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Where's Loki?

2013-05-29T14:11:00.002-07:00

Is that a dog or a tumbleweed??

Try and spot Loki in each of these pictures from Joshua Tree.

It gets harder as you go along...

Find him every time and win an amazing prize!!

Did you spot all the Lokis?

Congratulations!!!

Your prize is...

GETTING TO LOOK AT A CUTE DOG.

Wishes

2012-11-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

Wandering through Little Tokyo the other day we stumbled upon a wish tree.

It was absolutely bursting with wishes.

I wanted to read them all. They were so good! So strange and sweet and weirdly specific!

Here are a few I saw and liked:

"I wish I wish with all my heart to last forever with the love of my life!" - Erick <3 Zaida

"I wish for a dog."

"I wish for all the art supplies and people I love to be happy :) and to see all the bands eva. And for my grandma to get better. And for all the sad peeps to cheer up. And for an A on my finals."

"I wish to live a life of genuine passion and never regret things not pursued."

"I wish to meet Cody Martin"

"I wish it rained pizza. By Max."

"I wish for everybody to be okay. Not just for me. For everyone."

"I wish for a horse."

I didn't leave my own, partly because I am superstitious, partly because it cost a dollar and cash is so last century.

I do sometimes wish it rained pizza though. And for everybody to be okay.

Stay Hungry

2012-09-13T10:27:00.001-07:00

Friends, I would invite you this morning to press play on this Talking Heads concert from 1980 and then just sit back in awe.

I usually find concert footage to be super boring, but everything about this performance is amazing. Just take an hour of your life to sit here and watch it or, if you can't do that then just listen to it in the background while you eat lunch or whatever. Either way, you will be rewarded.

OK, back to the coal mines for me!

xo

BRB

2012-08-30T14:06:00.001-07:00

I am deep in the writing vortex at the moment, trying to finish this draft of my book that is due SO SOON. I probably won't be blogging very much in the next two weeks, but I want you to be able to enjoy some cool art, so check out these awesome pieces by Stacey Page and Neil Dawson why dontcha?

Then come back and tell me what you think!

Some Days

2012-08-17T11:24:00.002-07:00

You feel like this:

But are you Grimace, or are you that delicious kid?

That is the question.

Here's to halo halo

2012-08-12T17:00:00.005-07:00

So, have you heard? It's really hot in LA this week.

It's the sort of unrelenting, brain cell arresting, crankiness-inducing heat that makes it difficult to have a conversation that doesn't at some point veer into The Weather. Sure it isn't humid and yes there are no mosquitoes, but let's get real: our charming 1930s apartment does not have air conditioning. And its big gorgeous windows? They are like magnifying glasses angled toward the sun. And though it's perfect and lovely 345 days of the year here and I should probably just shut my big mouth and count my blessings, I tell you, this week has been rough for those of us who work from home.

Aside from sitting in front of the fan with a freezer-cooled washcloth on my head, I have been venturing into the library to take advantage of their a/c. This works alright, though there seems to be a perpetual storytime going on and for some reason storytime makes babies cry in libraries? Go figure.

Anyway, when Jared came home from his air-conditioned office the other day and mentioned some frozen Filipino treat he had just heard about called halo halo, I leapt from the couch in slow motion and herded us right back into his car to go find this cold delight.

Ok that's not exactly true. First I googled it, because I am a child of the Internet, and I like to know what I am getting into.

The results were intriguing! As someone who wants all her food to touch, halo halo seemed like my kind of party. A cold, colorful jackpot of endless ingredients (like flan, tapioca, sweetened beans, coconut, jello, jackfruit, yams, bananas, you name it) all mixed together, then layered with shaved ice and evaporated milk and topped with a scoop of bright purple ice cream? Sign me up immediately. I mean, sure I had no idea what it would taste like, but based on the pictures alone I knew I must try it.

Plus it would be cold. And did I mention it's hot here?

We ended up in a strange mall in Eagle Rock where, next to a bustling Seafood City we found this tiny Filipino Gelateria. The super friendly kid behind the counter wanted us to try all their interesting flavors, but we were too excited about our halo halo to wait. We ordered it with Ube, because the color is amazing, and I'm here to tell you it was the right choice.

