playing catch-up

so so SO much going on right now!

saw the walkmen at the beachland last thursday night, coffinberry and cass mccombs opened (coffinberry blew me away) and the walkmen were A-MAZING. seriously. i've never heard a voice that powerful and clear and intimate in person. get their newest album, you & me, on vinyl here.





my birthday was tuesday (thank you everyone, I have THE best friends ever) so things have been pretty much a joyride for the last week. we had a crew together on saturday night at bier markt and it was perfection. tuesday we did cake and prezzies at my mom's really quickly before heading to the house of blues to see the yeah yeah yeahs (when better to see them then on your bday?!). my amazing sister surprised me with a BRUCE CAKE since I wasn't getting an actual Bruce (my pre-imagined puppy companion, who will happen someday.) isn't this cake insane??



she works at the bay village dairy queen, go get her to make you a cake!! so after waiting what seemed like forever, the show at the HOB finally started, amanda blank opened and was totally awesome, I'm hooked on her now. YYYs killed it, I love karen o, she will always be an idol of mine, and I was so psyched she wore her custom-studded leather jacket that she wore in the 'zero' video.







fun times, and doing more in the cleve this weekend! more to come.

but only if you're a little bit in la la la la love with me

love this dreamy vid, not to mention her, and her amazing voice.

philly & delaware

hi friends!

back from delaware, which was full of sun, fun, lots of walking, and fresh seafood. spent the day in philly on saturday, super neat place...didn't really go "downtown" but went around the historic district (which is strange, you kind of forget that American BEGAN there. neat to see how everything started) then hopped over to south philly to test out the age-old cheesesteak battle between geno's and pat's. pat's won by A LOT. perfectly delicious. I feel like geno's rips you off on the meat. it lacks a punch, you know? 

these doors reminded me so much of bay village

took a carriage ride through philly with our gallant steed, caesar!

bad spellers, our founding fathers were.

pat's goodness.

many of these for dinner, mmm...

now I'm home in the rain and back to things. trying to work out my job situation and it's pretty much just a game of patience and planning. who knows. hopefully the sun will come back out and I'll forget about it all!

hi, I'm in...delaware...

really. I am. I'll be back monday. see you then!

holy wow

Passion Pit - The Reeling


Love this song and love it even more in this video...the rip and tear animation and grittiness is perfection.

cleveland rocks—so does time off.

honestly, I've been doing nothing for the last few weeks (at least what productive people call "nothing"—although I beg to differ). I've been sketching, sunning, hanging, dancing...doing everything that doesn't require work and effort. and you know what? I LOVE IT. obviously being unemployed is not anyone's ideal situation, but I'm starting to think that I was supposed to have this time off, whether I like it or not (because let's face it, I'm having fun, but I'm broke as shit and that definitely limits my fun-having. but I'm getting more creative at making fun! so you see the joy in this). I've been doing some personal exploring through sketching, writing, thinking on the beach, staring at the clouds, waking up and seeing where the day takes me. it's a feeling money can't buy. it's been a contemplative time, because I can stop and think about what I really want. I've been reconnecting with friends, spending more time with family, spending more time listening, more time paying attention. fully dedicating myself to each new album I come across and falling in love with it while I work at my desk or enjoy the sand underneath me. really getting into the nitty gritty of cleveland life and finding out more each day about what our city is supposed to be about. here are some bits from my lost summer (so far).

my typical daily view at rocky river beach (usually accompanied by dogs, miss mercedes, a cooler, magazines, and gossip)

ernie giving his best gremlin expression

white and red sangria, meghan starr style

reggae sunday fun at whiskey island's sunset grill

the boats docked at whiskey

myself, mark, mercedes and hayley at whiskey

I woke up to this on my back porch light as well as a french maid's costume sprawled across the hood of my car on sunday morning, thanks to my cousin allie & her friends. they punked us good! this is still hanging up, I think it's kind of festive, right??

i hope this lasts more than a few weeks

I recently acquired a GIANT bag of reese's pieces (not revealing my sources...let's just say people KNOW me too well) and I think it was the happiest day of my life. I'm really hoping I can muster up the willpower to NOT sit on the couch and devour the entire bag while watching Gossip Girl reruns. So far it's been about a handful a day...at this rate, I think it can last a month?? An interesting experiment indeed. If you're interested, I guess I can share :)

i wish you would

If you haven't seen Ryan Adams (with/without the Cardinals) YOU HAVEN'T LIVED.

quail

i have moments

p.s. I hate how small these images are. I should fix this...