Flying Cars & Robot Boyfriends

my self portrait project meets my robot boyfriend.

2010-01-20T07:25:00.001-08:00

59/365
Originally uploaded by less like math

I have been doing a year long, once a day, self portrait project which is documented over on my flickr page. this is yesterday's photo which features the glasses that my mother hates and corresponding text concerning my maternal protective instincts getting a little gnarly. i have been reading We Need To Talk About Kevin, and as unpleasant as my extreme emotional responses to people hurting braedyn may be, juxtaposed against the theme in this book i'm glad that they exist. in my case it is often hard to know what the right response might be, to know how to corral all of those emotions into a responsible reaction. but as hard as that may seem, imagine trying to form an appropriate response when what you naturally feel is next to nothing.

now for some levity:

i am quite likely going to be a dog owner in the near future! (!!!)

thanks to my friend sarah i now know that these cookies exist. thank god. they are lady gaga themed and are inspired by some of her best outfits.

o hai there!

2009-09-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

Q: You know what's better than NEVER posting anything on this blog at all?

A: Having my first post in 3 months be about this other blog I've started.

'Cause that's how things work.

Soooooooooooooo.....i have this new blog.

Name: I Know That's A Thing...
Age: um, like....a week or two.
Interests: ya know, shows and movies and Wikipedia and ....lifestyle cleaning products, that kind of thing.
Religion: ex nihilo nihil fit...or whatever.
Here for: finding out about stuff and dropping tons of knowledge on you guys. you are welcome.

So far I have thoroughly covered:

Underwater Photography

The Dormouse

Whether or not it is possible or okay for your sternum to pop.

Coming Soon: the phrases "On the wagon" and "Off the wagon". What they mean and which one is the bad one.

Don't miss it!

29, FTW!!!

2009-06-10T09:51:00.001-07:00

jorts.
Originally uploaded by less like math

I am told that I should blog about something soon because checking my blog only to find a month old post about all of the tiny things I love is getting stupid and boring and that people hate that shit and that pretty soon they'll hate my blog so much that they'll just start hating me in real life.

I also turned 29 two days ago, so that's a pretty good reason to have something ~~interesting~~ to say.

This year's birthday came and went with an unusual lack of fanfare. My hometown hosts a street dance pretty much every summer and I felt sure that it usually fell on the first weekend of June, so basically the weekend of my birthday. Based on this misguided assumption I planned a trip home to dance to country music in the middle of Main Street. But, alas, the street dance is the last weekend in June, not the first. We still made the trip and got to spend Braedyn's birthday with my parents. And I did manage to get cut off and then kicked out of at least one bar, so all in all, success. My mom treated me to a trip to my favorite thrift store in the whole wide world where I came up with a very respectable birthday-quality haul. Some new favorite dresses, some new favorite shorts and one amazing bicycle which in the end I didn't buy because I couldn't figure out how to get it back to Austin.

Even though 29 isn't much of a milestone birthday I feel like I should have goals or resolutions for the year. I've been trying and trying to think of what these would be but to be honest, other than the normal "be better at life" stuff, I'm having a hard time coming up with any. That being the case, for the moment I am content to just have one. This year will be my year for follow through. Back in March I was feeling really motivated to work on and complete some form of comic and I think this is the one goal I'll really try to achieve. In my greatest pie-in-the-sky fantasy by the time Staple rolls around next year I will have enough material to look into having a table. For me this means seeing through to completion at least four mini books worth of funnies, a handful of worthwhile prints, and ideally one larger book of sketchbooky stuff. You heard it here, I am going to TRY. And you, my readership, can try not to die of shock at the sight of me making an effort at something.

Contender goals that didn't quite make the cut?

* pay my bills on time
* sleep more
* consume fewer giant sandwiches
* make responsible emotional decisions
* remember to shave my armpits

Basically turning 29 has been pretty underwhelming, which should'nt be too much of a surprise what with the whole non-milestone thing. It certainly pales compared to the year I had a Strawberry Shortcake party, or the year I got my first cd player, or the year I went to a silent film porno retrospective, or the year i came home to a buttload of vintage dutch mod furniture. Really though, it was pretty good. I drank, I ate, I swam, and I only spent it with people that I really love. Asking for more than that would kind of make me a douche bag.

