a frightening magic i cling to

you're all i have ~ snow patrol

"you're cinematic razor sharp,
a welcome arrow through the heart,
under your skin feels like home,
electric shocks on aching bones.

give me a chance to hold on,
give me a chance to hold on,
give me a chance to hold on,
just give me something to hold onto."

dreams of crooked tooth smiles and music blaring through car stereo speakers. a borrowed car, a dusty blue station wagon like we had when i was a child. we are speeding through the desert, wind kicking up smoke spirals and waves of heat around us. you tell me that you've never seen such beauty, and i laugh because this landscape always seemed so desolate to me. i prefer the presence of water and shade, green everywhere and the feel of rain on my skin. but, for a moment i see it the way you do, and take your hand into mine, threading our fingers together. the best you can ask for is connection, is for someone who can teach you to see things from different angles, and for someone to not mind so much when you play the music, feel the music, live the music, and sing along.

give me a chance to hold on.

as we go drowning

"there are angels,

in your angles,

there's a low moon,

caught in your tangles;

there's a ticking,

at the sill,

there's a purr of a pigeon,

to break the still of day,

as on we go drowning,

down we go away.

and darling, we go a-drowning,

down we go away,

away.

there's a tough word,

on your crossword,

there's a bed bug nipping a finger;

there's a swallow,

there's a calm,

here's a hand to lay on your open palm today,

as on we go drowning,

down we go away.

and darling,

we go a-drowning,

down we go away,

away.

there are angels,

in your angles,

there's a low moon,

caught in your tangles."

of angels and angles ~ the decemberists

aisles and rows

"i took her to a supermarket,

i don't know why but i had to start it somewhere,

so it started there."

common people ~ pulp

there is something i find completely zen about grocery stores. wandering up and down the aisles, pushing the cart in front of me, and slipping into some kind of zone where all i think about are the labels and colours around me. it clears my head and i find it strangely relaxing. if you visit me and take a trip to the grocery store you will find that the experience sparks conversations in the same depth and scope as driving around in a car with me does, or sitting with me at the beach.

365 loves: grocery stores

lasting impressions

"sometimes someone'll say something, and i'll think, 'oh that's crazy,' then later when i'm writing, it'll come back to me. but i'm not always taking notes for a movie." ~ sofia coppola

"for everyone, there are those moments when you have great days with someone you wouldn't expect to. then you have to go back to your real lives, but it makes an impression on you." ~ sofia coppola

sofia coppola is high on my list of people i would someday love to have a conversation with. her films are on my list of all-time favourites. they are pieces of art, layered in amazing soundtracks and breathtaking visuals, not to mention the keen storytelling and story-adapting that goes on. i think she is fantastic.

i just realized, sofia could be on the momcore panel, too.

365 loves: sofia coppola

good luck exploring the infinite abyss

"you gotta hear this one song, it'll change your life i swear." ~ sam

"fuck, this hurts so much." ~ andrew
"i know it hurts. but it's life, and it's real. and sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's life, and it's pretty much all we got." ~ sam

for some reason it took me a very long time to ever getting around to seeing garden state. when i finally did my first reaction was immdiately "where have you been all my life?"

i love sam. i love andrew. i love the emotion and the music, the love, the healing and the heartbreak, the big abyss and the screaming into the rain. it has become one of those films that mean the world to me; that i just get, and that somehow just gets me right back.

365 loves: garden state

darkness and light

"i've tried to avoid labels, but they always find you." ~ poppy z. brite

"i believe in whatever gets you through the night. night is the hardest time to be alive. for me, anyway. it lasts so long, and four am knows all my secrets. four am is when my dreams die." ~ lost souls by poppy z. brite

"i came to understand that these memories were my salvation. i no longer wanted to know why i had done such things if it meant i wouldn't want to do them anymore. i put my notebooks aside forever. i was different, and that was all. i had always known i was different; i could not trudge through life contentedly chewing whatever cud i found in my mouth, as those around me seemed to do." ~ exquisite corpse by poppy z. brite

she writes the most gory and disturbing details of life that i have ever come across, and yet she does this in the most beautiful of ways. all of it, the grotesque and the gorgeous are all wrapped up around characters that are flawed, rich, and wonderful. some of them still reside in the outskirts of my heart and mind to this day, never quite leaving after i read the final page and closed the book.

ghost and nothing from lost souls, and trevor and zach from drawing blood are still around; and at times pieces of them work their way into stories of mine, in the way that art inspires art.

missing mile, and the way she paints people and places hit me in the way that music does, tearing below the skin at times, and soothing the soul the next.

poppy also wrote one of the most provocative, raw and real biographies i have ever read, capturing courtney love in a way that was unforgettable and relatable, all at once. she is definitely on the list of people i would love to share coffee and conversation with someday, or sit in the back of a dark and dank bar, smoke too many cigarettes and talk about observing and capturing the world in words.

