Wow.

First noticed this on a friend's link and had to share:

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent." She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

Let it happen to you. Life is in the right, always. - Rilke

Show Me Show Me Show Me Show Me

I love Dexter and Mad Men. Sigh. They are always, always a good time. I'd even say that they're art.






Oh yeah, and True Blood. Guilty pleasure.



The end.

The Redwood Forest

So, you get it going. So, you get it gone.

We're driving to the redwood forest today. We are driving to the redwood forest today. It sounds...enchanting. Like a fairy tale. I've been there before, but still, the redwood forest played with my mind, the light disappeared before it was supposed to. There were other worldly turns. I was by myself. Maybe this time it will be different.

Nature can do that to you. And life.

Sacramento was surprisingly fun!

Next stop: Up north. More so.

Joy.

WELCOME TO KYBURZ/NOW LEAVING KYBURZ

And so it is.

Aren't leaving places so much fun?

We're constantly leaving places, we're constantly avoiding getting stuck. Whatever that means. I felt rather sick yesterday. My stomach was all out of wack. I curled up in a ball and tried to think.

So, mountain towns...did you know they're all made of wood?

We passed Kyburz on the way out. Kyburz was so small that the Welcome and Leaving signs were on one white metal sheet.

WELCOME TO KYBURZ/NOW LEAVING KYBURZ.

That's what it said. We had left before we had even entered the town! There were one or two convenience stores, too.

My horoscope said I have to plan out the future and September is my month for planning. So. Contingency plan. First, we must go into the unknown. Then we must sing for the sparrows. Bear Box! Houses in Lake Tahoe have bear boxes! (So the bears don't get into the trash.) And there's all this outdoor stuff you have to do if you're in Tahoe. Like, go camping on your two days off! And drink milkshakes at Echo Lake! And hike up mountains! And go on 72 hour bike rides!

Also, people were coming from far and wide to see the lake for Labor Day. I can't blame them. It was pretty.

Now we're in Sacramento. M's downstairs watching football with people, I'm upstairs writing. At least...for now...

We're staying at the THUNDERBIRD MOTEL (or rather THUDER TEL since half the neon letters are out on the sign). The office smells like curry and is run by an indian man, and I presume, the rest of his family, by all the shoes that are stacked outside the door. We're in Bishop, California, near Lake Tahoe, which is our next stop. Surprisingly, Bishop has quite a lot of Mexican shops and also the Thunderbird Motel is next to a coffeeshop. Looney's or something like that. Loodles? Or was that in Colorado? It looks like there are some nice places here. They're even playing District 9 and some weepy Cameron Diaz movie in the local theater.

We were going to camp, but then we realized we didn't have any camping gear (except a tent and makeshift sleeping bags). We decided against buying all new stuff just for a few days of camping/wilderness time. I figure going hiking will have to suffice. Now we're heading up to Washington, British Columbia eventually, and then back down to Los Angeles. School starts around September 24th.

I've been buckling down, writing a lot, also taking lots of pictures.

Yesterday we drove through Death Valley. It was so hot that my eyes felt like they were sweating, I couldn't breathe. It felt like being in a sauna, only there was no door to let me out, just sand and sky for miles and miles. No escape. Still, beautiful though, like being on Mars, or as M told me, "You only think this looks like Mars because all the movies on Mars are shot here."

Ha.