So 29, my name is Larissa, and I am about to rock your ass right off.

Tiny Little Roll Call!

2009-05-12T09:14:00.001-07:00

legion
Originally uploaded by less like math

Last night I was at an ASL softball game (Emo's v. New Brohemia, for those interested [also worth noting, there was a dude in a full bearsuit in attendance...FULL BEARSUIT]) and the conversation on my periphery turned, pretty early on, to the ridiculousness/appeal of Coors Light in those tiny little 8oz. cans. They are patently ridiculous on most levels. What the point of that amount of Coors Light could possible be is completely beyond me. But even as you're rolling your eyes at them, it's hard not to start feeling a little bit of an affinity for them. They're just so SMALL!!! Not unlike Pearl "stubbies", which in a simpler time and in my unwavering teenage opinion during said simpler time, were the best beers of all time.
In discussing the pros and cons of these tiny beers it occurs to me that we should use the existence of things like ridiculously tiny beers as a jumping off point for what I think is the best theme party idea ever. Yes.....EVER.

It is.....

you guessed it!

A TINY PARTY!!!!!!!

In my perfect vision the ingredients for this party would include but not be limited to; tiny beers, tiny cocktails, tiny food, tiny cupcakes, tiny music, tiny musical instruments, tiny decorations, and best of all it will be a costume party and people have to wear tiny clothes!!! (for some reason that is my favorite part)

Maybe it's just me....no, it's not just me.....this is a great idea. My birthday is right around the corner. Maybe I'll just throw this tiny party for myself.

........what?

Yes, I would do that. Yes, definitely.

I am welcome to suggestions, anything that you can imagine being better in tiny form. I'm thinking tiny pinatas....just big enough for 3 or 4 pieces of candy or a tiny bottle of booze. We could beat them with copsticks, they would be THAT TINY!!!!

And now, some tiny things that I would like you to take note of:

Everyone's favorite......Fake Tiny Food!!! Even better, fake foreign tiny food!!!!

And then, going above and beyond, there is Real Tiny Food, like this!

You can get the recipe for them at That's Not What The Recipe Says Dot Com.

Courtesy of Martha Stewart, tiny pinatas are a real thing!

Try to even think about these without it making you feel a little crazed. Not.possible.

♥ The Bristlebot ♥

Wanna make your own? OKAY!!!!

These tiny tiny comics by Phil McAndrew

They are about 1.25" tall and in full color! My heart is officially beating too fast for me to confidently consider it healthy.

Who could ever forget this tiny house. This tiny house that WILL one day be mine. And the Turk's, I suppose.

Tiny Texas Houses

Lastly, these little Kurt Halsey drawings on 45's. He understands tiny better than most anyone. I think that's probably a fact.

Kurt Halsey

Okay!!!! one more thing. (it's really very hard to stop)

A tiny little video for a tiny little song about bruises and strawberries!

Ack! Okay, seriously, last thing. We'll pretend I didn't even include this one.

Goddamnit, slow loris. You are so cute.

Guh.

The End.

Enough just to know that it was there.

2009-05-05T08:28:00.001-07:00

larissa marie swindle.
Originally uploaded by less like math

Because I don't have much to say that will be of any interest, because I am permanently exhausted in every sense, because my weekend was long in the bad way, because I have been reading through old emails and livejournal posts and rediscovering things i liked a lot of years ago, because i fell asleep by ten o'clock last night and still want more sleep, because i have to think about how to do that right thing and i don't want to think about that, and because reading is fun(damental), i have a couple things to share with you today. They're old things but they're good things. If you think of my gmail account as a keepsake box, which i do, then these things are some of the things i know I'll keep forever.

Imagining Defeat
David Berman

She woke me up at dawn,
her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels.

I sat up and looked out the window
at the snow falling in the stand of blackjack trees.

A bus ticket in her hand.