365 loves: poppy z. brite

i'm a modern girl, but i fold in half so easily

"they warn you about killers, and thieves in night;

i worry about cancer, and living right.

but my mama never warned me,

about my own destructive appetite,

or the pitfalls of control;

how it locks you in your grave."

happy ~ jenny lewis & the watson twins

"when you're kissing someone who's too much like you,

it's like kissing on a mirror;

when you're sleeping with someone who doesn't get you,

you're gonna hate yourself in the morning."

melt your heart ~ jenny lewis & the watson twins

"but now you love him,

and your baby,

at last you are complete;

but he's distant,

and you found him on the phone,

pleading, saying, 'baby i love you',

and i'll leave her,

and i'm coming out to california.'

let's not forget ourselves good friend

i am flawed if i'm not free,

and your husband will never leave you,

he will never leave you for me."

does he love you? ~ rilo kiley

"i know i'm alone if i'm with or without you,

but just bein' around you offers me another form of relief.

when the loneliness leads to bad dreams,

and the bad dreams lead me to callin' you,

and i call you and say 'c'mere!'"

portions for foxes ~ rilo kiley

"i've had it with you,

and mexico can fucking wait,

and all of those french films about trains."

pictures of success ~ rilo kiley

jenny lewis is los angeles to me in the same way that francesca lia block's weetzie bat and echo seem like my best friend. or myself, in the way that i can picture tiffanie debartolo's trixie and jacob singing about their families, and their love if they chose to. and, in that same way that the city looks when parked at the top of muholland drive with a bottle of red wine held between my knees. or the way it used to smell like incense, and stolen cherry candy kisses, in wacko on melrose avenue.

and, she is a lot like los angeles, isn't she? grown-up childhood star who now sings in a band, all ripe with bitterness and smog stained love songs.

her songs, they are like opening up a book of short stories, or catching whispered confessions/conversations overheard between two best girlfriends, or from the newly found drunk, leaned up and spouting to the bartender who pretends to listen.

she's someone i'd love to meet for coffee and trade stories with, to exchange our point of views on this city, love, and disappointments.

365 loves: jenny lewis

delicious

it is when i live away from california that i miss them the most. today it was just an avocado, all by itself with a light dash of black pepper. i remember reading somewhere that it was the perfect food source. that if you had to live off of one food for the rest of your life the avocado would be the one to choose. on the days that i would like to dig a nice hole and hide in it, i think i would like to bring a stash of avocados with me; that, and a playlist full of music.

365 loves: avocados

ticket stubs and the smell of popcorn

as much as i enjoy the comfort of the couch, and the convenience of the pause button, there is nothing quite like going to the movies. david and i have started to set time aside to see movies at the theatre that is just around the corner from where we live, as something that is just for us. i love the previews, the big screen, the creaky seats with cup holders and arms that pull up so that you can sit cozy and close together. i love the smell of popcorn and the feeling of an audience's reaction, whether it is cheers or gasps or resounding laughter. i love the movies where when the screen goes dark and the first credits roll everyone applauds. and, i love whispering back and forth, both as mini-reviewers for the previews and to quietly comment on the film in front of us. it does make a difference to watch a film in the theatre, the experience pulls you in deeper than any at-home viewing ever will.

and, i completely miss the drive-in.

365 loves: going to the movies

i talk to you in my head all the time

"you should dye your hair holly, you look like a virgin." ~ marina

"i am a virgin." ~ holly

"but you don't need to broadcast it." ~ marina

this film is the closest representation of the friendship between my best friend and i that i have ever seen, though there is a level of cruelty, jealousy and secret keeping between marina and holly that we have never experienced. the rest, though, is pretty spot on. growing up in such close proximity, going to clubs, trying out fashions, having our own addictions and breakdowns, falling in love with someone close to the other. i wish they were kinder to each other, though; that part always bothered me, and seemed off.

the soundtrack to the film itself is fantastic, as well. i love both, immensely.

