Over the weekend, I got to go to Utah during Sundance. A majority of this film festival is held in Park City, which from what I could gather, is a tiny town on the top of a snowy mountain with one main street strip that was built by elves for wealthy people who love furry shoes, porcelain naked grandmother dolls, Navajo Indians, and a challenging parking situation.

Park city had no parking, so our car load of people left the car at the bottom and took a full bus up this hill. The air was so cold and the fog was so thick, that the windows of the bus were too fogged to look out of. I passed the time writing words on the glass with my fingertip in half hopes that it would fog up before someone could read it.

We walked around in the snow. Slid our wet shoes around an empty mall. Ate candy that came on sticks. Went to a show where a 12 year old played covers of C+C Music Factory with her violin. Made monsters out of pizza crust. I mixed different Pepsi products in hopes of creating the perfect beverage. I tried making a note into a piece of origami with no idea what I was doing. I had a great day in a completely foreign place.

On the bus ride back down the hill, the snow was too treacherous and so we had to get out and take a long walk the rest of the way, in the ice and snow. I anticipated being cold and tired and walking for far longer than my physical state would allow.

About 5 minutes of following the path of slow moving people, slush, and unexpected puddles, I began to wonder why no one was breaking in all of the fresh white snow that lined the lawns along the sidewalks. I jumped into dust-like snow that went up to my knees and began to cause harmless destruction upon nature. Soon enough, my friends joined in and we shoved each other into beds of snow. Once our hands seemed numb enough to not understand how cold it was, we made snowballs and threw them down the street aiming at each other but hitting innocent grumpy pedestrians and extremely cynical children, along the way.

We made snowballs from the fluffy white snow, the muddy shoe stomped snow, the compacted snow on car windshields, even bricks of glorified ice that were almost to heavy to throw and able to give you a concussion. We ran down the entire path laughing at someones misfortune when the got hit, then laughing even harder to see that snow covered face laughing back at you, laughing at them.

When we reached the car nearly an hour later, it seemed like 5 minutes had passed, I was freezing cold while sweating, I had no idea how we found our way, and my entire everything ached from smiling for so long. Which pretty much sums up how I feel at the end of every adventure I’ve gone on, so far, this year.

I had never gotten in such an epic snow ball fight before. I loved every moment of it.

Here’s some other things I love about life, right now:Taking group photos while people prepare for group photos

Colorful shoe laces

Making up imaginary suggestions

goodbye hugs from new acquaintances

Finding out that someone can juggle. (I bet you know more jugglers than you think you do)making silly faces back and forth with babies

Big warm layers of clothingSharing

Kissing a bearded face

Finding the perfect ray of sun to stand in for warmth on cold daysDrawing out seating arrangements

Being so happy, that I accidently dance (photo thanks to Jason Hudson)

Meeting people through something as petty as finding out that you’re both wearing the same thing

Making a snow bin, when you don’t know how to make an actual snow man

Relaxing in christmas trees that are laid out on the streetHaving someone to draw with

Challenging myself not to laugh at this possum impression

Seats that you can dangle your feet off of

Making a Dio joke, blasting Iron Maiden, and pretending to be metal once in a while

Kicking up snow

Breaking in new boots

Honorable Mentions:

• I Like Lovelys take on my Love Flyers!
• Chocolate coconut water
• Mackerel sashimi thats been seared
• Alex and Daves “&” show
• Re listening to Quasimoto
• When AJ walks me to the train after work.
• Playing a Pandora station and guessing how many songs it’ll take for a certian artist to play. (Example: Only two other bands play on The Smiths station before a Cure song gets played)
• Watching spooky movies with people who scare easily
• Going into a restaurant where they already know your order
• Bite sized foods
• NoBrow coffee in Salt Lake City
• Chasing bouncy balls around
• Being greeted at the airport with a sign
• Falling asleep watching old cartoons
• Looking up record stores in Japan and daydreaming about it for fun
• Sams fancy hand-me-down clothes
• Indie Game: the movie
• this amazing sandwich: grilled chicken, sprouts, basil, hummus, avocado, prosciutto, and mozzarella in.awrap.
• Getting to see Refused play in April!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On New Years eve, Alex was visiting from California. Not having much of a plan, we decided to play a game. We would get on the subway, one of us would pick a number, and that would be the amount of stops that we would stay on that train before transferring.

The guidelines were:

• Avoid ending up in Time Square
• Get pizza
• Don’t go home until we witnessed someone vomiting

It was a complete success!
I wore my favorite ears. We drank mysterious teas at a dimly lit bar that was blaring Marquee Moon. We rescued two balloons from their impending doom of being popped by a pair of stilettos by the end of the night, and took them along on our adventures. We ate pizza at the World Trade Center, when midnight struck. We had a toast and drank our favorite sodas. We got yelled at by the cops for climbing on tall blocks of concrete. We found a glowing pokéball in the Financial District. Alex occasionally leaped over sleeping homeless people. I occasionally cried wolf narcolepsy and fell to the floor of a busy path for a refreshing 10 second nap. We ate more pizza. We watched people from a doorway on Bedford Ave. We made a bum chuckle. We gave our balloons faces and ignored the snickering remarks. We choose a nearly empty subway cart, sat across from a very nauseous looking man, and when he did the inevitable, we went home elated.