This stuff is amazing. Creamy and cold and surprising. Every bite is different yet it all somehow blends together in this perfect rainbow harmony extravaganza and you know what? I'm just gonna to stop writing this stupid blog post right now and go get some more because I don't know if I mentioned this but IT IS HOT IN MY HOUSE.

Halo!

Magical Rainbow Whale

2012-08-07T08:49:00.001-07:00

Good morning, is today the day?

Maybe so!

Neighborliness

2012-07-16T14:15:00.001-07:00

Walking with Loki through the hilly streets today I heard someone yell, "Glad you got him back!"

I turned and saw a distant neighbor walking his German Shepherd and waving at me. "Everyone was so worried," he said, listing the names of neighbors I didn't know, "but then AJ said you found him the next day."

"Yeah, I did," I said. "Some nice neighbors had him, we got so lucky!"

I didn't know this person's name, but I knew he lived on a ramshackle house on a steep hillside about a half mile away. I'd often seen him in the heat of the afternoon, sweating through his bandana, blaring disco and oldies from his boombox while tending his enormous veggie garden.

I waved goodbye as our paths diverged and continued on my walk. It was a crystal clear day, and the mountains were sharp in the distance. I had one of my frequent "I love this place" moments as I ducked under an enormous bougainvillea to find some hidden steps down to the road.

As I wound back up the street toward my house I passed the neighbor sitting on a plastic chair at the foot of his hill. He waved again then held out a plastic grocery bag. "Here, have some squash and stuff. And these cherry tomatoes. I got a million."

"Hey thanks!" I said, taking the bag.

"Next month I'll have watermelon," he said, gesturing to the sprawling tangle of leaves on the hill.

"Awesome."

I smiled as I walked home in the sunshine.

I have a Neighborhood.

Obliteration Room!

2012-07-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

The results of this installation, where children were given thousands of colorful stickers and let loose in a white room, are both wonderful and sort of terrifying...

It was made by Yayoi Kusama, and you can read more about it here.

Independence Day

2012-07-07T17:05:00.000-07:00

One sunny evening, a few days before the Fourth of July, Jared and I were hanging in the scrubby backyard of a friend, eating hotdogs and watching a band play a Bee Gees cover.

There were a few dogs at the party, some of them standing timidly between the legs of their owners, some casually cruising for scraps among the guests.

"Aw, I wish my dog was here," I said to the girl beside me. "Though, I guess he might be kind of freaked out by the random fireworks." In the distance, we could hear faint explosions. People were practicing for the 4th. I sipped my drink and thought of Loki, home alone with the windows open for the breeze.

As magical and unique as we like to believe he is, our dog is pretty standard-issue. Ferocious when it comes to squirrels and bees, (and annoyingly friendly to skunks and raccoons,) he is utterly terrified of fireworks. You'd think that being born in a barn in the middle of an Iowa blizzard and then spending the first 3 years of his life enduring its spectacular summer thunderstorms would have toughened him up a little, but alas, he's a trembling, crying, leash-pulling baby when it comes to explosion sounds. The worst part is, we are no help to him. He doesn't want to be held, or pet, or spoken to in a soothing manner, he just wants to RUN. I used to jokingly wonder, as the sky cracked open above us, where he would actually go if he got his wish.

With Loki safe at home, we stayed a few more hours at the party, first watching the sunset from on top of the roof, then moving to the front porch to eat an entire bag of "Touch of Lime" tortilla chips.

We drove back around 10:30pm, parked our car and walked up to our house. We glanced up toward our living room window as we approached, expecting to be greeted by two fluffy white ears, but the window was empty. "I guess he's asleep?" I said to Jared as we walked up our steps.

Upon opening the door, instead of the usual skittering of nails, crying and tail-wagging, we were met with a strange silence. Jared frowned, "Loki?" Silence. I looked at Jared, confused. Very carefully we began walking through the apartment, opening all closet doors, expecting any moment for him to come bounding toward us. "Loki?"

Then I noticed a slight flutter of the curtain that covers the sliding glass door in the office, then the breeze picked up and it blew into the room, revealing a slightly open door, and an enormous, dog-sized rip in the screen. My heart caught.

We stared silently at the ripped screen for a moment, the curtain innocently waving, unable to fully understand what had happened, and then we ran outside. The screen door leads to a fenced courtyard shared by four apartments, but in a panic he could jump that fence. He had. We dashed to the car and began driving through the neighborhood, up and down the winding streets, our heads through the open windows, calling his name. But he was nowhere to be found.

