happy friday!

The end to yet another work week... Yay! I don't have much planned except to finish up dog- and house-sitting and also finish this month's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month which, by the way, is actually due today! I thought I'd be able to finish the book, Love in the Time of Cholera, in time, but alas I have not... But don't worry, I'm not going to not participate this month, just look for my review next week. For now, check out Charlotte's blog for the rest of the bloggers' reviews!

Have a great weekend!

Source: eve lafontaine.

the world at large

I've probably said it before, but I'll say it again: isn't our world amazing?!

Source: 1. AndreasJakwerth 2. brianwferry 3. NASA 4. themexican

blind willow, sleeping woman

Three of my favorite things: film photography, coffee, and Haruki Murakami.

Source: kid ampersand

dark romance

Today I want to direct you on over to One Must Shock the Bourgeois, where I've done a little guest post for Elizabeth who is busy getting married! This is my very first guest post and it's all about black lace. Head on over for more dark romance...

Source: 1. Christer Strömholm via Silent Storyteller 2. Joanne Blades 3. Edward Steichen 4. Pinterest

magic in the water

I recently came across this article on NPR with photographer Wayne Levin, accompanied by these amazing photographs of akule, "the Hawaiian name for big-eyed scad, a fish that reaches about 8 feet and schools in huge tightly packed groups."

As you already know from my recent posts here and here, I'm a bit obsessed with underwater worlds (and always have been). Here, Levin perfectly describes this world in a way that I never could:

"I titled my first book of underwater photographs Through a Liquid Mirror, which was a play on Through the Looking Glass. Just like Alice, who passes through a mirror and finds herself in a world where things are different (even the rules of logic have changed), when I pass through that mirror called the surface, I am equally in another world.

"Things look different, visibility is more limited, and the atmosphere has more weight, density. Moving through this world is like flying; you can move in three dimensions, and be suspended above or below things. There are plants and animals, which are different from what we are used to seeing; they move differently. This all creates a possibility to take photographs that look different from anything I have seen before."

You can read the rest of the interview with this amazing amazing photographer (who also happens to be living the life in Hawaii) here. 

Source: Wayne Levin

the searcher

I just stumbled across this print on Etsy and I must have it! As evidenced by this post, I'm craving underwater worlds lately and this mysterious little painting would be a welcome reminder hanging on my wall.

Source: Jeremy Miranda

the space age

The lovely Charlotte over at The Daily Snapshot recently emailed me some photos she'd taken at the Exploratorium during her trip to San Francisco (the second and fourth ones). She said that they reminded her of me and asked if I'd be willing to collaborate on a post with her. As soon as I saw her pictures, I got excited!

The picture of dry ice dissolving is eerily similar to the spirals of galaxies, and the ring and its shadow immediately reminded me of the rings of Saturn. I wish I could write something more profound, but it's probably best conveyed when put simply:

Nature repeats itself. Even something that occurs in the far reaches of outer space can be seen on the tiny planet we live on.

I love science! Now go see Charlotte's post here.

Source: 1. Pinterest 2. Charlotte Missiaen, edited by me 3. Pinterest  4. Charlotte Missiaen, edited by me 5. Practical Space

a well traveled woman

I'm finding everything about this image utterly perfect... It has me dreaming of a leisurely trip to a foreign land, days spent sightseeing, photographing, writing and overall documenting.

Source: Peter Lindbergh via Pinterest

beyond the veil

Pretty pretty...

Source: 1. jon estwards 2. ƒenk 3. Maxwell Tomlinson 4. and 5. alison scarpulla

happy friday!

Yay for Friday! Tomorrow I'm off to pick up my camera which needed cleaned and a lens fixed. I've been without it for about two weeks and I'm so glad they were able to fix it! I'm also treating my dad to a nice lunch at a nice restaurant for his birthday. And... I hope to get some pool time in this weekend as I've yet to even touch a swimming pool this summer! Then I start another dog- and house-sitting job for the next week. So, I'm a little busy this weekend, but not too much.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and hopefully it's not too hot where you are. It's reaching the triple digits around here...

Source: 1. Pinterest 2. Ornamelle

25 things to do before i turn 25

Some of you may remember the list of 24 Things To Do Before I Turn 24 that I recently did. Rather than giving myself six months to complete the list, I'm starting early this year! Here's my list of 25 Things To Do Before I Turn 25. I don't turn 25 until May of next year so this should give me plenty of time to complete it. You'll notice that I included the things on my previous list that weren't completed. And I've already made two accomplishments. Yay!

1. Ride in a hot air balloon
2. Do a cleanse or detox
3. Lose 15 pounds and keep them off
4. Watch a really good meteor shower in 2011 or 2012 I saw one or two during the Quadrantids
5. Go to a winery
6. Join a yoga class
7. Get a credit card for the sole purpose of building credit
8. Watch seasons 7 through 12 of Law & Order: SVU
9. Have at least one non-spending month (only on food, bills, business, etc.)
10. Organize receipts and papers
11. Keep my plant, Vladimir, a Pilea mollis, alive for another year Unfortunately he didn't make it
12. Take a self defense class
13. Join ASMP and/or APA
14. Learn more about Buddhism I've been going to a meditation class off and on for a few months
15. Go to Las Vegas for New Year's Unfortunately, this won't be happening after all...
16. Buy the perfect trench coat
17. Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge at night Well, you can't walk across it at night, but I did walk across during the day!
18. Do more DIY projects
19. Take up running again
20. Write a short story, send it to be published and frame the rejection letter
21. Stay up all night and watch the sun rise
22. Start a potted herb garden It's not an herb garden, but Sean and I got some plants for our apartment and so far they're still alive!
23. Talk to my brother and sister more (rather than hearing it all from our mom)
24. Floss (my teeth) and stretch (my body) more often
25. Move out of my parents' house

time line

Is time linear? Is time real?

