Dispatch From LA

you would have liked it

i've been swamped this week with school responsibilities - no time to blog.   so sad!  did you miss me?

i finished my very last 2 pages in my chiapas travel journal some time ago (this is one) and never got around to posting.

i've also been whipping up some digital labels & tabs.  playing.

in the planning stages for my very first ebook.  ideas ideas ideas!!!

also thinking about norway and deciding if i'll just take my sketchbook or make something special...

hmmmm.

looking at past travel journals.

thinking.

tomorrow an artist friend i adore is coming for a visit and i'm getting up early and setting up a table out on the back patio.  YAH! we'll be diving head first into our visual journals.  making painty inky messes everywhere.  

oh and i read a poem.  it was nice.  but i can't find where i put it.  it was about stars.  you would have liked it!

this & that

it's a cold night here in the city of angels.   if you ever visit in winter your skin might be surprised by how chilly it can feel.  today our high was 59.  which...i must say, thrilled me.  

my crocheted blanket is now 3 inches wide.  my heart grows warm and thumps harder the more i work on it.  my enthusiasm, naturally unrelated to my skill.  i posted a hipstamatic photo on facebook if you wanna see.

 

this video is for my public school teacher friends.  enjoy!

crochet slumber party!

 another weekend getaway planned.  but only overnight.  leaving tomorrow after school and heading west.  crochet slumber party here i come!

hopefully i won't come home to find TOM playing cards at the kitchen table w/ catboy & catgirl.

last weekend in ojai...

la di da di da

i am 10 minutes away from being COMPLETELY finished with my latest travel journal.  but i'll probably take another week to finish.  i excel at moving in slow motion.  la di da di da.

especially in winter.

slow, slower, and slowest.  those are my top speeds.  unless i'm being chased.  which.  you know.  i'm not right now.

i'm going to really enjoy opening up each page of my san cristobal de las casas travel journal in another decade or so and unfolding all the parts.  and i probably won't care how long it took me to finish.

say hi to TOM.  he's been hanging around since buck took off for the sweet hereafter.  buck used to do all the spraying around the outside of moss cottage environs.  now TOM does it.  he likes to sit outside and meow.  i don't feed him.  i used to scare him off, but he's very persistent.  since i discovered he's not a fighter i tolerate him.  wyatt & corky were scared of him, but now they just sit and stare at each him.  then stare at me to see if i'm staring at him.  TOM is lonely.  i've started talking to him in a cat voice.  but don't think for a minute that i'm going to start feeding him or letting him inside.  no way!

he is kinda cute though.  in a scrappy ginger cat sort of way.

watch for my smoke signals

i think i mentioned this latest travel journal unfolds.  didn't i?

all the pages i mean.  so each page is actually double the size you see here.

i'll take pics of each open section so you can see what i mean.

but right now i need to finish packing the getaway car.  tomorrow when the last school bell rings i'm squealing tires out of downtown and...

heading off to my woodsy cabin hidey hole for some reading & writing & resting & creekside stargazing.  watch for my smoke signals.

my norwegian hidey hole

i'll be heading out on a scouting expedition a week ahead of the other moss sister.  she has less time off than i do.  

this will be my hidey hole until she arrives.  then we're off to a different town.

this wee house is perched on a hill.  from the looks of it a steep hill.  i better lay off the maple bacon donuts between now and then.

there are 2 french balconys in this little house.  i can't wait to stargaze. 

of course it rains A LOT here.  constantly.  i think i'll get one of those clear raincoat jumper things, a big dome umbrella, and some red & white striped rubber boots.  what say you?

oh hello there!

i was trying to figure out how to put my little carry-around travel journal

into my not-carry-around-travel journal

AND

i attached the elastic strap on the back cover.  voila!  a fine & dandy idea.

 i get those every once in a while.

like for example the idea i had to try out another one of the 20 breakfast places tomorrow.  i will attempt to order something slightly more civilized.

but i make no promises.

will one of you PLEASE teach me how to crochet so i sit out on my porch and make THESE?  please.  huh?  will you?  Joyce?

wyatt knows how but he won't teach me.

says i'll be too preoccupied.

and forget all about him.

oh and one more thing.

oh nevermind.  i'll tell you tomorrow.  really i will.

no more secrets.

secrets can destroy a marriage.

i read that somewhere.

sunday part 2

1.  ate maple bacon donut.  with pulled pork hash.  at one of the 20 breakfast places i spoke of yesterday. {more on this later!}

2.  added more photos to travel journal

3.  stared at stolen kiss who is blooming right now.  she blooms dark in winter, light in summer. 

4.  made goo goo eyes at hot pink geranium in between words with friends games

5. added hot pink paint to travel journal

6.  watched a flock of birds in the pink western sky {just now} while dashing out back to see moonrise in eastern sky

7.  decided for the millionth time that the world is pretty and i'm glad i get to live in it.  very glad.

