well, it’s that time again.. time to look back on another year gone by, time to wish for certain moments to come back or certain ones to be forgotten; to somehow relive those times that seemed too good to be real and to quietly erase the ones that make the heart ache just a little.

but as i think back on the kind of year i’ve managed to have, i’m pretty blown away by all of the pure and utter amazingness that’s come my way.  from the incredible people i’ve met and become close to, to the things i’ve somehow managed to accomplish, i’d say it’s been one of the best years i can remember in a looong time.  

musically speaking, i can hardly believe that it was just a mere eleven months ago that i played my very first show ever with the amazing mutual benefit and holy spirits (r.i.p.) on our mini tour up the coast.  it’s been an incredible hurricane of awesome since then.  as i started to write it all down, i couldn’t help but feel a massive amount of thankfulness for being able to experience what i have, and for the people who made it all possible.  how in the HELL did i manage to- 

-play my first show ever
-collaborate with over TEN amazing and beautiful musicians on various projects/tracks
-release my first ever (and very homemade) ‘album’
-play an unofficial showcase at SXSW
-play in the amazing first annual goldrush music fest
-play in FMLY fest (which is today!)
-go on tour with chrome sparks <3
-play at CMJ with chrome sparks in NYC
-release my first ever 7” vinyl thru the amazing JAXART
-release a second 7” vinyl thru the amazing turntable kitchen pairings box 
-learn more than i ever thought possible

seriously.  i truly could not have asked for a better year.  and more than anything, i’ve met and come to love so so many amazing and talented people along the way who i truly consider some of the best humans i know.  so thank you all for ruling so hard at life and for making me better at what i love doing.  

now if i could just get a job or figure out a way to get paid doing all the above things enough to sustain living.. haha, there’s always next year, right? :D

lovebombs to you all.  and here’s to yet another hell of year ahead.. 

it’s a simple beat really. but it has a way of completely pulling you to pieces. when you’re a kid you don’t have all this weight filling you up, taking up all the empty nooks and crannies inside your brain and your heart and pouring all the way down your limbs until they feel too heavy to even lift. when you’re a kid you just move freely and lightly and everything seems pure; untouched and weightless. and then the vocals come in, and your arms and legs open up and it all comes pouring out.. and somehow we become kids again.

our weekend was this song. bare feet and dirty toes, legs hanging from rooftops. our hearts being thrown all over these walls and into parts of the sky that we didn’t even know existed. it was open fields and secret hideouts and laughter that makes your eyes water.

i never want this song to end.

you just got destroyed again.  you’re head is still intact.  i think it might have just exploded last night.  you couldn’t even feel the rest of your body you know, not even your cold feet.  but the pictures in the back of your thoughts still showed up nice and bright, smashing against the sides of your skull.  what is with the insides of that head of yours, anyway?  but you’re still alive.  still breathing.  still beating.  still seeing.  you’re awake.  you’re not in love, but you just might be.. with everything.  is that even love?  you love love.  you’re not alone.  it’s just another day.  you don’t know much, but these things you know are true.  now get up.

that’s what i woke up thinking to myself this morning.  and no, i don’t usually talk in second person.  i’ve been all out of sorts today.  last night i had the migraine to end all migraines.  i wonder sometimes if my migraines are physical manifestations of what’s going on mentally or emotionally in me.  like maybe trying to reign in all these wild, half processed, tangled thoughts of mine into something sensible is just too much for my head and heart to handle.  i doubt it, but it’s a possibility.  it sure does shut me up for a few days though.  writhing face down in the corner of your bed can shut you up pretty good.

and in the quiet i always see the same things.  funny how such joy and such pain could exist in this very same spot.  we walk away with bigger hearts, but we’ve bruised them all up with each other.  and such truth on our lips, our mouths working so earnestly together, and we still don’t know what we really want to say.  tangled limbs, trying to find our ways around all of this.  none of this makes sense.  and curled up in a little ball, i’ll revisit it all by myself.  my head screaming in agony each time i breathe in.  out.

and summer’s bursting at the seams.  i need those long nights where the sun goes down at 8pm and the windows blow soft air over my uncovered skin.  i need bright colors and loud smiles and soaring hearts.. all running through my veins.

now get up.

needle in the hay//elliot smith

last night i was talking to my little bro.  he’s 17.  i was talking to him about life and love; imparting my great wisdom upon him regarding these all important topics, when slowly the tables turned.  i started telling him about my own heartache as of late, about how i always hate how certain things have to change and how it hurts my heart having to wait for the passage of time to heal it all.  i suddenly reverted back to my own teenage years, turning into the same insecure little girl i was in the seventh grade, wondering if any boy will ever truly see me or if it will ever get any easier.. and poor brother just listened.  then, as i finished my winding tale of self pity, he just looked at me and said, ‘that’s just life.  you can’t just sit around waiting for something to happen that’s not going to happen, or might happen.  you just have to keep living it.’

