Phone dump

 Studio time with Chrissie and Chase

 The most important part of every coloring session is a snack

 BIRDS!

#ScenesFromMyBikeRide

 Maggots! A couple Mondays ago, our house was maggot infested. We don't know how or why it happened. All I know is that one minute I was dancing to oldies around the house, BAREFOOT!! and the next I was screaming for Chase to help me with the maggots. They were everywhere! Living room, hallway, foyer, kitchen... They wriggled and squirmed all over the floors. We walked around the house stepping on them and cringed as they popped underneath our feet. It was terrible. Monday night we killed as many as we could and Tuesday we deep cleaned the house. Monday we resorted to eating Jamba Juice and Pei Wei because we couldn't eat at home. 

This is the face of total despair.

 This is the face of sheer terror.

 Popeye is such a great cuddler! Chase is too, I guess..

 You gots dirty ears Popeye!

 Is there such a thing as 'too much Ketchup'?!

Weather's cooled down here in AZ. You can go hiking at noon and not completely die of heat stroke. I went and hiked South Mountain with Chase. It was fun. I have no clue what trail we hiked. All I know is that is was on Central and that before you get to the trail you can see a bunch of little houses and one of them has a kokopelli painted on it. 

 Chase is moving in to this cave. 

 Ghetto rocks

 I'm moving into this one! Chase and I can be neighbors. 

 This is my gardening outfit. Cute, huh?

Leaf piles don't stand a chance with this lady around!

Where are you from?

One of my least favorite questions on this planet might be "where are you from?" How does someone that's moved around a bunch in their early years of life respond to the question? While growing up I've had the chance to "permanently reside" in three different states and numerous towns. I was born in New Jersey, moved around a bunch while living there, lived in two different towns in Utah, lived in Florida and now live in Arizona. Where am I from? Do you mean, "where was the last place you lived?" Do you mean, "where were you born?" Or do you mean where I felt the most at home? I think all those questions have different answers. I don't know how to answer your question. I think I've decided that every time I get asked that question I'll go ahead and respond with all three. Each one held a significance. Each place helped shape me as a person. There's a reason people ask where you come from. It's because they want to know how the place you come from affected you up until this point.

Bobby Worrest is so good!

Looking back

I can't exactly remember when I started being absorbed with watching skateboarding online but I know it was sometime in my 18th year of being alive. I think I'd been skating for about a year and I'm pretty sure it was after the summer I'd received my very first skate video from the Dew Tour. It was C1rca's It's Time and the only skateboarder I knew the name of at that time was Ryan Sheckler. I still remember winning a contest for which my prize was a FatHead poster. They offered me a Paul Rodriguez one but at the time that name meant nothing to me so I chose the Sheckler poster. My mom still has it in her house on the wall. I also remember declining a picture and an autograph from Anthony Shetler because I had no clue who he was. I know who he is now but I can still remember his face when I snatched my shirt away before he could sign it. Boy, was I a jerk! I knew close to nothing about the professional side of skateboarding. I don't think I even knew that you could go online and watch skateboarding.

After watching the same video probably a hundred times, I went online and started looking up the guys from the video. I realized that there was a whole world online of magazines, pictures, articles, and of course videos. I think I've written a post or two about it before, but one of the first skateboarders whose skating I looked up to was Ryan Reyes. That lead me to Arizona skateboarding which lead me to videos that featured guys like Preston, some kid that made videos of his friends in Arizona. Before I ever met anyone from Arizona, I watched videos on the skateaz website and was in complete awe of how amazing the parks looked and how great the skateboarding was. And the music! The music was always great. I never, in a million years, thought that I would meet the men that were in those videos, let alone be skating the same parks. I knew nothing about Arizona except the skateparks were amazing and there were rumors of big cacti.

Fast forward a few years and now I've not only skated many of the parks in the videos I used to overplay but actually live in Arizona. If I could go back and tell 18 year old me that someday I'd be living in Arizona, skating the parks, meeting the people and attending video premieres that feature people that are in the same room, I would probably call future me crazy.