8.  also.  my entire house smells like freesia.

silver gleam

as much as i am adoring instagram and all the other fun camera apps on my ipad, my favorite kind of photo in my travel journal remains the unadorned.  simple.  clear.  just a small bit of brightening if it's needed.  no major overhauls.  

no filters or textures to muddle up the image as i saw it on that day.  through the eye of my camera.

all that silver gleam and sugar sparkle.  one of my bestest trip photos from san cristobal de las casas.

winterbrain

today i endeavored to unfunk myself.  wake myself up.  i've been comatose these last weeks of january.   sluggish thoughts turning over in my winterbrain.

i put on some coffee when i got home.   did NOT take a nap.  thought instead about the neglected kingdom of my little studio.  and while a dusky twilight settled over the rooftops of my neighborhood... i turned on the light strings above my art table and started clearing and cleaning.

also i had some cherry garcia.

slow going in the travel journal.  i seem to be more interested in reading travel books,  playing words with friends, watching irish thrillers on IFC, and gearing up for an evening spent at DOWNTON ABBEY.  also i made chicken pot pie in my crockpot.  also i did more doodling & coloring on the ipad.  the end.

here & there

this & that

a calendar with every day uncrossed

here. a small sliver of poem.  to go with the glimpses into my travel journal.

taken from New Years by Dana Gioia

because sometimes i like the little bites better than the whole piece.

But can this blur, this smudgy in-between,
This tiny fissure where the future drips

Into the past, this flyspeck we call now
Be our true habitat? The present is
The leaky palm of water that we skim
From the swift, silent river slipping by.

The new year always brings us what we want
Simply by bringing us along—to see
A calendar with every day uncrossed,
A field of snow without a single footprint.

san cristobal travel journal

i am in the process of stitching together my san cristobal de las casas (chiapas) travel journal.  i like the physical act of writing on paper. of journaling.  the way the paper soaks up the ink.  the way writing in a book makes me feel like i'm coming home to myself.

when i start this process of building a travel journal i just grab whatever feels good in the moment.  and today when i was making the paper cover this heavy smooth wallpaper felt right.  i'll probably put a postcard on the front.  not that one.  it's canadian, but there are parts of mexico that look like that.  did you know that?

i love mexico.  i really really do.  i take great pleasure in going to a new state i haven't been to before - chiapas.  which...has the greatest biodiversity in all of the americas.  over 50,000 species of plants & animals.

nearly 1 million people here speak indigenous languages unrelated to spanish, the most common of which are:  Tzeltal and Tzotzil along with Ch’ol, Tojolabal, Chuj, Kanjobal, Acatec, Jacaltec and Motozintlec. wow is what i have to say about all of that.  thanks wikipedia for the information.

part of me is drifting south towards those south central highlands of mexico already.  i can feel myself leaving los angeles.  my inner axis tilting south.  

the part of me that is still here printed out one of my ipad journal pages.  i think i'll glue or tape it into my regular visual journal.  or maybe i'll start another journal of digital pages i make in ipad.  nothing pleases me more than having endless options and directions i can take.  it's why i dig art.  it's why i dig travel.

it's why i dig hot chocolate.  

going to make some.  NOW.

i have a lot of thoughts rumbling around inside my head that need sorting.  

stacks of ideas

as of this morning i'm back on the grid!

with 2 weeks to go before i hit the road for chiapas i finally sat down to wrestle with the stack of ideas inside the noggin.  and commit them into book form.  experimenting.

my shiny new ipad 2 arrives tomorrow.  plenty of time for me to figure out how to blog, email & make digital inroads with the bamboo stylus.  i'm looking very forward to not taking the more cumbersome laptop on this trip.  i don't do the phone thing so having the ability to email mama moss and let her know i haven't been kidnapped is essential.

 i finished EMILY ALONE and started this (!)

oh boy!  thanks for recommending it.  this is one swell book that is making me go HA HA like a big department store santa.

not exactly laughing with this one.  but definitely smiling a lot.

happy sunday readers.  you're nice.  i like you.

 thanks for hanging out with me during the power outage.

  come back tonight and i'll make you a big mug of  angelina's hot chocolate (from paris!).  i've been rationing my bag, but for you i'll splurge!

in case you didn't know december is international hot chocolate month.  in my mind.

hello my name is {saturday}

after it finished raining yesterday afternoon I ran outside to clip these roses.  big shaggy perfumed flowers that just get bigger and bigger inside as they unfurl.   i've actually turned the heat on.  winter is officially here.  well, i mean the beginning of the end of fall.  how's that?