In a daze we made it back to the house and set out an action plan for the morning. We tried to sleep, but found we couldn't. He hadn't been wearing his collar. He had never been missing before, and our darling neighborhood now seemed cruel, full of terrible strangers. I thought of the men who came in vans in the night to pull on car door handles and root through the garbage. I thought of the freeway, so near. I thought of the cars that raced through the narrow streets. We were no longer in Iowa City, where a lost dog could bound happily from one yard to the next until friendly neighbors gave him biscuits and walked him home. We were in this huge scary place. Who knows what they do to lost dogs here? My mind was on a loop. I couldn't shake the image of him, scared and alone, running endlessly, dodging cars and coyotes. It was too much to bear.

The morning was a fog. Jared called the shelters from work and I made a million flyers. As they printed I put an ad on Craigslist and on some LA blogs. Then I set off with my cell phone, a staple gun and a roll of duct tape, following a few paths we liked to walk together, sticking my flyers to every telephone pole and utility box I could find. I carried a dull, cold feeling in my chest. It felt surreal to be walking these paths without Loki beside me, and I couldn't quite bring myself to understand that he might really be gone.

When I exhausted my stack of flyers I walked back home to print more. I frantically checked Craigslist and the blogs and my email, then set off in my car. My plan was to hit the local coffee shop, then the library, then the dog park. I parked at a meter a block away, stuck a flyer to a telephone pole, looked at the picture of Loki's happy, trusting face, and then, I looked up toward the coffee shop to see that same, real-life face looking back at me.

I had been looking at his face all day, and for for a split second, what I was seeing didn't fully register. Was that really even him?

The dog was being walked by a girl about my age, and from a distance, there was a chance it was a different samoyed, hers, and so as I charged toward them I actually worried about scaring her, and I took out my stack of flyers and sort of waved them in the air as I ran and began babbling incoherently about I'm sorry I don't mean to be weird but is that your dog because if not I think it's my dog and see here are the flyers I made cause we lost him last night and I've been going around trying to find him and- the girl's eyes got huge, Loki was crying and wagging and jumping up on the end of the leash. I grabbed his fluffy face in my hands, tears in my eyes. "I can't believe it!" the girl said. "I'm here with my husband, he's inside hanging Found flyers in the coffee shop at this very moment!"

It was a doggy miracle. They were our neighbors two hills over, they lived along one of our walking paths. He had run into their yard the night before and they had taken him in, given him water and cared for him. I hugged her. I was overwhelmed. They walked with me to my car and told me how he kept staring out the windows and whimpering all night, presumably looking for us.

(In my flustered state I didn't even buy them a cup of coffee or get their full names or anything. I felt awful about this later and I actually tried to find them on Facebook by typing in "Maggie," which was the girl's name, but did you know there are a lot of Maggies living in Los Angeles?)

I drove Loki home and he ran up the stairs to our house. I gave him a slice of turkey and a dog treat, and we played tug of war with his toy skunk for a while until he fell asleep next to me on the floor.

He was exhausted. As he slept, he twitched his little feet and yipped loudly, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was dreaming about his wild adventure. I petted and hugged him, waking him up gently. He opened one sleepy eye and looked at me, lifted his head slightly, looked around the room, and then, with a flump, fell back into sleep.

Welcome home, good boy.

How to Entertain Two Teenagers in Los Angeles Without Going Crazy or Going Broke

2012-06-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

One of the best things for us about hosting out-of-town guests is getting to go into tourist-mode in our own city. Los Angeles is huge (duh) and broken up in to a million distinct neighborhoods, and it can be easy, during our day-to-day, to stay within our manageable 6 mile radius of Silverlake-Downtown-Echo Park-Highland Park-Los Feliz, and ignore the glittering Westside or the sometimes underrated Valley, or the vast Southside, or even (shudder) Hollywood...

So whenever visitors are in town (note: please visit!) we take the opportunity to break out of our familiar routine and go forth into distant neighborhoods. There we try new restaurants and bars, take more impressive hikes, partake in whatever cultural activity is on offer, all in an effort to entertain and pamper our guests while giving them a taste of the diversity of this city. Also, often, we try and convince them to move here. (Note: move here!) And as a bonus, we pretty much always have an awesome time discovering new things to do.

