into the wild. Watch Christian's jaw drop when he recognizes them:

There is a movie (Christian the Lion at World's End) and a book based on Christian's story. I think it was released on DVD in 2006.

Anyway, i just wanted to post about this because the reunion video is incredible and Christian was a such a beautiful cub and the entire story is really nice to think about. I hope your hearts were sufficiently warmed.

Credit to Deb for introducing me to the video (& story) and this newspaper article for the info & photos. I definitely recommend the article; it's freakin' called "Christian, the lion who lived in my London living room" (!!). Are you sold?