next weekend might bring rain too which means i'll get to make good use of the woodstove in the cabin.  

this is the last of the budapest travel journal posts.  i have a few weeks before i need to start thinking about sewing up a new log book for my journey to san cristobal de las casas in mid-december.  

in the meantime it's good to crack open the neglected visual journal and start making messes in between those covers again.

my sister is getting ready to start her budapest travel journal marathon over HERE !  

thanks for all the kind words on my last post about solo travel.  when i started blogging almost 5 years ago I couldn't have imagined that one day I'd be tramping around with a nice group of people in my back pocket.   i love having you tag along.  i carry your enthusiastic presence with me.  sometimes i feel like you're that giant team of verizon support staff who follow people around.  you know that commercial?

 when i return from my forested walkabout i'll share the cabin info in case you want to have a rustic adventure there too.   i found it via another blogger (!) and was instantly smitten.  what?  you want to see a picture NOW?  well okay... but just a little one. 

how's that?

these roses are filling moss cottage with the sweetest scent.  the benefits of living in a 648 sq. foot space...

small but simple luxuries.  the best kind.
~

expedited

I sent in my expedited passport renewal application today.  It's the first time I've ever renewed!

Really & truly.

I didn't start traveling in earnest until I was 38.   I kept waiting for a traveling companion that never arrived.  I had this idea in my 20's and 30's that I needed someone to go with me on my adventures.  So I waited.  And waited.  And waited.

 But coordinating travel plans with friends or mates was more complicated than I imagined.  So I headed out alone.  I bought books on women traveling solo, read travel memoirs, studied maps, packed my bags, held my breath and dove in headfirst.

It was an unexpected bounty.  My powers of observation felt sharper.  My vision & hearing keener.  I walked through a wonderland of strange new places.  Loneliness visited occasionally, but lingered for shorter periods of time.  In an atmosphere of internal quiet different parts of the self start to come forward out of the shadows.  Solo travel always feels to me like a deep kind of listening to the world and to the self.

    My sister and I travel together very harmoniously.  I love our time together!  Two very different experiences which both appeal to my multiple personalities.

Buoyed by my much-needed escape to Cambria, I've already made plans to head out again over Veteran's Day weekend.  I almost always head for the coast, but this time I'm going to a cabin tucked way off the beaten track, next to a roaring creek, in the middle of a forest.   A big forest.  Near an itty bitty town.  Some hours north of LA.

My heart races to think of all of the new things I'll be investigating...

and sharing.

~

For the last few years I've often been asked if I have an email subscription option for Dispatch From LA.  I thought it was high time I got it together and figured out how to add that feature.  So I did!  It's up at the top if you are so inclined.

I've put Remains of the Day on sale the entire month of November.   You can check it out HERE.  Since access to the class blog and videos doesn't expire, you can start whenever you want and take as long as you want to finish!

the getaway car is packed

In between travel journal shots I'll share photos of where I'm headed this weekend.

Off for a couple of days seaside.  I love the wild central and northern California coastline.  I've missed it.

And I relish the long drive through autumn hills.

Looking forward to a good visit with a sweet friend.  We have a lot of catching up to do.

I want to putter alone down this beach and feel the cold ocean on my toes.  Sit down with my binoculars and look for seals and birds.

Walk in the dark along the wooden boardwalks.  Fall asleep listening to the wild surf.

All of that.

~

savoring the experience

  bottom left photo is the apartment courtyard of my homebase in budapest this summer.

while i'm away i focus on writing & collage in the journal.  some days i DO NOT feel like making the time for it.  but i do it anyway and am always glad i put in the effort.

i leave plenty of empty pages in between my daily recording and collaging.  sometimes the photos match the writing perfectly, other times they are way off.  

when i look back at the journal and flip through it a year from now it's the overall feeling i get from looking/reading it that matters most to me.  i forget about all the work it took to bring this travel journal to life.  very worth it if you ask me, but a plain written account of any trip is also very G O O D and shouldn't be discounted.

i so love the old letters and postcards i found at the esceri flea market.

how i would enjoy returning now in the fall when the weather is cool and pleasant.

"I feel happy to be keeping a journal again.  I have missed it, missed naming things as they appear, missed the half hour when i push all duties aside and savor the experience of being alive in this beautiful place.  One thing is certain, and i have always known it-the joys of my life have nothing to do with age.  They do not change.  Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about..."

-At Seventy by May Sarton

more {pages}

it's officially official.  i am 100% finished with my travel journal.

and for your information, finishing has been extremely agreeable.  and so is this passage from At Seventy by May Sarton...

"It is a pleasure to be with someone who says that the eighties are her happiest years and who is silent while we drive around because she wants to concentrate on what she is seeing.  That is wonderful for me because I am the same kind of being.  I want to do one thing at a time and give it my whole attention."

