“I can’t say it enough times: Stay true to your vision. Remember why you do it… What you do, who you are – that’s your art. That’s all you have.”

Flight of Passage – short film narrated by Beta Band Steve Mason and featuring skateboarder Ben Nordberg. Directed by James Gardner.

(Source: explore-blog)

I like the way it says “Glam Rock” up in the corner, just in case you forgot.

These are also the shoes I wore to my Biology Lab one chilly fall day in 2008. I drove to the service drive parking lot, parked, got on the crowded bus and sat in the side facing seat. When we got to the bus hub, I boarded another crowded bus to get me closer to Kedzie Hall. That one let me off across the street from my destination, so then I had to walk across busy Farm Lane and wind my way through Kedzie until I arrived at my class.

I was bored that day (and every day in that class) because the only thing worse than biology is biology lab. The boy next to me, a cute Korean kid who chatted with me instead of listening to the professor, noticed that I had a hole in my shoe. I laughed and said, “it’s a classic, holes just give it personality.”

Later I wondered if I had any holes in the other shoe, so I lifted my foot and placed it on the opposite knee and was shocked that I had on a totally different shoe. Left foot:  Converse All-Star. Right foot: humongous New Balance running shoe. Bright white and squeaky clean. Instead of being embarrassed, I sat there trying not to laugh. When class was over, I showed Chun both of my shoes, and he fell over the table, laughing.  How could no one have noticed? Especially me.

I wore Scot’s shoes bike-riding this morning. Eleven miles in just over an hour. It was a slower ride than usual because when my friend Kim comes we talk. A lot. If we’re talking about something important, we slow down a little. If it’s something funny, we sort of swerve as we lean forward and laugh.

Still, my thighs got a great work out. The first three miles out is on pavement, then loose limestone (that creates quite a bit of drag) for the next two and a half miles. Today we turned around at the five and a half marker, and headed back the way we came, limestone then the sweet, sweet pavement. This must be what they mean when they say find something that you love to do, then it isn’t work.

This is what my car looks like all summer.

Authors are my rockstars

30:43 minutes of pure English delight.

A rarely seen photo of Daniel, my GPS. Unlike most systems, mine consists of this man who sits in the back seat of my car with the same bored expression seen here. He drinks a lot, so that, coupled with his deep voice and English accent, we often have trouble understanding his directions.

“Side road” sounds like “Slid road,” and he has great difficulty pronouncing word “eight.” He makes it sound like it has three syllables, and we almost miss our exit because we’re either laughing, or yelling at him.

All this talk about marriage resulted in me having a dream about renewing vows. In my dream we had to drive an hour away for the ceremony, and when we got there I realized I had left my wedding dress back home. (Now, that doesn’t sound like me!?) We didn’t have time to go back and get the dress, so I draped some big red cloth across one shoulder and headed down the aisle. The weirdest part of this dream? Not gray yoga pants and a red tablecloth as proper wedding attire, but believing that I would still fit into that size 10 dress.