I'ts ok. I brought balloons. See?

Lauren Perez, 2012 All Rights Reserved

When You Feel Like You're Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Recently, I've been feeling a bit low.  Santa Barbara is a beautiful town, but I miss my friends dearly.  There's really nothing like Austin, Texas.  No matter how many times I slip my feet into my cowboy boots and drag people to the boot scoot or make my own danged queso dip (because Californian's have not a CLUE as to what that is) it just doesn't feel the same.  It'll be a year this April that I'll have been living in California, and I feel it 110%.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I sulked in a big fat way.  For a full on week, I was Ms. Energy Suck, it was terrible.  But sometimes, you really just can't partake in the pity party anymore, you've got to DO something that makes you feel good - something that you know is an energy BOOST to everybody else, and the corners of your mouth will start to perk up a bit.  Everyone's will.  And then you can have parties, and I like parties.

There is a girl named Katie who lives in Brooklyn and she is beautiful.  I don't know her.  I just found her blog.  Everything about this girl's energy is bright and uplifting, and when I feel like I'm in a funk, I like to mosey on over to her world and get a happiness tune up.  This time around, I found a great public project of her's I thought I'd fashion into my own little thing for Santa Barbara: Heart Rocks.

I hopped on my bike, called up my friend Cameron, and we were both on our way spreading silliness and encouragement to downtown SB <3

I have so many rocks from the beach under my bed.
Time to put them to good use! 

My bike :)

Get it? :)

Armchair Historian

October Presents: 31 Warnings of a Forgotten Foe

What if you and your imaginary friend separated on less than amicable terms...?

Rain dancing for you, Austin.

"The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."

Today, I wanted some color in my life.

Rwar!

EHGG MONSTER FRUM MARS!

The Little Big Man

Written and Illustrated by Lauren P. Dodge

Thoughts on Urban Exploration

  My friend recently told me that I was an anachronism.  I thought about it, and he may be right.  But I think my idea of being such most likely does not parallel with his.  Most girls my age, I'm speculating, who are considered to be "born in the wrong decade" would prefer to be likened with the free thinking flapper of the 20's (I'm referring to all the "bangs" out there), or perhaps find the nostalgia of the mid-century modern woman more to their taste (do I have to bring up the countless Mad Men dress up parties I'm forced to witness via Facebook...? :sigh:).  I am not swayed by such fashion, and although the beatnik era(s) are sexy and characterized by youth's beauty and all of that, I still find them a bit boring.

     Nope.  I'll take none of it.  But say I COULD choose who and where I'd be, I would change much more than my clothes. Without question, I would like to have been an golden age explorer. This probably means that I would have to be a man.  Cest la vie.  As long as it meant some queen out there would be willing to just GIVE me a few ships of my own, an army of workers, and as many sweaty wads of cash as my bright yellow pantaloons would allow, I believe I could die with a big, fat, gluttonous smile on my face...and probably in a ruin somewhere.  Hopefully in France.

     But I'm not Columbus, or Magellan, or Ponce de Leon, or Cortez, or any of those crazy cats.  I'm not even a trust fund baby, so my exploration is a touch more limited than these explorers' pampered, pantalooned butts.  I've come to terms with this, because what exploration really IS has very little to do with the scope of promised fame or fortune that fueled the curiosity of most of these figures.  It is about coming in behind somebody or something that happened.  It is finding a gem within a loud, chaotic, overpopulated world that has been frozen in time, untouched by our insane desire to bring everything up to date.  To mess around with it.  To make it better.

     Many of these places are untouched for a reason.  They are usually unwanted, unloved, or just flat out forgotten about.  They all go through this cycle of life, death, purgatory, re-recognition, and finally "rebirth"...if the real estate is valuable enough.  I like to find these places in "purgatory", so to speak; when their previous animation has been seemingly suspended, still hanging in the air...thick, and ghostly.  I love the feeling of standing in a room awash with dust, and finding something as trivial as a woman's hairpin, or a child's toy - any bit of insight into the people that inhabited the space before.  What you usually draw from it is probably going to be much more dramatic than what actually happened, but these places are playgrounds for the imagination.  They allow for the "anachronisms" of the world to time travel, if even just for an afternoon.

This TAL podcast is amazing and embodies everything that excites me about UE.

Dim the lights.  Put on a candle or two.  Enjoy.

Some photos of past explorations

Sweating in the Desert

This weekend embodied everything that I love about living on the cusp.  Because, to be honest, that is the only way you can live life the way it should be.

Do you see a road?  Take it.  Where does it go?  Who knows.  Somebody does, but do you?  Does it matter who made it?  No.  It exists.  And the thing that lives at the end just is, and how you experience it has very little to do with who had experienced it before.

For a really, really long time, I hated LA.  I thought it was a place full of narcissistic jerk faces who only cared about the kind of car you drove or how much money you made.  And then somewhere, probably from some person or a movie on the Sundance Channel (probably the latter), I heard this (paraphrased):

"L.A. is a reflection of who you are at the moment.  It is a mirror.  It is just a city, and it is full of people and places and things to be absorbed.  When you look into it (because it is so vast) you are not seeing anything else but yourself:  your hopes, your dreams, your dissatisfactions.  What do you see?"

I saw a lot of anxieties.  Well, no, what I saw was a lot of shiny things and loud noises and dirt and grime and also a ton of glitz.  I saw Korea Town and I thought "delicious".  I saw the Hollywood sign and I thought "sad".  I saw young people on the streets and I thought "hipster".  All of these things have come from my life.  L.A. is what you make of it.

I found a fella on the outskirts of L.A.  He says Long Beach isn't L.A.  I think it is.  Maybe a little.  It's a place where people who don't want to necessarily be associated with L.A. live, but want the ability to visit on weekends.  That is where I'm at right now in my life.  I am not entirely ready to face myself at its fullest just yet.  It's all too daunting (like, I'm that deep, right? haHA).  But I can live on the outskirts.  Look in a little bit.  Take in the sights.  The shiny isn't as distracting anymore.  The streets are still grimy, but I like them.  I really like the graffiti.  I like knowing that there are people that have been there before me.  I'm getting closer to it.

We went to Joshua Tree this weekend, this Long Beach fella and I.  He likes to take pictures.  I like to take pictures!  We share absolutely nothing else in common (yeah right), and we sweat a lot.  We found a pool at a cheap motel.  We washed off our sweat.  Joshua tree is like an oasis.  I talked with my bestie Eliza (Miza) about this.  She said "the desert is really the last place we can really find these kinds of places, huh?"  Yes.  She's absolutely right.  It is!  And the hot was sticky and sweet and we didn't have any AC to speak of, but I was glad to explore the outskirts of LA.  I'm always glad.  There is never a dull moment.

Especially when you take a dirt road that keeps its end a secret until you look.