i kind of hated him for saying that, haha.  even though i’ve been telling myself the same thing for years, it was different coming from someone so untainted by life’s harshness.  and i heard it in a completely new way.  that IS life.  it doesn’t always work out how we’d hoped, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less exciting to live.  i knew this already too.  time doesn’t stop for us to ‘get better’; we have to keep letting it pass in order to let it help us heal.  essentially, the only thing we can ever do is to keep living.  i was reading an article in the opinion section of the new york times yesterday.  it was about living ‘for the time being’.  one thing he said was this:

‘living is that, not building up an identity or a set of accomplishments or relationships, though of course we do that too. but primarily, fundamentally, to live is to embrace each moment as if it were the first, last, and all moments of time.’

basically… just live.  LIVE.  i get so tripped up at times because i’m too busy living in a moment that i can’t ever get back; living off of a misconstrued sense of happiness based on a person or a thing, rather than the moments that are true, the moments that are right in front of me.  and while my heart in the matter is good, it just keeps me from living with my eyes fully open.  brother was right.  that’s just life, you have to keep on living it.  no matter what moments may come our way.  things will go awry.  things will hurt.  other things will surprise us and delight us.

‘but it is impossible that things will always work out, impossible to avoid pain and discomfort. so to be happy, with a happiness that doesn’t blow away with every wind, we need to be able to make use of what happens to us — all of it — whether we find ourselves at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea.’

my heartache is just another moment.  i can let it take me to the mountaintop or i can drown with it at the bottom of the sea.

but i’d much rather let it fling me into the sky and cause me to fly.  learning to make every single moment take me to the mountaintop.. that is how i want to live.

i called my sister at lunch today.  sometimes there’s just nothing like a sister.  it’d just been one of those mornings… where my heart was breaking and my world seemed too big to know how to handle, for various reasons.  trying to sit at a desk where i’m so terribly unstimulated doesn’t help either.  my mind and my heart seem to get the best of me when left to myself too long.  i couldn’t see the sun and i needed a friend, a soul mate, to remind me that it was still there and that everything was ok.  and it was.

and i got to thinking, while talking with her, about how amazing it is that we as human beings are so resilliant.  what i mean is, we go thru life doing our best to find meaning in the things we do, the things we love, and we are constantly having to adjust and rebuild and continue on.  our hearts get broken, we lose best friends, we hurt people we don’t want to hurt, we fall in love,  we fall out of love, we have babies, we create beautiful things, we lose people and things we were never meant to live without.. and yet, we keep on living.  our hearts repair themselves and grow bigger, and we keep on living.  and it just makes me wonder how our hearts don’t rip themselves right out of our chests and leave us empty?  but that’s just the thing; we were made for this.  we were made to love many things, and loving many things means we will hurt in between.  and as i was sitting there in the sunshine, talking to my sweet sister, wondering how my heart would ever recover, i realized i would be just fine.. i would keep on living.  and loving.  and right in that moment an old man walking with who i am assuming was his wife, passed by me, looked at me and smiled, raised his palms and his head to the sky as if to say ‘just look at this beautiful world we live in, isn’t it gorgeous?!’, looked back at me and just kept on living.  it was beautiful.  life is beautiful.  hurting like this is beautiful.

i’m alive.  and that’s enough for now.

the candle is burning. the clock is blinking because of the fuse i blew this morning. a spider is on the wall. i hate spiders. the music is playing. a strum, a strum. a strum diddly umm. and i write this song…

you and me are two people
who like to sing songs
you and me are two people
who like to get along

i am tall, you are short
but you don’t seem to mind
and you know i would like you
even if you were blind

you and me, you and me
we go together like a pair of peas
you and me, you and me
we go together like a pair of peas


there’s a monster in my closet, so i open the door and step inside. you can’t know the fear until you get to know it better. so we walked out hand in hand. i killed that spider, so you know. i’m getting older, and i think wiser. don’t worry. i won’t get too comfy. that happens and i never want to move; never want to get up. but the sun is rising and my eyes are shining. love has torn me apart. i love how this smile feels on my face.

you and me… we go together like a pair of peas, Life. oh pain, oh joy, oh light, oh dark, oh me, oh mess, oh love.. oh LIFE. i was walking, and singing this song…

doo doo a diddy
la la a doo-op do dee
you and me
we go together
coo coo a chim cha-ree