365 loves: me without you

to shine fire upon everyone and no one

"he is stronger than the walls that you try to build around him." ~ un bilo titled

there is talent and depth there that will someday outshine all the addictions, the fuck ups, and tabloid stories; and, at that time maybe people will stop asking me why i feel the way i do.

un bilo titled ~ babyshambles

365 loves: peter doherty

we belong to the city

"hi, i'm nancy drew. you must be the hardy boys." ~ mona ramsey

"he's a sweet boy, mona. i approve of him wholeheartedly." ~ mrs. madrigal

"you make it sound like we're married or something." ~ mona ramsey

"there are all kinds of marriages, dear." ~ mrs. madrigal

"i don't think you understand the trip with me and michael." ~ mona ramsey

"mona, lots of things are more binding than sex. they last longer too." ~ mrs. madrigal

i don't remember the first time i read the first book, or how many times i picked it up and re-read it. nor do i remember how many times i have watched the series. i do know that the characters in maupin's book became as familiar as friends to me, or as family. i have my favorites, and the one's i relate to the most, and the ones that i love regardless of what they do because some people you just love like that. i have been a mona to a mouse, and what mrs. madrigal tells mona in that quote always resonated with me. and everytime i read the books i remember how much i love the city of san francisco, and it makes me miss it, and want to go back.

365 loves: tales of the city by armistead maupin

a lyrical refrain

keep art alive; art by joshua petker

"i might lie a lot, but never in my lyrics." ~ courtney love

"even if you think the flame has died, there's at least one lyric that'll hit that last hot spot, and then you'll find yourself as fucked as you were the day you lied and said you never wanted to see her again." ~ john mayer

"who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls." ~ charles baudelaire

lyrics are my language, and the emotion within song that bring out thoughts and feelings that sometimes are near impossible to articulate. i think i could carry on full conversations in lyrics and be happy with the expression that kind of interaction would bring. lyrics can shock me still, leave me breathless, throw me into a fit of tears, stop my heart, cause my head to spin, or make me burst and swirl in some kind of musical reverie. and, more often then not, they are words when i do not have any.

365 loves: lyrics

just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn't mean it does not exist.

"i'm not going to die because i failed as someone else, i'm going to succeed as myself." ~ margaret cho

margaret is so my girl. when i listen to her act i seriously am laughing until it hurts, crying until i'm shaking, and just completely getting it. i love her, beyond words i love her. i love that she is a self-admitted fag hag, that she loves her family, that she is herself and fights back against stereotypes and prejudice, and that she is just completely incredible.

365 loves: margaret cho

i write tragedies

"on the way back from the post office, i stop at a bank of america atm and withdraw from my rapidly disappearing savings. i then convert my withdraw into a wad of low-denomination bills. i feel like a crack dealer. i have an idea.

your inability to achieve solitude makes you settle for substandard relationships. you don't believe magic is possible in lives lived within traditional boundaries.

i am writing a list of tragic character flaws on my dollar bills with a felt pen. i am thinking of the people in my universe and distilling for each of these people the one flaw in their character that will lead to their downfall -- the flaw that will be their undoing.

jasmine, anna-louise, daisy, mark, dan, stephanie, monique, kiwi, harmony, skye, gaia, mei-lin, davidson, pony, grandma and grandpa, eddie woodman, jim and lorraine jarvis -- everybody's here. even me. and more.

what i write are not sins; i write tragedies. and i am writing these tragedies in a manner that the recipients can easily absorb. and i won't say whose flaw is whose. i continue." ~ tyler johnson

shana was the first person to tell me about douglas coupland, sending me this book to start off with. i read it in two days, and then started it from the beginning, and read it again. i felt like i had found a voice of my generation. that he understood the ugly side of society, people, and families -- and saw the hope - albeit cloudy and dipped in the muck of everything - in all of it. for a good long while i wanted to quote his books in everything, and i went on to fall for many more of his books, and find an amazing group of friends who felt similar, if not the same.

365 loves: shampoo planet by douglas coupland

we're all searching

"we're all searching for something to fill up what i like to call that big, god-shaped hole in our souls. some people use alcohol, or sex, or their children, or food, or money, or music, or heroin. a lot of people even use the concept of god itself. i could go on and on. i used to know a girl who used shoes. she had over two-hundred pairs. but it's all the same thing, really. people, for some stupid reason, think they can escape their sorrows." ~ jacob grace

if i could get everyone i know to read just one book this one would be it. beatrice jordan is the most relatable character i have ever encountered, and her relationship with jacob grace, along with her perspectives on life, love, music and los angeles are so akin to my version of life, and the way i see things, that sometimes i cannot believe it. i just get this book, and this book just gets me.

and the author, tiffanie debartolo, is pretty keen herself. she is in love with music, and incorporates her favorites, and her music-soaked vision, into every page.

the last person i passed this book on (my fifth or sixth copy, i think, i keep losing them to people i want to read it) called me the very next morning after slid it into her purse. she said "you may well have saved my life with this book."

365 loves: god-shaped hole by tiffanie debartolo