Into the desert

So back to that crazy adventure day a couple weeks ago. Early in the day, we walked around an abandoned hotel on the odiferous Salton Sea, with many compelling artifacts, like this aforementioned skateboarder's paradise of a swimming pool.



We snuck around inside the hotel, avoiding a very intimidating bunch of birds that had taken up residence. And then we went to this beach where a community had basically been given the boot by the sea. Salton Sea is extremely salty, and will do a real number on your car if you just leave it lying around nearby for a few years.

Frank and I took pictures of each other.





While Patrick took pictures of the windy sea.



And then we marched off to Salvation Mountain.



Where Frank and I climbed to the top — and that mountain is about three stories, enough to inspire some high anxiety. I really didn't want to fall on my butt and roll down over the bumpy, painted clay letters of LOVE to my death.



A lot of paint goes into this guy's project.



Tons of people visit it every year, and the mountain and Slab City, which the mountain is like a gateway to, were recently featured in the movie Into the Wild. I was 100%, so fully a tourist there. Being out in the desert, totally dependent on a car, I gotta say, it's amazing I wasn't BUGGIN'. I mean, of course I was buggin', but I wasn't like, BUGGIN'-buggin'.

The muddy truth of it all

Damn, I miss my homey Frank now that I'm back in the big city. The mad adventurous day that he and Patrick took me on, touring the highlights of the Salton Sea, was so unforgettable and so epic, it will take a couple more posts of the highlights to explain it.

We'd driven to a cool place or two (a date farm, with tons of date samples to munch on and frothy ice cream date shakes to consume, and an abandoned seafront hotel with a skateboarders' paradise of a pool all grafittioed up? HEAVEN!) and then we were driving down a long, dusty desert road when suddenly Frank stopped the car and Patrick jumped out with his camera. Before I knew it, Patrick was running around taking tons of pics of all these little, gurgling mud volcanoes. He ended up with amazing photos like this one:



Slo mo mud splotch! Meanwhile, Frank took pictures like these, in which he thinks I ended up looking "totally hot!" Oh, yes, I am so incredibly HAWT.



You can get a sense of Patrick's enthusiasm for the volcanoes from these pics, I think. He was totally entranced.



Aw, man. It's hard living far away from people you're nuts about.

Underwater awesomeness

I went to Palm Springs last week to hang out with my BF-freakin'-F Frank, but first we stopped at the Los Angeles aquarium in Long Beach. And that was fun, you know, fish really are amazingly inspiring, so colorful and unique, and sea otters are really, really cute — even all the billions of school kids around us were showing varying strains of cuteness. But then, suddenly, we noticed this one exhibit — and it didn't have any signs explaining what it was — we just saw them, these crazy-looking what, sea worms?



Have you ever seen anything like these guys? We certainly hadn't.



They were just hanging out in the pebbles like that, but then when fish swam by they'd all suddenly shrink down, and when the coast was clear they'd rise back up again, like little musical instruments.

I really can't say enough about how magical and Dr. Suess-y they were. They reminded me of Richard Scary's excellent apple-eating, one-sneaker-wearing Lowly Worm.

Here's another image of Lowly, hanging out with the equally memorable Huckle Cat. (Look at the fun this worm and cat have together with just a simple basket of apples. Impressive!)

But it turns out they're NOT worms. They're EELS! Garden eels, to be exact. WOW. Here's a clearer picture of some that apparently live in some random aquarium somewhere.

Man. I pretty much thought I'd seen it all underwater-wise, which doesn't really make any sense since I've never even snorkeled. But you know, I'm an obnoxious New Yorker. Well, these eels humbled me, people. I really haven't seen it all, underwater-wise. I need to get with some snorklers, and quick.

Travis Millard

I thought Julie Doucet drew these amazing portraits, but aha. They're by a dude named Travis Millard. My mistake!

They're from a catalog of a UK comics exhibition that Erica got me for my birthday. (Thanks, Erica!)

So genius. This second one is the image I kept thinking of when I'd hear someone gleefully say February was over. I love February! I love winter! I know, it's weird, but there you have it.

I can stare at both these illustrations for a very long, appreciative time.

Also, it's impossible to post today without mentioning that dumb effing idiot Eliot Spitzer. WTF?! I mean, W-T-flying-F?!

New t-shirts

These two kooky kids took a moment from their busy schedule of karate class and trampoline jumping to show off their new t-shirts, inspired by this post.



YAY! NEW T-SHIRTS!

Birthday shrug

It was my birthday last week, and, despite being completely shocked and stunned that I'm suddenly 39 effing years old (w-h-a-a-t??), I was thrilled to receive the amazing gift of a handmade shrug from my sister Brook.



This maybe isn't such a great show-off-your-new-shrug shot. But these pics were taken on my actual birthday, so they're at least very authentic in that sense. Brook has always been the mad talented knitter of crazily dope garments. She made this one from a pattern in this book.



"That's right, I said I'm 39 years old! And I just get better with time, like the fine wine in the summertime. And I know it looks like I'm totally holding this cat hostage, but I'm so not!"