Like a Leaf is to a Tree, So Fine.

I'm running into trouble keeping this blog. Mainly I want to post photos and blurbs but I also am sometimes tempted to treat it as a journal. I have too much to say lately but it's all pretty much on the same few subjects. Sometimes I tire of talking and I wish I could be silent and let the wind and the sea be the only sounds I hear, but then not everyone I know wants to sit and be silent with me, so I continue to talk about things that do not matter, and I find myself saying the same things over and over to different people every day. Why do people feel the need to constantly fill up that silence with words? What frightens them so much about sitting quietly with someone? I have never known a purer, sweeter peace than that which exists in the wordless moments I share with friends or lovers. The last couple weeks I have found myself wanting more than anything just to share silences with people. Luckily I have been able to here and there...but then, one of those people I only get to talk on the phone with, the other I can talk on the phone with until Tuesday, and the last I don't get to see frequently and won't get to after Tuesday anyway. This whole moving process has been making me much sadder than I could have anticipated. I am trying to keep a handle on my emotions but it is proving increasingly difficult.

Onward and upward, I suppose...here are some pictures!

 

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Photo by the ever-incredible David Winge. 

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Photo by David Winge.

 

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Photo by David Winge.

 

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David and I!

Frog skeleton.

My sister Allegra. "Take a picture of me with the frogs!!"

The Borneo Eared Frog!

Unidentified cuties.

My sisters playing some crazy game in the activity room at the aforementioned frog exhibit.

Lord, I have dozens more photos I should post, but I'll stretch them out into more entries...for now I would just like to end this post by stating how sick I am of being sick. I haven't ridden a bike in like two weeks and I'm completely unable to sing because I just start coughing and then I can't breathe. Grr.

More to come soon.

deviantART Douchebag

Ooh, my first lascivious comment pertaining to a tasteful piece of art I posted! Let's watch.

This was in response to this photo:

 

Our exchange:

 

  

 

Seriously?! It's true, his page is NOTHING but pictures of his cat! And a couple of his fan or his room! And all of his favorites ARE naked women! Ughh so skeezy. I hate these fuckers that create a deviantArt account just to gawk at nude art. Don't they know that's what porn is for?? I wonder if deviantArt lets you report people...

Gems

More amazing photos from my shoot with David Winge last Sunday. We're shooting again on the 24th, just a few days before I leave, and I couldn't be more thrilled, but also so sad to be leaving such an amazing photographer and grand fellow adventurer. Ah well, just means I will have to come back and visit, and/or he'll have to come out to Austin :)

 

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I can't pick! I can't choose! They are all brilliant and I'm so overwhelmed with how wonderful they are. I have never felt so beautiful or so free, nor have I been so pleased to be involved in nude modeling. Simply fantastic.

There and Back Again

Been a little bit behind on updating this week, whoops. I was in Austin from the 8th to the 12th looking for a place to live. And I found one! In roughly two weeks I will be moving into a room in the cutest little house on the east side, a mere 5 miles from Adam's house. Such a relief. I was getting pretty stressed out about trying to find a place, but it was a lot more worry-free than I anticipated. Well, not entirely worry-free, but I definitely freaked out more than I needed to. Now that everything has been cemented I just need to start packing up all my stuff and selling off all my furniture. Unfortunately, upon returning home from Austin I came down with a really nasty bug (Adam was sick while I was out there, boo) and so feel like I'll be laid up for several days. Hopefully it passes through quickly though, I had to miss work today and reeaally can't afford to be doing so any longer than I already have...ah well.

I didn't take very many pictures on this trip - it was pretty cold and rainy the entire time I was there, so we didn't get the chance to do a lot of exploring. We did, however, discover a new facet to rock-collecting! Adam has an impressive rock collection, and mine is growing in size, and we had both been reading rock identification books which suggested that purchasing a geological hammer for smashing specimens was a good idea. I think we were both against this notion at first, being worried about destroying pretty rocks...however, we soon discovered that smashing then was indeed a great activity! Rocks that look totally normal and unimpressive on the outside often contain the craziest internal structures. One of the rocks we broke open contained blue agate; many others had chert or some kind of weird crystals inside. Needless to say, our scientific experiment was a success. Oh, and we looked fashionable doing so too (safety first).

 

 

Definitely naptime now...I have a ton of pictures from David Winge for y'all though, as well as photos of big kitties from the Shambala Preserve and some other goodies that I'll put up in the next week or so.

DESERT.