Usually a large part of our plan consists of simply eating and drinking at interesting and delicious places, because really, what more do you ever need? But last week we were charged with hosting Jared's 15-year-old sister and her best friend for a few days, and for a moment we panicked. What do you even DO with children that age? They can't go out for cocktails, or even most concerts, they're too old for "little kid" activities like the zoo, and their culinary interests are firmly in the spaghetti-with-red-sauce/bean-burrito-no-salsa/cheese-pizza-no-toppings camp. To make matters worse, we don't have a TV, and our apartment is quite small, and we had no idea whether they would be into outdoorsy activities like hiking, or cultural activities like museums or concert halls (lol, as if)

(Diorama at the Natural History Museum, not a live elephant.)

Well I'm happy to report that aside from a few flight-related frustrations, the visit turned out to be a smashing success. And in case you are interested, here is exactly how you entertain two young girls in Los Angeles for five full days:

First you stock your kitchen full of Trader Joe's Frozen Pizzas, dry pasta, and multiple jars of spaghetti sauce. Trust me. Then you simply go to: Third Street Promenade for window shopping and watching street performers; Umami Burger for a coke and a burger with all the goodies scraped off (for them), and one with all its regular deliciousness intact for you; Venice Beach for ice cream, strolling, watching skateboarders, and getting henna tattoos; the Stairs of Silverlake to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood Sign; Amoeba Records for music browsing; a hike to Griffith Observatory on a beautiful day with an enthusiastic dog (making sure you run into Odd Future shooting a video (score!)) Mexcali for authentic tacos; a long stroll through Chinatown, Olvera Street, and Little Tokyo to look at tchotchkes; Pinkberry for pinkberry; the Americana for shopping and a PG-13 movie (Rock of Ages); Beverly Hills for a long drive past the fancy houses and a slow trek down Rodeo Drive; Santa Monica Beach for chillin' and getting a rosy sunburn next to the screams of the roller coaster; In-N-Out in Eagle Rock for scarfing animal-style; Hollywood for an obligatory walk-through including Grauman's Chinese Theater; LACMA for culture and pictures of Urban Light; Leela Thai for the girls' first Thai food; the Academy 5 in Pasadena for two-dollar matinee of 21 Jump Street; the dog park for dogs; a few more walks; annnnnd you're done!

There now, wasn't that a breeze?

The Future Has Addled My Brain

2012-06-19T01:17:00.000-07:00

I'm no luddite with regards to writing. I love technology. I think computers are a gift from the gods and there is no part of me that can pretend we lost something important with the functional extinction of quills and little pots of ink, or lovely smooth fountain pens, or adorable pastel typewriters and their design-y tins of ribbon. And while I feel like it's really great and sweet when people want to scrawl hand-written missives to each other and walk to the post office to deliver them and what have you, I know that if I were forced to do such a thing A) basically no one would ever hear from me because I am extremely lazy, and B) no one would be able to read my letters anyway because I have the most atrocious handwriting in the history of ever. Seriously. I cannot even read it myself.

So, since I tend to do my only good thinking in the dead of night and then forget it all by morning if it is not immediately recorded, I know that the best way to prevent my thoughts from disappearing into the ether is by keeping my (old, weirdly heavy) laptop on the floor next to the bed. Then, cozy as I may be as I am drifting off to dreamland, if I'm hit with an idea, or a sentence, or a scene that must be noted, I'll force myself to switch on the lamp, reach down and lug the laptop up to my bed, pry it open, wait for it to wake up, pull up the giant email to myself called "notes," and jot the thought down as quickly as I possibly can in my sleepy state. Then I'll put it back, roll over, and try to sleep until the next thought comes.

It's a pretty stupid system I know, and the fact that on a good night I have to do it about five separate times makes it even sillier, but I swear it works for me better than actually writing on scraps of paper (my previous system) ever did.

But I will admit this:

Last night, long after midnight, I had some apparently inspired, book-perfecting THOUGHT. So I switched on the lamp, reached down, lugged the thing up to my bed, pried it open, waited for it to wake up... and was met with the endless beach ball spiral of death. I panicked. Frantically I tried force quit things and restart things and press all the keys on the keyboard while keeping the THOUGHT in my flighty mind, but it was no use. The device was frozen.

