WANT
People like me are the reason why a place like Giant Robot exists. They do art exhibits there often, and I’ve bought a few prints and one small painting. Deth P. Sun is my current favorite artist on display over there. This piece is for sale right now, and if I could justify spending $250 on a painting right now, I would snatch it up. His stuff has such a great sense of adventure, exploration, and the unknown.
Diminutive Roommate named it "Boyfriend"
I have a good number of single friends, all really smart, funny, confident, good-looking people who just can’t seem to find another 20-something to appreciate them. It’s such a shame, they’re such cool people. I wish I could find partners for them, not because they’re all miserable on their own, just to make them feel special and cared for. It’s nice to have a special connection with someone, and it bothers me that they don’t have that right now, and haven’t for years. Some of them have tried online dating with mixed, but eventually fruitless results. Diminutive Roommate got an awesome massage chair a while back, and seems very much in love, but it’s a temporary fix.
I hold back about how happy Boyfriend and I are together. I don’t want to rub it in, but things are pretty great between us. He has friends coming into town (they’re quality people) next month; we’re going to Disneyland together! And again, I wish my friends had someone’s hand to hold in line, waiting to ride Pirates. It’s so nice being able to share an experience with someone else who wants to share it with you too. It’s exciting! I wish there were six of me (male and female) so I could ask my friends out, hahaha 🙂 They’re just awesome.
When I first saw this, I thought, “That’s my mom’s handwriting.” It looks just like it. Now I can’t stop wondering.
PostSecret is a really cool idea. People anonymously mail in postcards with their secrets on them. It’s heartbreaking to see how everyone carries around their own burdens so quietly, but it’s therapeutic to know we’re all in the same boat. I feel really alone sometimes, but it seems more and more like I shouldn’t.
My parental units just returned from a trip to Europe to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. They went to Dublin, Ireland (jealous!!), Scotland (jealous!!), and London. Dad took this photo in Edinburgh with me in mind. Check out the cafe sign in. How fortuitous!
not as fun as it looks
Getting scared is just the best. Not really scared, just startled by some jerk friend, or watching a scary movie while some jerk friend makes fun of you for cowering on the couch, or when you’re trying to walk back to your room after turning off all the lights and your roommate’s cat, Calico, goes streaking by, and you think, “HOLY SHIT OMG it’s just the fucking cat. Whew,” so you keep walking down the dark hallway to your room until WHAM! Calico tackles your left ankle with all the force an 8-pound mammal can muster by digging her claws into the carpet and picking up an unearthly amount of speed and hurtling herself toward your legs with enough momentum to drive a rusty nail into a dead tree. Then when you finally manage to stop screaming, you think, “Getting scared is the best.”
My buddy lives in an apartment in the Marina where we usually do our hanging out and game-playing (we’re pretty serious about our table-top/dice/card/strategy/board games). I call his apartment our tree house, so let’s call him Treehouse Friend. Treehouse Friend introduced us to Betrayal at House on the Hill, wherein the players explore a haunted house until one of them is possessed, and everyone else has to survive the possession. Super scary! Sometimes we play creepy music and light candles.
Diminutive Roommate, Teacher Roommate (who teaches ceramics at a local school, can sing opera-style like a pro, and lived with Diminutive Roommate for two years in college) and I are totally obsessed with this game right now for obvious reasons. IT’S AWESOME. Every game is different because there is no preset board your characters play on. As we explore the house (commonly in different directions) we pull from a stack of tiles to reveal each room we’ve discovered, and the various events that happen in this room, or the items we find there. The more we explore, the more likely the haunt will start and the house will cause one of the players to turn traitor and try to kill us all somehow! Best of all there are 50 different haunts to play through, each of which is randomly determined by the events in the room we just explored. It’s a fantastic game. I’m already considering writing my own haunt. Nerd!
"Mmm, yes, quite."
Check out this lady (Queen Beatrix of Netherlands) in her amazing carriage. That’s right, it’s a fucking carriage, complete with horses and all. Yes, that’s real gold covering the coach, and I’d bet my bonnet that whole rig was carved by hand over a hundred years ago. Let’s do some research…
RESEARCH COMPLETE!