Source: Philipp Klinger Photography

under the sea

I'm so fascinated by that foreign, magical world that resides within our Earth's waters. Such an abundance of ethereal colors, shapes, and textures!

Source: 1. the cheshire smile 2. Unknown via here 3. Ren Rox

under the bridge

I love the film noir feel to this: dark, grainy and mysterious...

Source: Edward Steichen via Camera Obscura

oh anthro

Some items I've been lusting after over at Anthropologie. I wish they weren't so expensive! If there was a store near me, it would be a very very bad thing...

Source: Anthropologie 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. and 10.

and i quote...

rapture

Porcelain skin, berry-colored lips and sheer, jewel-toned fabric make for some super stunning images! I love the fluidity...

PS. I saw the last Harry Potter this weekend and I liked it, but I didn't think it was amazing and I didn't even cry as much as I thought I would. But of course I still enjoyed it!

Source: Jeff Tse via FGR

likening harry potter to the lord of the rings

The final installment of the Harry Potter films comes out today. Normally I would've spent this entire week feeling anxious and excited and dying for Friday to finally come. But I haven't. Let me diverge a bit and attempt to explain why (and to reveal what a dork I really am):

When The Lord of the Rings came out in 2001, I fell absolutely and completely in love. Other than reading The Hobbit, I knew nothing about the book series and thus nothing about the film other than the fact that I'd previously harbored a crush on Elijah Wood. I clearly remember what I felt the first time I saw it. I even remember what I was wearing: blue jeans, a white cable-knit sweater and my brown hair swept up in a hair clamp. I remember feeling myself falling wholly into the story and its characters. I remember grasping how serious and how real it was to me. Even during the comic relief parts of the film (specifically with Merry and Pippin), the audience would laugh and I specifically remember thinking, "No. Don't laugh! This is serious." After the movie was over, I remember my sister and I going home and telling my mom all about the movie. We couldn't shut up about it. (I must also confess that part of me was unreasonably mad at her for a long time for loving it as much as I did. I didn't think that anyone could love it as much as me. I felt that it was mine.)

It grasped me from the beginning and I couldn't, I wouldn't, let go.

When it was released on video, I bought it and literally watched it every single day for about a week. I even watched it twice in one day. When the special edition was released, I watched that. I read everything about the movies, about the characters, about the actors. I read the first book. I got the soundtrack for my birthday and would spend hours listening to it, falling into it.

I feel I have to at least try my best to explain why I, quite frankly, became obsessed with it. The only way I can really think to explain it is what I keep repeating: that I fell into it. I fell into it so much that my heart ached and my heart soared (the soundtrack was a big part of that) and it completely enraptured me. Enchanted me. Transported me. Mostly, it made me sorrowful. Sorrowful to know that such a perfectly filmed, beautiful story wasn't real. That it was only a figment of someone's imagination. That it could never truly be mine, that I couldn't fall into it any further. Like immersing yourself in a pool of water, but you can only get as far as the bottom, you can't go any further. It probably sounds crazy that I loved something so much because it made me sad. But I think we feel sadder things more deeply.

When the second installment came out, I saw it in theaters four times! I bought the DVD, the special edition DVD, the soundtrack. I watched and listened and continued to be obsessed, in love, etc. When the third film was set to come out, I would cry just watching the trailers and knowing that it was all so close to ending. The movies took up two years of my life and I didn't want it to end, I almost couldn't face it. I received my driver's license the same day the movie premiered and I was more excited about seeing the movie than being a teenager reaching that important milestone equivalent to freedom. I saw it and practically cried the whole time. As anyone who's seen it knows, nothing sad happened in the end. No one died. Good conquered evil. But it was the fact that it ended. I literally sat in my theater seat and bawled heaving sobs as the credits rolled (my friend probably thought I was crazy). I vowed not to see it again, but I had to see it with my sister and then with my best friend.

I never did finish reading the books. I never bought the third film on DVD. I've only seen the entire trilogy once or twice since then. My obsession has dwindled over time and my heart doesn't ache each time I think about it. It all seems so far away and I guess part of me is afraid of watching them again and falling into them. I'd rather not be encompassed by something so much again.

But Harry Potter is an exception. I liken my deep feelings for the wizarding series to my feelings for The Lord of the Rings. Only, I haven't let myself fall into Harry Potter quite as much. Perhaps because it has spanned more than a decade, half of my life, rather than a couple years, it would be rather unhealthy to let myself become obsessed like I did before. My sister reads the entire series every single year and it's something that, as much as I would love to do, I just can't. I know who I am and who I would become if I let myself fall into it so deeply and so frequently. I need to be myself in my own world. Yet, I've definitely had my Harry Potter moments, my obsessions with it. It crept out with the release of each new book and each new film. It's exactly the same with The Lord of the Rings except that I won't fully let myself succumb to it.

Though I will no doubt cry a lot during this last film, I know I will at least be okay with it and I won't wallow for days afterwards that it's ended. Rather than getting too excited and anxious about it, I'm letting it come to me, letting it just happen.

Harry Potter, I truly can't express how much I've loved and enjoyed you. I'm not ready to say goodbye...

Source: boywonder

into the wild

Jonathan Levitt of GRASSDOE has to be one of my favorite photographers at the moment. I love the fresh, clean look to his images and how they portray a seemingly simple, natural life.

Source: GRASSDOE

corgis are the best

Move over kittens, corgis are the new internet sweethearts. Didn't you know? For freaking cuteness overload, click here!

PS. My family's dog is a corgi mix, but I swear I'm not biased.

Source: 1. Pinterest 2. Pinterest 3. Pinterest