this looks like so much fun!

via rocketboom via kottke

empty

if you open me up,
i'm afraid you'll find
i'm empty,
i'm empty inside

but where has it gone?
where could it hide?
i'm empty,
i'm empty inside

see, i lost my heart
the day he died
i'm empty,
i'm empty inside

so if you open me up,
i'm afraid you'll find
i'm empty,
i'm empty inside.

tiny pocket

seriously, what am i supposed to do with that? or is it aesthetic? supposed to make me look like a GIANT? is it functional?

i'm only complaining because the shirt is comfy and soft... but the pocket bugs the hell out of me.

any insight is appreciated.

inspiration

my husband is the musical forward thinker of the family. as such, he puts new music in my iTunes, which i choose not to listen to for a few years out of some stubborn independent streak.

anyhow, here i am, two years too late (at least by hipness standards), loving this song:

inspiration

i love the feeling of exuberance and whimsy this photo evokes.

via this guy.

like raindrops

They came in that stillness, like they always do when you slow it down… they came like rain, a little at first, then more steady, splashing in big drops all around my body as I lay there like dead.

I remembered losing that little plastic shoe to my new Barbie and closing my eyes real tight and wishing for it to reappear and then opening them again to see it right in front of me on the driveway and knowing that it was a miracle.

I remembered, pulling the garden hose up the ladder to the top of the slide and running it all afternoon to make a water-slide. And later, getting in trouble for the giant mud pit that it made at the bottom.

I remembered hiding at the top of the swing-set during hide and seek, heart racing, not sure if my hiding spot was visible from the ground, but knowing that if it wasn’t, I was definitely going to win. And I remembered staying up there for much longer than I should have, enjoying my lonely victory.

inspiration

fan made grizzly bears video. this is some incredible animation and just so beautiful. the pinwheels at the end are my favorite. via dooce.

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

i'm not here.

i float through my days, feet never touching the ground. i float down my street, across the town and in my apartment where the ceilings are high, i float way up to the top.
and i'm touching everything with rubber gloves so i don't leave a trace - because i'm not really here.

i'm in 1988 playing scrabble with my father. 1989: raking up leaves on that interminably long driveway and my father is shaking his head at me while i am screaming about caterpillars, which truly frighten me. i'm in the garage in 1997: sitting in the front seat of the jetta, which itself sits on blocks, as my father takes apart the struts and shocks and puts them back together again from memory, only to realize he forgot a piece, so takes them back apart and puts them back together again, a second time.

i'm in 2007: a few months before he died, cutting and laying stick-on linoleum tiles with him in the tanning salon while visiting from florida. i am coming up with a good solution for fitting the angled end pieces, and i think he is proud of me for it. we always bonded over problem-solving. that, and our dry sense of humor... mostly enhanced by my mother's theatrical tendencies (which i also inherited, much to my chagrin.) but we had the common sense and the sarcasm to ourselves.

it was hard for him to watch me grow up. it was hard for me to watch him grow old.

so i'm not really here. i'm floating. i'll be back soon, but i just can't tear myself away.

inspiration

love this.

suno via courtney.

illustration

she always had this one recurring nightmare...

daily illustration

although the odds were stacked against her,

what with her shyness preventing her from participating in class discussions
and her teachers' doubts about anything getting through her "thick skull,"

she was, in actuality, a very good student.

nyc walk

i stopped walking at that moment. thinking about my father and how i always think about him when i smoke - or was it the other way around?

it was impossibly hot and humid outside and something about the moment, sitting there in the semi-dark, seemed ripe to get it all on paper... this intangible feeling.

i missed him - always would - and would welcome any moment to remember him.

across the street the sounds of basketball and sneakers stopping short on polished wood drifting out of a second story window brings me full circle to john wooden and his life lessons in threes. my father loved threes too.

it all seems to matter.

inspiration

i posted jj abrams because it was witty, but this because it made me cry.

ever since my dad died two years ago, i pay more attention when older men give talks or lectures... i look to see what kind of person he might have been if things had played out differently, i look for similar outlooks or phrases that he would have had or spoken. this life is so difficult sometimes, with so many chances to chase rabbit trails that lead to nowhere, or worse. but then you listen to john wooden and you believe again that it's possible to make it down that narrow path to true success.
enjoy:

daily illustration

she is really shy.

she gets a lot of stares. and questions.

you wonder to yourself, how might that be, having a pumpkin for a head?

she'd tell you: it's fun at halloween, but for the rest of the year it pretty much just sucks.

inspiration

i know most people by now know what ted is. i saw this jj abrams ted talk today and was really inspired by "mystery boxes." so i'm sharing:

in a round

sailor joe, sailor joe
what about the ribbons?
what about the toes?
miles and miles of sea you've seen,
'til the battered ship, she fell
out of sight behind the swell
as you clung to that little ring
for your very life. we sing,

daily illustration

almost didn't make it on this one... had an illustrator crash, but here you go!

we're back!

we spent the last few days in the catskills staying in an airstream trailer to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary.

we took some pictures... they're on flickr.

illustration and regular posting will resume tomorrow!
cheers,
sam

daily illustration

so i figure if i want to be an illustrator, i need to practice right? so i'm starting another daily series... of illustrations. whatever pops in my head.
here we go!

sam

home improvement

this past saturday, i decided to tear my living room apart and move everything. we'd had a weird space between the living space and bed area and i thought it would be better to expand the living space out to encompass that and make a larger hang-out/work area.

so we built a long desk down one wall... made a new door for the wardrobe (and moved it) and put a bookcase divider in front of the bed to section it off a bit.

anyhow... you can check it out (and some before pics) by clicking on the photo above and clicking through the "new apartment" set on flickr.

cheers,
s

when i grow up...

i want to be an artist, seamstress and musician.

someone will pay me to do this, right?

unicycle

i really like this little lady....

prose for monday.

we are dancing
dancing

and we are old
and we are remembering it all
as we turn under the stars and twinkle lights
all strung in a canopy among the branches overhead

where has all the time gone?
like sweet melodies in a minor key,
so bittersweet.

no second helpings.
it comes and goes just the once
and we are left frozen and speechless at its irrevocable beauty.

poignant?
yes, to the point of tears.
all this beauty and all this pain
lived over and over again.

maybe if i can keep laughing
i can keep my sanity.