I spent so many years listening to my Ziggy Stardust album and building the apocalypse in my head, that I was sure by this time in my life I would be in Tenerife, avoiding raining frogs, aliens, nuclear power plants, and telemarketers.

But as 2011 neared it’s end, I completely forgot about my irrational fear of this year. I was too busy enjoying it. I’ve been enjoying it more than i thought i could, every day since.

Here’s some other things I’ve been enjoying, recently:

Acting like a total airhead for fun

Standing on the yellow line where I bet myself that the subway doors will open

Sitting in the seat closest to a window, in any situation.

Feeling out of place, but not out of order

Listening to Graffiti Monsters after I’ve had too much caffeine

Thinking of how wingless birds would fly

Reppin’, yo!

Blowing huge bubbles with my gum

Getting excited about little things

Poking fun at everything!

Ignoring superstitions

Eating cereal out of mugs

Getting to act like a big kid

The look that dogs get when they think that the person coming out of a store is their owner

Huge bowls of popkorn

The designs put on old baking bowls

Owning records I’ve spent my entire adult life searching for

Making my favorite animal appear in unusual places

Going anywhere here and saying 95% of the time “this is the best pizza in New York”

feeding animals

even if they’re not always hungry

These fingers!

Creating pretend parades

eating nachos with a fork

Finding inappropriate uses for office supplies

the number “zero billion”

Spending quality time with things from long ago/ far away

Using my imagination to make things happen

Honorable Mentions:

• Music playing while taking a shower.
• My semi annual life assessment sessions with Ryan.
• Watching the sunrise from a moving window.
• Alexs review of our Advulture show
• When the elevator is already on your floor.
• Sam using her blog again.
• My grandmas perfect handwriting.
• R. Kellys commentary on Trapped in the Closet
• Having bedtime stories read to me over the phone until I fall asleep, instead of keeping the TV on.
• My wishbone Marc Jacobs necklace from Sam.
• Getting a phone call that ends with the sentence “Ok. I’m getting you the novelty flamingo claw.”
• David Sedaris singing like Billie Holiday.
• Wearing slippers.
• Being emerged in my Own Private I Don’t Know.
• Painting my nails really fun colors when I’m doing really mundane manual labor.
• Successfully training other peoples dogs.
• Nick Krolls voices on Comedy Bang Bang
• Trying to go from a laying to a standing position by doing back bends.
• Receiving records, comic books, and huge bags of candy in the mail.
• NY See
• Having one of the 5 channels my TV receives being the New York public access channel.
• Laughing, and then laughing because of the fact that you can’t stop laughing.
• Sitting on bean bags watching the Muppet documentary, twice in a row.
• Brand new blank composition books.
• Getting an extra hour of sleep on my bus ride to work.
• Calling someone to tell a joke, 5 minutes before their alarm is meant to go off because waking up smiling is awesome.

Happy new year! For me, 2011 was awesome! I got to travel and be introduced to so many amazing new people and new adventures and new music!

Some highlights (and photos I took) in 2011 included:

• Walking around Chicago in the rain
• Trying migas for the first time in Austin, TX
• Jumping on tons of other peoples beds
• Surviving the Rapture
• Surviving Los Angeles
• Having something I started in New York, get displayed all the way in Norway

• Screaming until my throat burnt when Halloween came around
• Having two of my photos put into a gallery show
• Having my photo published in AP magazine
• Teaching myself Illustrator enough to start playing with my food
• Breaking my addiction to Puzzle Quest
• Finally getting a big kid WordPress blog up
• Creating the perfect cookie recipe

• Learning the easiest and most efficient way to clean out a blender without a sponge
• Finding fun things to make out of hand turkeys
• Going to Disneyland twice!
• Learning how to break open a sea urchin and eat its fresh delicious insides
• Being introduced to Death
• Learning how to curl my hair with a flat iron
• Creating a fake religion
• Learning how to let go of jerks

• Finally going to the caves in Malibu
• Showed myself how to make a podcast
• Holding a handstand for more than 5 seconds
• Hiking around the Manson family compound
• Shooting fashion week
• The TV series Episodes

• Learning to draw with light
• Learning how to make .gif files
• Embracing the humor from being sporadic and random
• Being in New York for a hurricane scare, after having lived in Florida
• Singing silly songs
• Dancing silly dances
• Videoing silly videos
• Getting through hard times with the help of packs of cigarettes, whiskey, and Matt
• Getting through my enjoyment for whiskey and chain smoking immediately after that
• Renewing my passport

I’m SO excited about 2012. I’ve been compiling a list of goals for the year. Some are serious but most are silly. I did it last year and didn’t even realize that I not only accomplished almost everything I had written down, but I’ve become in love with the things I challenged myself to do.

One of my goals for 2011 was to order something off of a menu that I couldn’t pronounce. Because of this, I now LOVE guanciale! Now I always find myself ordering unknown things off menus.

Some silly ones for 2012 include:

• Take at 10 photos with my 35mm camera that I’m really happy with
• Try new teas
• Make a new hoodie that fits me perfectly
• Walk around barefoot in a place where I probably shouldn’t
• Do a cartwheel in a different country
• Make something fun with stop animation
• Take pictures of intimidating strangers
• Learn to use a pogo stick
• Play hide and seek with a ton of people
• Take part in an activity thats fun and will make it sweat profusely
• Host an event that involves making invites and party favors

Download: volume 1 side A first disc

Download: volume 2 side B second disc