...which i continue to enjoy on these warm autumn nights tucked away up here in my tiny cottage.

good saturday night from los angeles, to wherever in the big wide world you happen to be.

it's nearly friday

hello!  i photographed my entire travel journal this week.  i'll be posting the whole thing in the next week.  the full monty.   if i wasn't moonlighting by day as a monkey whisperer i might be more productive.  i might have wrapped things up by now.

but well...i haven't.

you're nice.  you don't care.  do you?

i'm reading 2 journals of may sarton.  one of her 70th year and the other, her 80th.  i love toggling back and forth between the 2.

nearly every day after school i come home to write in my journal on the back patio.   moments of solitude i need after a day crowded with jabbering little people.  

and then i immerse myself in reading the other journals.  there are so many good passages i've marked to share.  so many good words to swallow and digest.

"...but the real happiness yesterday had nothing to do with giving or buying anything but came from solitude, an unhurried day, the silence unbroken except fo the pheasant's cry.  even the ocean, silky blue and absolutely calm, was silent."

-At Seventy:  A Journal by May Sarton

Monday Night 63 Degrees

I'm 98% finished putting photos in my travel journal.  I somehow squeezed so many between the pages.  I'm looking forward to turning my attention towards my visual journal and a few other crafty ideas I've got brewing.  I wish I could multi-task, but alas I am unable.

Though when I close the pages of my Budapest travel journal I'll be satisfied knowing I'm COMPLETELY finished.  Done!  Finito!

Here:  I present one snowy cat on an autumn colored rug.

and here...  I present some little pics of the cozy abode that awaits me at 7500 feet elevation in the southern highlands of Mexico (!)  The scene of my next travel adventure which I'll be embarking on in about 9 weeks.  Coming with?

I've mentioned my fabulous and interesting friend DOROTHY before.  She lives in the coastal village of Cambria with her long-time companion & partner.  2 extraordinary women living by the seaside.  Dorothy has just started blogging again, on what I hope will be a more regular basis.  Myself and the rest of the world want to know what thoughts are tumbling around in that inquisitive colorful mind of hers.

growling at something out there

 it figures that the second i wrote that the 2nd grade punks were shaping up, they all started sharpening their tiny fangs, hissing, spitting, cursing, writing nasty notes, making animal noises, blowing imaginary trumpets (loud), plugging their ears, and growling.

aw well.  1 step forward.  10 steps back.  it's all part of my master plan.

 i came home and read this poem.  and felt better.

thanks anna maria for pointing me in the direction of charles simic.  he's a wonderfully strange  person.  and everyone knows i love the weirdo poets the best of all.  my bretheren.

 

My Turn To Confess

A dog trying to write a poem on why he barks,
That's me, dear reader!
They were about to kick me out of the library
But I warned them,
My master is invisible and all-powerful.
Still, they kept dragging me out by the tail.

In the park the birds spoke freely of their own vexations.
On a bench, I saw an old woman 
Cutting her white curly hair with imaginary scissors
While staring into a small pocket mirror.

I didn't say anything then,
But that night I lay slumped on the floor,
Chewing on a pencil, 
Sighing from time to time,
Growling, too, at something out there
I could not bring myself to name.

by Charles Simic

~

oh and also.  i made arrangements to skip town the second my winter vacation starts.  going here:

elevation 7500 ft.

guess where.

small things that please me

are you watching the x factor?  did you see the burrito slinger fellow sing etta james' at last last night?  did you rewind and watch it over a few times like i did?

 

so good!

i love it when hapless people wander onto the stage and turn out to be shockingly talented.   love it.

and also...

today was a holiday

i got new ikea curtains for my living room {that fill the room with light}

ate huevos del valle de guadalupe at cacao for breakfast

my 29 little monsters are becoming slightly more civilized

tomorrow's friday 

the x factor is on again tonight

the end.

so long sunday

A special someone sent me a whole package of tiny vintage postcards from Budapest.  I'm using them as tabs on some pages.  I'll add some writing to this one later.

If you're in the FTB class, I made this journal kind of the way I made my Inspiration Journal.  Also like the Hidden Binding journal...Except I used one of those old photo scrapbooks from the 30's and 40's that are all over ebay.  You know the kind with the tie on the side?  Black pages on the inside.  I cut that long rectangular cover in half.  

Half of it is the front cover and the other half is the back.  It's leather embossed chipboard.  I think.  Those old scrapbooks have so much delicious potential!  And they are ridiculously inexpensive.  I might make another inspiration journal from the back cover.

Good thing I made my elastic closure really loose.  It fits perfectly now and won't get all stretched out.  I'm still stuffing photos in, but I'm nearly done.  I'll post better pics of each double-sided spread once I'm completely finished.