Maybe on a Sunday night

In an ambitious bout of time-wasting a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that the earliest blog post I have still published online is dated the 31st of July, 2001. Ten years later, and it's still floating along quietly in the ether, tethered to the surprisingly enduring buoy that is Live Journal. Rifling through those early posts felt a little like sitting on the living room couch as your mother goes through the greatest hits collection of your family album, regaling your senior prom date with every nugget of mortification you thought long buried in the annals of your personal history. Except in this case, it's not your mother playing the role of proverbial humiliator, but your younger, idiot self.

But looking deeper at the questionable formatting, the predictably angsty teenage impudence, and the sheer dullness of most entries, I was struck by the complete absence of anything resembling a writer's bone in those halcyon entries. There wasn't any sort of voice there, at all. Which is embarrassing. In fact, I hesitated even linking to it because I'm terrified I just look really, really dumb.

Fast forwarding ahead a few months, I expected to see some sort of growth, some hint of at least attempting the artful task I am enamored with now. But, save a brief period where I posted probably the first short story I ever wrote outside of a classroom assignment, there wasn't anything to indicate that I showed promise in, or even enjoyed, writing. I eventually migrated away from Live Journal to Xanga, and in jumping formats, I finally started to see a few embers. But for someone who's always considered myself fairly interested in writing, it was bizarre to see no evidence of it in the one outlet where I was, for the most part, doing it purely for myself. I guess I was bugged by the question of when it actually happened then, that I stopped simply typing and actually started to write.

Historically, my posts have been far too erratic and inconsistent to yield any empirical data to chart this, but it does leave me wondering now, ten years later, how much exactly I've grown (if at all). I've never been able to quite capture the ability to write in a personal journal format, commonly finding myself at a loss whenever it comes to recounting my daily paces, or expounding on some minor thought. I find it just as hard now to write about myself as I did back then, except where youthful enthusiasm/vanity once pushed me to at least put something down, the older, more jaded vanity of my current self abandons the act altogether. I'm trying to change that now, with this incarnation of the blog.

I first attempted this when I moved to New York, registering a brand new username with blogger and making a grand total of one post which, excluding the title, amounted to five words (which was actually a misquoted line from an early Aughts pop song, no less). The blog sat dormant for a year before, deciding to give the ol' girl one more try, I got back in the saddle. I discovered that the original username that I had wanted on blogger but which had already been registered was, in fact, registered to me. 14-year old me, actually. Through some finagling and internet CSI-ing, I regained access and reclaimed the blog, archiving away the old posts to start carte blanche, this new era of actually writing. And though those posts technically predate that July 31st, 2001 Live Journal post, we'll cheat a little for the sake of this particular entry's theme.

For someone who can be as statistically obsessed as I am (come on, I know there are at least a few people out there who wonder about average and lifetime durations spent on the can, who fantasize about pie charts and bar graphs comparing personal consumption ratios of different brands of cereal, and other such trivial life box scores), it's been both fascinating and frustrating, trying to determine the line graph that represents my writing habit. But maybe the point isn't to keep looking back at what I have or haven't done, how far or short I've actually come, and to simply focus on just moving forward. Statistics don't tell the full story, and instead can give weight and significance to irrelevant tangibles while completely missing the essence of the statisticized. Besides, if you looked at my past at-bats, there'd be an alarming trend of, well, quitting.

The tricky thing about writing in this forum is that there's always an effort, conscious or not, to cater to a hypothetical audience. It's tough to stay honest in the face of something so daunting. That's the key issue I've struggled with in writing in a blog. I've always assumed the diary-esque nature of a blog meant there was an openness that was required in the writing, yet there has always been a guarded nature to how I approach blogging, specifically because I was aware any mook with a Net Zero account and a dial-up modem could access what was supposed to be kind of personal. This discord is what always inevitably killed any aspirations I had to keep writing, because I didn't want to be dishonest, but neither did I want to invite that kind of vulnerability. But what I've finally started to figure out is that writing, as with any art, needs an audience, whether the artist is thrilled about it or not. Otherwise, what's the point? The risk is, and has always been, exposing some fragment of the soul, and giving up to avoid having to filter or temper my thoughts isn't some noble attempt to avoid dishonesty; it's cowardice.

So maybe that's all I've learned in ten years of putting my writing up to a limited and probably partially imagined audience: the growth isn't just in the amount of ink spilled or witty phrases turned, but in the willingness to look dumb and be mortified, and still keep writing.

So even if I just high-dived face first into a pool full of pie (which, now that I'm picturing it, actually sounds kind of awesome), at least I can promise myself that there'll be another post after this. And another after that.

And another, and another.

(And yes, there's an unsubscribe button for a reason)

This must be the place

Are you in?

Nothing embodies the best bits of summer like the Fourth of July (beach weather, watermelon, bbqs, leisure time with friends and family, fireworks, more watermelon, an open-ended allowance for guilt-free consumption of fried foods, etc.), and to kick things off in the seasonal spirit, here's a collection of my current summer dalliances.

Song:

Bombay Bicycle Club - Shuffle by Bombay Bicycle Club

Because it's upbeat and urgent and fun.

Video:



Mates of State bring a little VHS retro to the video for their new single "Maracas." Look for their new album Mountaintops in September.

Show:

Because Catching Up On Shows I Should've Been Watching During The Regular Season is one of my favorite summer past times.

Food:

I mean, obviously.

Drink:

If it's good enough for Hillary, it's good enough for me.

Book:

Back to a gothic 1920's Barcelona with the author of The Shadow of the Wind? Yeah, okay.

Look:

I'm about as far removed as you can be from a purveyor of fashion or style sensibilities, but I'm particularly digging The Hundreds' latest collaboration with iconic surf apparel company Katin. Summer nostalgia goes hand in hand with California surf culture for me.

