PERS ; FROM THIS BURSTING HEART CAN YOU FEEL THIS CHEMISTRY?

writing is not for an audience. writing is not for them, it is not for you, it is not even for us. writing is not for a stranger to connect to my foreign thoughts. writing is not a dedicated letter. writing is innately selfish, it's all for me, me, me. writing is my emotions in disarray on paper, take it or leave it.

i don't know about you but this white window with the ominous 'publish' button at the bottom brings me the most pressure i could ever feel. what runs through your mind as you read my words. how your perception of me changes with every letter. if these words will even get read. how typical or atypical my feelings are. if these are even original thoughts pacing my brain, or simply a guttural spitting out of someone else's ideas shoved deep inside.

i am a person who is downright frustratingly private. you can try and wrench and ply an answer out of me but i have been well-versed in silence since birth. gossip may be a (unfortunate) vice but to talk about me? i was born to be a listener, and no half-assed efforts have changed that, ever.

so this? this is a time, the only time i get to really be egocentric. to abuse the pronoun "i" so much it hurts. and removing the veil of privacy is hard, and to have these words (theoretically) reach so many people i know, even the ones i'm talking about deep inside, well...it's so so vulnerable. the one emotion i hate most.

but remember...writing is not for an audience. and so i'll bite my tongue, paste these words, and impulsively click publish as usual. knowing that you won't read them, but i, i will look back all the same.

playing | "chemistry (original mix)" - 유승찬
photo | ohsweetnuthin ; flickr

FASH ; WILDFOX OVERPASS INTO...

Wildfox Couture Fall 2010: It's Witchcraft from WILDFOX PR on Vimeo.

WILDFOX is just one of those brands that caters almost too impeccably well to the legions of avid Flickr, Tumblr, and Weheartit users. The masses of girls & boys drooling over Nylon spreads and trite Helvetica type. The ones that have desaturating and exposure/offset in Photoshop down to a tee.

After watching the Fall 2010 ad campaign (which was...a nice attempt at being creepy and avantgarde and that Dorion song was perfect, but Lula x Topshop did it best) I took a visit to their website and saw a Korean flag. After the initial double take (girly hipster brands don't just randomly sprout in Korea, or so I thought) it dawned on me that Wildfox, and perhaps the whole nouveau-cliche Tumblr generation as a whole fits in perfectly with the modern Korean girl. There are the same 'edgy' pics on Cyworld, slews of oversized graphic tees (maybe with less sensible English?), a fashion aesthetic of making the most out of the simplest, basic items.

Yes, there are those girls who dress nauseatingly princess-like, but in every photograph, whether in Gmarket or random boutiques, the model has always had the casual hipster image perfected. The easy, relaxing on a Sunday afternoon image: America might have made it, but Korea has made it look so much better (no wonder people are so obsessed with kfashion).

One final note? Koreans should adopt Tumblr. 'Artsy hipsters', I bet Korea has a whole generation of them.

photo | wildfox couture ; spring 09 & 10

PERS ; SUNKISSED SKIN SO HOT WE'LL MELT YOUR POPSICLE.

sidestepping the fact that a year or so of my life was spent in the south (a year i wish i could recall with all my being, but i guess not too many crazy experiences would have been had for an infant spending most of her time in an apartment), i am 100% by definition a socal girl.

① taking 110 degree weather in stride
② busting out fall clothes in 80 degree weather
③ bitching at the slightest sign of rain
④ relishing the drive down PCH every time
⑤ donning sunglasses every day
⑥ driving to a neighbor's house a five minute walk away
⑦ peppering 'like' and 'omg' into everyday conversation
⑧ knowing the other (crazier) venice
⑨ not even blinking twice at fire alerts

however, i somehow never acquired the requisite traits needed to live here; namely, loving to drive (still haven't taken a car anywhere near LA and don't plan to...ever) and loving the beach. i bring my ipod and summer read each time anticipating hours of relaxing with the sun beating down on my legs, only to get irritated the second i get there with the obnoxiously scalding hot sand getting all over my bag and shoes. and then there's that whole part about how i can't swim so i don't go anywhere near the ocean, unless i feel incredibly ballsy only to lose my sunglasses i've owned for one day (true story). there's the feeling of running into the water and crawling out with a whole slew of seaweed wrapped around your foot. and finally after hours of bitching i leave with shoes full of sand and a farmer's tan.

that being said, there's something completely different about the beach at night, something i'm completely enamored with. staring out into the black with greater waves crashing in. hanging on the banister of the lifeguard tower swinging your feet to the cold air. it's that darker side kicking in; sunny beaches found repulsive but nighttime waters found something quite different. couples huddled up in blankets and sweatshirts. lone flashlights checking the scene while you, you try to stay a mystery.

the lazy, carefree, warm-weather-loving socal girl, that's me. but then there are those other sides of living here: the ones that crawl out at night, high tides and 90 mph on the freeway, no wind and air at a standstill: the other california girl, the one no one expects.

playing | "california gurls" - katy perry feat. snoop dogg
photo | we live young ; girls of sun

PERS ; ONE AWKWARD BEAT TOO LONG AND TERRIFIED.

homeless |ˈhoʊmləs| (adj): (of a person) without a home, and therefore typically living on the streets.

i've moved from blog to blog for six years now (and only three i really want to remember; middle school entries are exactly the kind of moody teenage memories you want to repress), the only constant being that each first entry of every new journal started with an obstinate declaration that this, this will my permanent home, documenting the change (or lack thereof) throughout. something akin to entering each new semester determined to devote sleepless nights to the library only to slip into old habits several weeks in. and maybe i'll give it a couple weeks, months, at tops a year or two until i float on to the next.

none of them differ too drastically. it's the same run-on sentences i'm prone to with the same introspective, you-should-be-more-open unorganized ramblings. and gradually writing it enough times gets to the breaking point of whether i should just sit down and change already and quit moping about it, or just give up the ideal that i will never be the social butterfly who can spill all. then, at which point, i somehow lose all motivation to write and there dies blog #18.

much to my surprise, this past year i actually barely wrote or blogged at all. maybe vague minute details about some Great Big Thing that happened on the weekend (which really is not how i want to write or remember things, but that's a whole other issue) or a couple words here and there tossed in with a photograph on tumblr. i didn't bring any of my paper journals to school so aside from the odd 750 word challenge or a dilettantish attempt at fiction, my thoughts were left empty.

it feels nerve-wracking yet comfortable doing this again, for the first time since september, in the same window on the same computer, but with what's hopefully a slightly improved (?) me. curious to see how far i can push out emotions before cracking under the veil of public writing. anxious to see who i've become, something i don't really give much thought in day to day life until i sit down and just let it out. and of course, hopeful that this, this will really be permanent. homeless souls can't live for long.

playing | "sun in an empty room" - the weakerthans
photo | sea of ghosts ; unknown