This is going to be brief since I'm exhausted from gallivanting around in the desert for 9 hours and have to wake up at 6 am tomorrow...BUT. Today was unbelievable in absolutely every sense. I just had to throw up some pictures here before I take off for the week. I got to visit several places I have never been to today, including some neat parts of Joshua Tree, the Salton Sea, beautiful sand dunes, Box Canyon, and Anza-Borrego Desert. A perfect day that resulted in amazing images, a few of which you can see below!

 

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Joshua Tree. Photo by David Winge .

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Joshua Tree. Photo by me.

 

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Box Canyon. Photo by me.

 

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Salton Sea. Photo by me.

 

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Salton Sea. Photo by me.

 

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Somewhere near the Salton Sea? Photo by me.

 

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Anza-Borrego. Photo by me.

 

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Anza-Borrego. Photo by me.

 

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Joshua Tree. Photo by  David Winge . He's amazing!

Off to bed now, off to Austin tomorrow. YES.

Legionnaire's Lament

Sweet Jesus, it's early! The sun won't even be up for another hour or so. I don't think I've woken up this early in years, and certainly I can't remember the last time I woke up at this hour and actually wanted to, haha. It's going to be so beautiful out in the desert though and I can't wait!

After all our desert activities I get to come home and finish (start) packing for Austin. I'll be there from Monday till Friday visiting with my sweetie and trying to find a place to live. Wednesday will be super hectic but hopefully fun. I'm already getting nervous about meeting with people but I know it's not going to be as bad as my brain thinks it will be. I seem to be hitting a lot of little rocks in the road as far as planning this move is concerned, but ultimately it's more nerve-wracking than discouraging, and I know that I'll get out there one way or another - after the last few weeks there is no way in hell that anyone could convince me to stay in Orange County any longer. My dad keeps asking me if I'm sad to be leaving and if there's anything I'll miss. I can honestly say that there's nothing I'll miss about Orange County except my family. California itself, on the other hand, I will miss. I'll miss the Pacific Ocean and the tidepools and the rocks all up the coast from Laguna Beach to Mendocino. I'll miss San Luis Obispo, my pen pal Aram there, and Bel-Frites (ahhh damn you Bel-Frites!). I'll miss the huge variety of terrain, from the mountains to the desert to the ocean and the forest and lakes, and all the scenery I never got to visit here - but I'm sure that I'll be back. I had a bunch of adventures I wanted to take before I left town but I simply don't have the means financially to go taking a trip anywhere. Ah well, this move will definitely be enough of a trip, especially if I'm able to drive out there after all instead of taking a plane.

Lord, I can't wait to see this man again:

 

He has brought so many wonderful things into my life (along with his amazing self) and I am so thankful to have him by my side through all this. I am itching to find myself back in his arms and wandering up creek beds with him looking for pretty rocks and fossils...

I suppose I should get off this thing and go get ready now. I gotta remember to stop and pick up some film along the way. I'm so excited that this is my last real California adventure as it's going to be simply amazing!

I would also like to add that I've been really fond of Castaways and Cutouts recently, and you should listen to this song off of it:

Decemberists - Legionnaire's Lament 

So good, so close to what I feel.

The sky is all blue now...I just checked the forecast for Joshua Tree and the high for today is 48. I hope the sun comes out to warm my skin, it gets cold out there when yer naked!

Lord, I don't know if I'll ever be back again.

Decided to get a blog back up and running and gave up on wordpress and my photo blog over there since I haven't updated it in like 10 months. All my photo links were broken so rather than fix them I just moved it here! Hopefully I'll be posting a larger variety of stuff here (and not one million pictures at once).

Things are strange right now; beautiful but scary, certain yet uncertain, sunny and raining all at once. I'm in the process of moving to Austin and it is stressful but invigorating and I absolutely can't wait till I'm all settled there. Plans are kind of going wrong left and right but I'm confident that everything will work out the way it needs to eventually and that I needn't be all too worried or freaked out, even though it's easy to fall deep into those feelings. I've been occupying my time with a lot of modelling work in the last week or so and that is bringing a welcome breath of fresh air into my lungs and my interest in photography. Modelling is inspiring and challenging and has been motivating me to get off my ass and shoot more, and also to start looking into investing in a better camera. It's time to get a DSLR already and maybe a couple of nice lenses and also experiment with models. I just generally need to get out more and focus on composing good pictures. I'm going out to Joshua Tree on Sunday with photographer David Winge and plan on bringing my Rebel as well as my digital. I really like shooting film and haven't done it for a while, I'd like to get used to it again so I can sell my digital and use that as a savings base for a DSLR, and just use my film camera in the space inbetween new digital cameras. I feel like I've begun an entirely different chapter in my life, and while it's new it is still familiar and full of beauty; my heart is so open to all the love and positive influences that I have recently been fortunate enough to find, and I am so at peace with myself even though the waves are rough sometimes.