Timesuck:

Animals being dicks. The title pretty much sums it up.

Be well, my friends. Looking forward to another stretch of sunny skies and endless afternoons.

Hello, Summer. Why don't you stay awhile?

Perhaps I knew her long ago

Georgia on my mind

In the wake of the tornadoes that hit the Southern U.S., my buddy Colin and I were dispatched to follow a crew of electric linesmen down to Georgia to capture their part in the relief efforts. In emergencies like these, linesmen from all over the country stream into the disaster areas to repair downed power lines and to get the electricity working in homes again. In fact, if you ever wander into areas recently hit by storms or hurricanes, all you'll find are linesmen and policemen (or, in some cases, the army/national guard). It's something I never really thought about or considered, but these guys are the lead-off hitters in breathing life back into flattened towns and cities.

It was an eye-opening experience, seeing that kind of devastation first hand. Despite all the damage, the Southern hospitality still showed through. There wasn't a day when we were out in the field where locals ranging from high school students to retired seniors didn't drive by to offer the crews food, drinks, and heartfelt words of thanks.

We were pretty busy everyday, but I managed to sneak in some shots during the occasional downtime:

Colin and I standing by while one of the linesmen crews goes over plans. These guys are all characters. It takes a particular breed to do this kind of job. When the displaced are evacuating storm-hit areas, these are the guys going in to turn the lights back on.

Despite the upturned tree, the house behind it was in surprisingly good condition.

Australia, Part III - Melbourne

Melbourne was the last city we stayed in for our trip down under. The urban culture is so diverse and rich and vibrant that it's hard not to find inspiration of some kind or other every time you turn a corner. Unfortunately, I was running out of film at this point, so I didn't get too many shots of the city and its many colorful offerings, so I can only point you to Ryan, our trip historian, for more complete coverage. Some of what I did get in Melbourne and from our road trip down the Surf Coast:

Of course, we had to cap things off with a trip to the Twelve Apostles (as promised earlier). We arrived a couple of hours before sunset, and stayed until about an hour after. Some of what we saw:

Great trip. Ridiculously friendly people, probably the most beautiful coastline I've ever seen with my own eyes, and a healthy appreciation for drinking the night away - what more could you want?

Australia, I'll be back.

Australia, Part II - Sydney

The second leg of our trip took us to Sydney, which, along with its beautiful beaches and sights and harbors, is home to an apparently inordinate amount of beautiful people. Seriously, you could turn a corner and fall in love.

Ryan and I met up Casey and Ed there, staying first in a Kings Cross hotel before moving down to an apartment right across the street from Bondi Beach. We ate poorly and drank excessively, which is to say we lived quite well; we climbed rocks, enjoyed long walks on the beach (hand-holding optional, and sometimes not-so-optional), nearly burned a store down, discovered the wonders of Chili Chicken prepackaged sandwiches at the Australian 7-11's, and Ryan and I even squeezed in a rainy hike in the Blue Mountains in between.

Piss take. Let's try again:

Ryan gets in some piano practice at the Queen Victoria Building.

This is Waverley Cemetary, which overlooks the coast along the Beach Walk from Bondi down to Coogee. Not a bad place to be buried.

Ryan and I spent a day up in Katoomba, at the Blue Mountains northwest of Sydney. It was a particularly gloomy day, and here you can see the divide between the forest floor and the fog that's sunk in to the canyon, right at an overlook of the Three Sisters rock formation (only one pictured here).

End of Part II.

Australia, Part I - Terrigal/Wamberal (Central Coast)

I'm back, America. Aussieland was awesome. Here are some of my adventures.

Our first stop was Terrigal, a Central Coast town about an hour and half north of Sydney by train. It's about as picturesque as you can get. The evidence:

It's obscene how beautiful it is.

We're here to meet up with our good friend Alicia. Here she is.

Don't let the smile fool you. She's absolutely mad.

Alicia was wonderful enough to put us up in her home in Wamberal. Reminds me of the Goleta days.

I need me a veranda.

This is Alicia's friend Sarah. She hung out with me and Ryan all day, despite her first hangover after a long spell on the wagon.

What a trooper.

I pulled a rookie move and didn't load my film properly, so I spent the first day shooting half a roll of memories before I realized my goof. These shots are all from the second day, after "brekkie," as they say down under. That's b-fast to the rest of you.

Ryan fulfilling his duties as trip historian.

Sarah and Ryan on our hike up the Skillion, the top of which is where that first shot of Terrigal was taken.

Saturday morning fishing.

Ryan doing his shutterbug thing.

Rugby. Not, as we later learned, nearly as fun as Footy.


Ryan and Sarah take in the game.

Before Ryan and I packed up and headed back down to Sydney, Alicia and Sarah took us down to Alicia's family home for afternoon tea.

That's Paul on the right, Alicia's mom Sherry in the bright blue, little sister Holly behind mum, and in pink, Alicia's nan, Nan. Oh, and there was cake, too!

Sherry saw me rocking the ol' Canon AE-1 I inherited (read: stole) from my dad, and she dug up her not-as-old-but-nearly AE-1P. There was much excitement over this. Even our sweet, sweet straps matched, just hers was a little pinker. Go figure.

I'm pretty sure Alicia's going to "inherit" this from her mom, too.

Paul showing us his classic Australian Holden Torana SLR 5000. She's partly on blocks at the moment as Paul works on her, but the engine still roars.

Vanity shot.

Alicia's brother Harrison tearing it up on his RipStik.

He's a prodigy on this thing. Ryan, not so much.

In retrospect, I would've loved to have stayed longer. That's probably a theme that repeats throughout the trip, but here more than most.

We definitely need to make our way back here someday.

End of Part I.