So I gave up, closed the laptop, put it back on the floor, switched off the lamp, lost the thought forever, and not once did it occur to me to reach over to my bedside table to grab the pen and the little notebook that live there and THAT, my friends, is pretty messed up.

P.S. Awesome wallpaper image by Wall & Deco

Happy Birthday Harry!

2012-06-15T10:42:00.002-07:00

Happy 71st birthday to my dad, who was pretty much the coolest, as evidenced by this video:

I miss you!

(Also, I remember watching this as a kid and having NO IDEA how they did it.

Actually I still don't fully understand. Magic!)

Isn't it, You Know, Ironic?

2012-06-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

Things that well-meaning people say when you are suffering from anxiety that somehow only make your anxiety that much worse:

"What you need is a nice long walk."

"Maybe you should just get out and socialize a little"

"Have you tried yoga?"

"Are you meditating?"

"You probably shouldn't be drinking."

"What about Passion Flower extract?"

"Maybe you should just focus on all the positive things in your life."

"Deep breathing"

"Deeeeeeeep breaths"

"Kava Kava?"

"I don't see why you can't just get off the couch, find a doctor, make an appointment and be done with it."

Things that probably help when you are suffering from anxiety:

A nice long walk

Socializing a little

Yoga

Meditation

Probably not drinking

Passion Flower extract

Focusing on all the positive things in your life

Deep breathing

Kava Kava?

Just getting off the couch, finding a doctor, making an appointment and being done with it.
(ha, ha, ha.)

But we all know that what will really help is this:

My Kind of Igloo

2012-06-13T18:05:00.001-07:00

Sure your color-coded bookshelves are neat, but can they do this?

That's right, it's a self-supporting igloo made out of books. Colombian artist Miler Lagos made it and it just about kills me dead. Can you imagine how comforting it must smell in there? I would pile cushions all over the bottom of it and then just curl up reading ALL DAY LONG.

Heaven.

Spotted on Colossal

Love is a Battlefield AKA The Greatest Story Ever Told

2012-06-11T14:24:00.003-07:00

Remember when we were young and we had that big fight with our parents and they were all “if you leave this house now etc” and so we waved goodbye to our kid brother through the window and took a bus from our small town to The City? Remember the men in the city? Their muscles when they bumped into us? Our father was a butcher or something, maybe a grocer? He wore an apron. Our mother worried. We wrote home sometimes, not to them, but to Billy. We made up stories about The City and had him promise to stay in school. Billy was a good kid. We didn't want him to end up like us. We wrapped ourselves in rags and dishtowels and found work as dime-a-dance girls in a place with low lights and a seedy boss who stared at us over the glint of his gold front tooth. We were tired all the time. We were barely making it. We draped over each other in heaps. The boss was taking deep cuts. He was taking liberties. We were sick of dancing his way. We took a stand...

Heartache to heartache, amirite?

How to Score a Refund From Your Terrible Internet Service Provider in 12 Emotionally Complicated Steps

2012-06-10T15:07:00.001-07:00

Based on true events!

1) Decide after months of mind-numbingly slow Internet that it may be worth it to upgrade to the slightly faster version.

2) Call your Internet Service Provider to learn that the slightly faster version is only $6 more a month! Make a bunch of salty snacks in anticipation of getting to stream season three of Breaking Bad without random jumps and pauses in the connection.

3) Three weeks later, when your bill comes and it is $38 higher than expected, get disproportionally angry and call your Terrible Internet Service Provider in a huff.

4) Two and a half hours and three transfers into your call, verify your account number for the fourth time and confirm your “favorite singer” to a tired-sounding woman in Indianapolis. When she pulls up your overcharged account she will exclaim, “Well this can’t be right!” Agree. She will make keyboard clicking sounds and tell you to expect a refund on your next billing cycle. Believe her if you like.

5) When the next bill comes, repeat step four, this time, with a fast-talking man in Philadelphia. Tersely explain your problem. Verify your account number. He will pull up your last two bills and exclaim, “This can’t be right!” in the same incredulous tone as the woman in Indianapolis. Agree. Attempt to extort an immediate solution from him with what you think of as your signature blend of “firm charm.” Fail. Demand to speak to “a higher up.” Fail. Warily believe him when he tells you to really expect a refund on your next billing cycle.