Anyway, here is one of the videos I've watched close to 5 million times..just kidding. But I've watched it many, many times. It's so fucking weird looking back on these videos now. I've briefly met a lot of these guys. Upon meeting some of them, I never connected the people in the videos with the actual humans. Upon meeting others I completely fanned out mentally. It's so fucking weird. It's cool to look back on and laugh about but I'm starting to realize I have way too much time on my hands. Can I go skate now?

No more snapchat

Since deleting my snapchat a couple weeks ago, the only pictures I get are via text. I still get quite a few but now I get pictures from people that I actually want to get pictures from. And I don't get bombarded with pointless videos of stuff I could care less about. And I still get content. And I don't waste so much time on my phone. Its a win win win win win! You won't see so many selfies, but you'll still get gold. So text me stuff. If you're lucky you'll see your picture in lights! And by lights I mean on the blog..

 Sent by Chrisse. This is Andrew's butt on Halloween night. That white thing is some sort of wrapper. What did he sit in?!

 Kyle is so pretty! He just looks good in a dress! Sent by Chase.

 Sent by Chrissie. "Kyle, be a strong man!" Too bad he was already wearing a dress...

 Sorry mom. Photo cred: Chrissie.

 While listening to wicked.. from Chrissie

 Sent to me by Laila. Look at everyone's derpy faces (mine included)! I love us.

Sent by Sean. Super hero luchador from Hawaii that lost his shoes on vacation?

 From Chrissie. That man's chest really does look like Grumpy Cat!

 From Lucas. He gets ready for halloween a few days in advance.

 From Chrissie. Mimes and derby ladies really are friends! Who knew?

 This was sent to me by Chrissie. The night after halloween. 

 This was sent by Chase the morning after halloween. Our couch's name is the Vortex for a reason. Once you sit, you'll be sucked in until the couch decides to spit you out. 

 Sent by Chrissie. All the drugs!

Sent and made by Chase. What a creative individual!

Latelier

I don't know if latlier is a word but it makes sense to me. Since I can't really skate yet, I have a lot of time where I don't know what I want to do. It's not boredom because I'm still doing things but I think I'd much rather be skating.

Anyway, Halloween was just the other day. I woke up with pink eye. Didn't get to go to Tempe Halloween because of my knee and the pink eye. But I still got to dress up and go to a party. I was a bearded lady with an eye patch (pink eye). Chrissie was a scary clown, Chase was a scary mime, Laila was a ring leader and Andrew was a Jamaican bobsledder.

 The morning of Halloween, I woke up to a box of glazed donuts on the counter. Upon finding that I had pink eye and had to call in sick to work and my knee was still busted, this was the greatest thing ever. 

 Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme..

 Guess what these ladies are!! They're Mount Rushmore!

On Saturday I got to go to Otto's for the first time and went to the Get Born premiere with Patrick, Sean, Matt and their friend. It was so good! After the premiere I went to Casey's with Sean and his friends. Casey's has awesome mozzarella sticks. 

 "Is this cool?"

Sunday I got to ride my bike around town, specifically around Mill and A mountain. 

 I love old buildings like these. They have so much history. I bet whoever worked in these buildings is either really old or dead. I wish I could go inside and look around. 

 This is the view from the base of the stairs on A mountain. 

View from the back of A. It's so pretty! It is a breathtaking view. Imagine how old a lot of those buildings are. How long ago the bridges were built, how many years ago people first started coming to Arizona. For a desert, Arizona is really green. 

 The only place I really shop is Sprouts. The produce is cheaper there than it is at Fry's and Safeway. They have a great selection of organic produce for less than Whole Foods and since I have no clue where Trader Joe's is or how much their produce is, I go here. Chrissie and Chase are incense loving hippies. 

 Such huge orange/lemons/grapefruit things. 

 I have a class the part of the semester where I have to cook various meals. My first one is a salad. This is corn. Duh. 

"NO, POPEYE!!!" Haha Popeye didn't want any love and dragged Laila off the couch while she tried to hug him.