The carriage is 112 years old! Apparently this coach has been involved in all kinds of royal shit. When the Crown Princess Beatrix married the German Claus van Amsberg during World War II, there was significant disapproval from the masses: “As the royal pair rode through the streets of Amsterdam in the carriage, smoke bombs exploded. Many photos show the golden coach, bearing the happy couple, emerging from clouds of smoke.” History, you are awesome. Apparently the coach was also involved in “…sexual escapades by members of the Royal Constabulary.” I might have to buy this book to find out in what kind of scandal that carriage assisted (if it ever gets translated into English).
it's the cinderella carriage!
My favorite part: “… the roof had to be raised in order to accommodate voluminous royal hairstyles and hats.” HA! Royalty.
UPDATE: 2:48pm
OMFG it’s her, lol! You can find the original (I’m going to call it a portrait) here, at one of my favorite online comics, Hark a Vagrant.
He was my neighbor for a few years in high school. A nice enough guy, he can do some gymnastics, and was an actor when he lived next-door with another nice, male, actor roommate. And now he is this (whatever that is):
wtf happened
baman... bamanbamanbaman
As I’ve said before, harmless pranks are the best, especially anonymous public ones. If you do nothing else today, enjoy the spontaneous fun people have with signs in public places recorded here on Happy Place.
I need to keep a sharpie handy for just such occasions.
It’s a harsh truth that, as complex as people are, just one or two pertinent questions usually tells us all we care to know about a person. This is true at any age, though the questions change from elementary school to our mid-20s in the following pattern: visual aesthetic, intelligence, personality type, and personal ambition and economic status.
Mid-20s: What are you up to?
Also known as, “Are you currently employed?” this question determines if you’re a self-motivated go-getter and are therefore worth continuing to talk to, or if you’re just some jerk who bounces from job to job, complaining until you inevitably quit.
we're unique because we dress the same!
Where are you living?
In LA, there are only so many places we 20-somethings can afford to live:
Hollywood: I’m fucking poor, but I love the night life (but if you know of something opening up on the Westside, please let me know).
Silverlake: I ride my one-speed to art shows whenever my tight pants permit. I eat pho and anything soy based; if it’s not organic, it’s murder.
Westside: I’d rather pay more rent and have gorgeous weather than save $150/mo to get mugged on my five-block walk from my car to my tiny apartment in K-town.
Culver City: I found that one affordable apartment near downtown Culver. My friends are jealous.
College: What’s your major?
If your answer is Business or Communications, it’s like saying “I don’t know what interests me because I’m too lazy or too thick to be self-reflective,” or “My parents still control my life.” Every other major is awesome in comparison to these conversation killers.
Are you rushing?
This is a question for freshmen, and a contentious one for some. From my perspective:
Yes– You’re as lost as I am, but not confident enough to try this “college” thing out before attaching yourself to a group of people who look just like you.
Nah– I approve.
No way– What are you doing for lunch? Let’s be friends.
High school:
Are you taking any APs this year?
If you weren’t in at least one AP class, you were one of those kids. My friends were smart, and we had egos to match. I’m not proud of it, but intellectual prowess was (and still kinda is) like a currency to buy the approval of our peers.
this is the face of judgement
Elementary school: What’s your favorite color?
I wish we could still ask people this. It would be so telling.
Blue– not creative enough to think of another color
Green– one step up from blue, you decided you like plants (hippy)
Yellow– I can bully you later
Purple– you like dumb stuff like unicorns, and you’re nice to everyone
Black– the coolest person you know is your older (teenage) sibling
Brown– liar, no one likes brown more than blue
Orange– we should be friends
Red– you’re going to disrupt class later (it’s gonna be awesome)
I took an Art History class on the ancient Maya in college, and fell in love. What an amazing culture. They built pyramid temples so steep that tourists have been known to die from the fall… recently. Their writing style is so creative and artistic that the word for “art” and “script” are the same. One glyph features a face with blood flowing in the place of a missing jaw (yikes!). Their calendar is just like ours, only better because it has four days of rest at the end of every year. They were a complex and highly civilized people who loved wearing heavy stone (jade) jewelry and flattening their foreheads just like the rest of us. There are even small pockets of their descendants living in Mexico today. Living relics!
So. Imagine my surprise when I discovered Sarah Michelle Gellar to be a member of their dwindling population.
above: indisputable proof
WTF, Buffy?! Can’t trust your fans with your AMAZINGLY BRUTAL HERITAGE? Where is the trust? *sigh*
Be Random, Be Clear 