6) During the next three still-$38-higher-than-they-should-be cycles, up your calling regimen to twice a month, tag-teaming with your husband in a version of good cop/bad cop in which he plays the “Personable Southerner” and you play the “Aggrieved Harpy.” Verify your goddamn account number. Use your "mean" voice. Use your “unacceptable” voice. Threaten to cancel, knowing full well that they’re the only high-speed Internet provider in your pocket neighborhood. Know that they know this too. Use your pleading voice. Begin to see your failure to obtain this refund as a reflection of your general insignificance in the world.

7) Have a revelation. Search out your Terrible Internet Service Provider’s Twitter handle.

8) Tweet at them.

9) Receive an immediate reply.

10) Six minutes later, answer your phone to a serene, beautiful sounding woman named “Kate.” She’ll ask you how your day has been in a voice that will make you feel like the two of you have spent the last five months together in a tropical hideaway. Is that a waterfall in the background? Kate already has your account number. Kate just needs to confirm the name of your favorite singer. She will compliment you on your music taste. Then she will refund your five months of built-up overcharges with the customer service equivalent of a toss of her luscious brown hair. She will ask if there is anything more she can do to help and she will give you her personal line at the company headquarters. She will wish you a great rest of your day.

11) Ten minutes later, after you find the refund sitting placidly in your account, come up with a really snarky tweet about the power of public complaining,

12) But find that you just can’t bring yourself to do that to Kate.

P.S. I originally wrote this for The Billfold, a website which I adore, and which you should probably read everyday if you care at all about your life. Just sayin'.

Pretty Much The Coolest Stop Motion Post-it Note Music Video You'll Ever See

2012-06-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

Justin Webb and friends made this. It took four months and 25,000 post-it notes. It is amazing.

Check out his awesome band The Family Bones, and tell 'em I sent you.

People of Awesome

2012-05-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

Episode One:

Rawaan Alkhatib

You know those friends you have that just sort of excel at everything and you really want to hate them for it but they also happen to be all sweet and lovely and gracious so you are forced to end up admiring them instead?

I've ended up with enough of these people in my life to leave me in a constant state of either insecurity or inspiration, depending on the weather.

I am lucky this way.

Rawaan Alkhatib is one of them.

I mean, she's just your standard Brooklyn-based poet-baker-painter-chef-printmaker-silk scarf designer from Dubai. Big whoop, right?

Seriously, though: Would you please go look at these scarves she just made?

my fave!

Ugh. She's so cool. A little group of us in Iowa used to have epic feasts together and she was always contributing things like pork belly simmered for two days in duck fat, and homemade pistachio and rose petal ice cream...

She even baked us the most delicious wedding cake which I still dream about eating.

Basically just go look at her website right this moment. There you can check out a bunch of other stuff like the chapbooks she's designed and the illustrations she's done and the postcards she's made etc.

Sadly you won't be able to taste the food she creates, or read her writing (Rawaan, where are your poems, girl?) or like, hang out with her over the internet, but that's probably for the best. You don't want to start feeling, I dunno, inadequate.

Rawaan, you are a Person of Awesome.

Top photos by: Eric Felipe-Barkin. Models: Bettina Huang, Kathryn Egelhofer.
Cake Photo by Jagger Photography

How much do you want a homemade, slightly melty ice cream sandwich right now?

2012-05-21T20:21:00.001-07:00

So much, right?

(photo by Smitten Kitchen, recipe here.)

Evolution of a brother in law

2012-05-12T21:14:00.002-07:00

I broke out my grandmother's old travel watercolor set this past week to make little portraits of my sister Olivia and her soon-to-be husband Tristan for their wedding invitations.

I'm not really a painter, but I had a lot of fun messing around. I think I hadn't opened the set in something like seven or eight years?

Here's the evolution of Tristan:

And here's the lovely Olivia:

There will be flowers and words and things eventually.

Yes to love!

ALL PAPER ALL THE TIME

2012-05-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

The reason this blog is called Paper Buttons is that a very long time ago I used to make (and sell) tiny little cut-paper collages of animals that I pressed into wearable buttons with my hand-held Badge-A-Minit button maker.

