My man and I drove up the coast in northern California to a small town called Westport, north of Fort Bragg. The place we stayed at had a lot of whale things, suggestive artwork about getting it on, and an outside snow globe museum (two shelves). My favorite was the one with a brain. My second favorite was a snow globe topped with a small plastic figurine of The Statue of Liberty. It reminds me of one I have, specifically the only snow globe I have. I got it at a sidewalk sale in San Francisco one summer when I lived there. It's Mother Mary holding her hands in prayer, dressed in a pale blue cloak. Her face is two black dots and one red. When I got her four years ago, the globe was full of water, and little white flecks swam around when I shook it. Over the years the water evaporated, and now it's just Mary, air, and a moat of fine powder around her feet. The caption written on the base in gold is smudged. What's left is "Our Lady" :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 11:12 PM

My best friends are getting married. I'm helping with their invitations. What gets me motivated is doing things for people I like. It's hard completing a task unless there's a reward. Like making dinner for yourself, versus dinner for you and someone else. If I don't have something to look forward to, than it's not worth it. When my friends asked me to do some illustrations, I scheduled my deadline to line up with a long flight. At the airport I bought a pen and a notebook. I filled up a few pages on the flight, and then some more on the deck of a house I stayed at with my boyfriend. I draw better with an audience. Not necessarily the over my shoulder kind, but if someone's around, I'll try harder than when I'm alone :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 9:19 PM

Spelling with all capital letters looks like yelling no matter what. I remember a girl named Paulina who would write me texts like that. I'M AT THE BUS STOP. I BROUGHT A PICTURE OF MY BOYFRIEND. She was a student from northern Mexico in my youth exchange program. I had a sleep-over with her once. She smoked on the hour, all night. I got up towards the end of it and slept in the dining room without heat. It was worth it. She was nice, but she only talked about her boyfriend. HE WAS A MODEL. All her pictures were laminated cut-outs from magazines.

posted by Viet Anemi  # 7:16 PM

Here's that JESUS sign. Do you see what I'm saying? The Japanese characters are the red parts in my mind :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 6:34 PM

Puppy time. His name is B :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 5:45 PM

Valentine's Day is upon us. Holidays are awesome conceptually. I'm not into celebrating anything for the sake of it, but I like that they lend an excuse to tell people that I love them. I'm going to try to be a good valentine this year. I've started with a note signed and kissed for my man. It felt good. My Tuesday will be spent helping other people say I love you. My favorite part is writing their cards :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 6:19 PM

I like religious paraphernalia. There's a Jesus sign I have in all capital letters. Someone crocheted it with yarn on a plastic grid, and then gave it to the Salvation Army in my neighborhood. Or they died and someone else gave it away. I saw it and thought it was something written in Japanese. Seems improbable. I'll have to share a picture. If you can imagine, it's red block letters on a white background on one side, and the inverse on the other side. The point is, I hung it on my wall, thinking it was something else. And now it looks like I believe in God, which sounds like something He would arrange :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 6:00 PM

Little pink telephone :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 5:57 PM

Little wooden monkey :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 5:53 PM

I got into taking pictures of people taking pictures. It might be like girls taking pictures of their feet. Remember that part in Lost in Translation? It used to be the only DVD I owned. Not because it's so amazing. It's not perfect, but it's good enough to watch again, and for that reason I borrowed it from a friend. She hasn't asked for it back :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 4:29 PM

Stone floors from a few temples, and the offices on the border of Thailand and Cambodia :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 12:51 PM

I took a trip to Thailand and Cambodia for the holidays. My first time. I saw recycled bottles filled with gasoline for sale on the side of the road, monks with their heads bowed taking soup as offerings, boats colored brightly on the ocean, men selling fruit in bowls laid out on styrofoam sheets in the market, and took-tooks carrying people like cargo. On New Year's Eve I passed two women holding sloths. When they saw that I noticed they held the animals out. They were beautiful and small. "Nooooope," I said and kept walking. There were enough traps like that to avoid. I might have come home with one :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 8:00 AM

Two carrots (once yellow) tied with floss. They've been drying since 2008 :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 10:57 PM

My bathroom floor is made of marble tiles, which is one of two reasons I don't hate the new building I live in. The second reason is that I can hear through my bathtub (sometimes entertaining) price-checks from the Duane Reade below :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 10:42 PM

Here's a pattern made from a pile of carnations I saw on a rack at the flower market. Someone I like a whole lot showed me the good side of these things and I'll never go back. The love affair has spawned others with the likes of mums and gladiolus :

posted by Viet Anemi  # 10:32 PM