growing up in this life

Lollipops turn into cigarettes

The innocent ones turn into sluts

Homework goes in the trash

Mobile phones are being used in class

Detention becomes suspension

Soda becomes vodka

Bikes become cars

Kisses turn into sex

Remember when getting high meant swinging on the playground?

When protection meant wearing a helmet?

When the worst things you could get from boys were cooties?

Dad’s shoulders were the highest place on earth and mum was your hero?

Your worst enemies were your siblings

Race issues were about who ran the fastest

War was only a card game

And the only drug you knew was cough medicine

When wearing a skirt didn’t make you a slut

The most pain you felt was when you skinned your knees, and goodbyes only meant until tomorrow?

And we couldn’t wait to grow up...

- David Harty

I wish I could say I wrote it.

However cliche it may sound...I think it puts this side of growing up nicely. Or not nicely depending on how much you enjoy the idea of lollipops turning into cigarettes.

you walk the streets with cigarettes you hand rolled

I had a shocking epiphany a few days ago: summer is going to arrive soon (well after spring that is). After this long, dark, depressing winter I'm eagerly awaiting all things associated with this momentous season. Light, travelling, endless nights, live music playing outside, cottages, romantic beaches, mobs of crazy friends and way too much time on my hands to screw around and plan ridiculously far-fetched trips that never seem to happen. This summer will be different though, as I should hopefully be in the City of Angels for at least a couple of weeks...living life to its extent, pushing boundaries, ditching parents (all that life-changing stuff that restless teenagers are supposed to experience). Although I've never considered summer to be my favorite season, it seems to be the one where I make the most lasting memories.
Aside from the first and last picture (thrown in because they were helplessly sitting around on my laptop crying out for some purpose), all of these photographs were taken by the talented and inspiring photographer Lauren Ward. Hey, I enjoy a little hookah every once in a while. I stumbled upon Lauren's website while engaged in my daily reading of the Urban Outfitters blog, and was so in love with her work that I checked out her personal blog. These shots make me ache for summer, and love, and riots and make me want to get more into photography over the next little while.

NYC/DC pictures from my March Break trip coming soon...
as will some of my writing projects hopefully.

uppers, downers, laughers and screamers

(1: Times Square's undying lights and irrepressible energy, 2: me in a groovy fur coat, 3: cathedral on 5th avenue, 4: my important notice aka stolen poster from Rock of Ages seen that night on Broadway, 5: arlington cemetary, 6: club diner, New Jersey)

Over the March Break, my family and I did a very risky thing. We took a 10 day cross-America roadtrip (hitting NYC, Washington DC, Atlantic City and Connecticuit – visiting cousins), driving time totaling some awfully high number that I don’t want to think about. The truth is that both my parents pride themselves on being “great drivers” but the reality is that my dad is a speed maniac/ignorer of the law and my mom is a rage driver (I packed two sets of headphones to drown out any unpleasant sounds). Luckily Atlantic City and they’re outstanding population of trashy bars made it worth it though. Personally I kind of enjoy driving through random, unfamiliar towns and states, but I knew that embarking on a trip where I’d be physically stuck in a car with both my parents and brother would require some good distractions. So leading up to this adventure, I thought about what would distract me most from the yelling, screaming, sometimes very frustrating, odd assortment of characters that compose my family. So after much thought and a recommendation from a friend, I picked up the book Requiem for a Dream by Helbert Selby Jr. This was the best goddamn distraction I could have picked. More on that later.

Anyways, I got mad into photography on this trip. So much so that every time we passed a new building (in NYC you can imagine that this would be a frequent thing) I felt the need to hustle out my camera and take about seventy pictures. I couldn't even walk continuously because every time I saw something remotely brtilliant I'd have to stop right there on the goddamn spot. One day I'm going to grab my best friends, rent some broken-down, hideous car and just drive. We're going to drive through a bunch of more sleepy towns and big cities and coastal settlements and just take thousands and thousands of blurry pictures.

I speak the truth, I swear

"I wish I could turn the whole wold on...just for a moment."

- Edie Sedgwick

Looking forward to my trip to the City of Golden Dreams this friday!! (found the interesting nickname on google, you guessed it)

I live in a world of psychedelic photographs

I want this in my room, above my bed so when I look up I'll see the past

can this be what the nights are like in LA this summer?

although I'm not a pyromaniac (unfortunately) this looks quite fun

I'd like to think that there's poison in that little flask, and sometimes I'd like to follow it's intructions and drink just a drop to see what it's like

the silver factory

(vintage lace shirt, thrifted band tshirt, winners fur vest & socks, american apparel shorts, stuart weitzman heels)

A while ago back around December I forced my brother to take a few shots of me in this grand getup (those younger brothers do come in handy at times like these). If my memory is not too screwed up I believe I was inspired by a kind of bebe buell-meets-edie sedgewick mood. I found the first shot of Bebe Buell and Stiv Batros online; not only is she stunning (which explains how she got all the rockers), but she always looks like she's just having so much fun with life. Like every day is this wild party kind of fun. If that snapshot of her and Stiv isn't evidence enough of that I don't know what is. So with this devil may care spirit I set out to put on something fun, unpredictable and insupressible. Then for the hell of it I threw on my guitar, which unfortunately is insie its case so you can't really see the pretty color - an old school daphne blue.

This outfit is definite proof that you can have fun with dressing, and everything except the heels was surprisingly affordable. Fur vest included.