It was a silly little hobby that just happened to coincide with the launching of a brand-new site called Etsy, perhaps you've heard of it? In fact, and now I don't mean to be all I-liked-it before-it-was-cool or anything, but I ended being one of their first members. #HUMBLEBRAG

I think I sold a total of eleven buttons.

(I like to think this may have been because I had to dip out of the burgeoning Handmade Button business and move sort of abruptly to Zurich, Switzerland, but that's a story for another day.)

Anyway, MY POINT is that I happen to think that paper art is basically the highest form of art, and to that end I am going to show you some really cool stuff.

Exhibit A)

Artist Chris Gilmour makes these incredible life-size cardboard sculptures, like this Fiat and this super-detailed bicycle and this set of globes that I would just DIE to have in either my living room or my "study."

Find plenty more of his cardboard brilliance here.

Exhibit B)

Do you know about quilling? It's this crazy and time consuming process of curling hundreds of tiny strips of paper and Lisa Nilsson (unfortunately no relation) makes these slightly creepy yet ultimately badass anatomical cross sections with it, like this:

and this:

Wowie, right? Check out more of her intricate work here.

And how about Exhibit C) my ultimate favorite, basically the godmother of paper cutting: Mary Delany (that's Mrs. Delany to you.)

She was an 18th century paper rockstar who at age 72 began messing around with cut-out flowers, and then went on to create over 1,000 of these exquisitely detailed botanical collages.

I mean take a look at these and tell me they are not paintings...

THE SHADING!

Bananas, right? And this was in the 1770s, when scissors were really big and unwieldy, and Paper Source hadn't even been invented yet. The mind boggles.

My mom bought me this book last year which I highly, highly recommend. Mrs Delany was charming and sassy, and had an incredible life beyond her paper-stardom. Do yourself a favor and check her out.

And, you know, if you ever wanna buy a tiny paper animal collage in wearable button form, you know who to call.

22 hours in Palm Springs

2012-05-06T22:41:00.001-07:00

We finally managed to fit in a (very mini) getaway for ourselves, and Reader, it was precisely what the doctor ordered.

We spent Thursday night and most of Friday in fabulous Palm Springs, where the sun is hot, the Coors Light comes in these icy metal bottle-cans, and you can spend an entire morning and afternoon just reading in a lounge chair and nobody will say a thing about it.

We stayed at this amazing little hotel where each room had its own private courtyard (complete with hot tub!)

We checked in Thursday evening, opened some celebratory wine, then went and grabbed some dinner at Spencer's. Afterwards we walked back through the warm night air, marveling at the giant craggy mountain looming next to us, the billion glittering stars, the overwhelming peacefulness, etc.

Then we went for a midnight swim.

I know!

The next morning we woke up early and toasted the day with mimosas that we classily sipped out of plastic cups.

Then we hung out in our little courtyard soaking in the crazy desert morning sunshine as the smell of jasmine wafted over us from the actual wall of jasmine that separated our room from the next one over.

I KNOW!

I had all the supplies I needed:

In case you are curious, (and why wouldn't you be?) here is a lil 360 view of our courtyard.

Can you tell that I am/was basically obsessed with it?

Plant-covered walls FTW, amirite?

Checkout was at noon, so we stayed until 11:59, just gettin' so tan and reading so hard.

Next we had a yummy Mexican lunch and headed out to the Agua Caliente Casino to see if we couldn't convince them to let us hang out by their pool for the rest of the day.

I think it was my giant pink hat that did the trick. They handed us a pool key like we were high rollers and we proceeded to lounge in the shade of a magnificent palm tree/umbrella combo for the next four hours, occasionally slipping into the water or padding to the tiki hut to get another ice cold brewsky.

It was, what's the word I'm looking for here? Perfect?

Something like that anyway.

A smile as your umbrella, a plant as your necklace, etc

2012-04-30T00:02:00.000-07:00

Have you seen this?

Do you know you can wear plants now?

I DIE.

Your bike can wear them too.

Your bike dies!

She makes the right decisions about her man

2012-04-29T23:41:00.001-07:00

Everything about this:

Text reads: Their heads are together. He cares for the good things of life. He’s an achiever. He’s confident. He likes his clothes smooth, sexy, comfortable– masculine.

The ‘Do Anything’ jump suit goes to party, bistro, patio or pad.

She makes the right decisions about her man, about her looks, about her clothes.

There's more here, if you dare.