Then she brought something black up to her mouth,
a plum I thought, but it was an asthma inhaler.

I reached under the bed for my menthols
and she asked if I ever thought of cancer.

Yes, I said, but always as a tree way up ahead
in the distance where it doesn't matter

And I suppose a dead soul must look back at that tree,
so far behind his wagon where it also doesn't matter.

except as a memory of rest or water.

Though to believe any of that, I thought,
you have to accept the premise

that she woke me up at all.

*That was the first David Berman poem I ever read. It still kills me every time I read it. Along about the middle, the exact point would be the phrase "but always as a tree way up ahead", i get a knot of something in my stomach. It gets bigger and bigger and then I'm glad when the poem is over....and then I read it again.

And then there is this -

The Sixth Burough
Jonathan Safran Foer

excerpt
"It's getting almost impossible to hear you," said the young girl from her bedroom in Manhattan, as she squinted through a pair of her father's binoculars, trying to find her friend's window.

"I'll holler if I have to," said her friend from his bedroom in the Sixth Borough, aiming last birthday's telescope at her apartment.

The string between them grew incredibly long, so long it had to be extended with many other strings tied together: the wind of his yo-yo, the pull from her talking doll, the twine that had fastened his father's diary, the waxy string that had kept her grandmother's pearls around her neck and off the floor, the thread that had separated his great-uncle's childhood quilt from a pile of rags. Contained within everything they shared with one another were the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, and the quilt. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string.

The boy asked the girl to say "I love you" into her can, giving her no further explanation.

And she didn't ask for any, or say, "That's silly" or "We're too young for love" or even suggest that she was saying "I love you" because he asked her to. Her words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the table lamp, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day should have pulled from her body . The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love from him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he could never open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know that it was there.

*If you want to read the whole thing you can find it Right Here. This is the first thing I remember reading by Jonathan Safran Foer. Summer emailed it to me at a time when I was really sad and it was the most comforting thing to read. Actually, looking back I think I had probably already read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but since it's my history I prefer to believe that I read The Sixth Burough first.

And so that we have balance, another poem -

Refusing the Necessary
Stephen Dobyns

becoming the river, we are the river.
unable to accept it, we are drowning.
your long hair floats on the surface-
sentences in a book i havent read.
you ask for help. i can do nothing for you.
the river passes between high banks,
thee- and fog-bound. it passes over the tops
of intricate buildings. we can see the people,
but not their faces. they are shouting.
we can't make out their words. fragments
of words float around us. we resemble
those fragments. the language is foreign.
we have waited too long for our decisions.
we have waited too long for the last boats.
we are afraid to surface or seek the bottom.
insubstantial, we are not enough to cling to.
foghorns continue their warnings:
the house is burning, the king is sick.
without daylight, we have forgotten the sun,
accepted a darker place. between the surface
and bottom, we may hang forever.

*I don't really have much to say about this one. I mean, what could you really even say.

So, there are a lot of things for you to read today. And if that's still not enough, there's always McSweeney's Lists. They never get old. Because, ya know, there are always new ones.

my new favorite thing?

2009-05-01T12:58:00.001-07:00

my new favorite thing?
Originally uploaded by less like math

Well thanks for asking.

Texts From Last Night

I honestly believe that this might be the best idea anyone has had re: the internet in a VERY LONG TIME.

For the uninitiated it is a website devoted entirely to regrettable text messages the you send. That I send. That we all send.

There's something about the idea of posting them on a website and making them public that takes a little of the sting out of the full body cringe that comes when you pick up your phone the next morning, hands clammy with liquid shame, and scroll through the mistakes your thumb made the night before.

I just literally cringed remembering some of my own. I bet you did too.

Seriously you guys, this is hilarious. I mean it.

notables:

(917): My milkshake brings 85 to 90 percent of the boys to the yard

(818): On a scale of affliction to ed hardy, how douchy is it in there right now?

(310): its like his balls were made of silver and he was trying to polish the tarnish off

(410): You are still hot in my book. I wanna dry hump u like a 9th grader then hump for real when the herpes is gone.

(781): Is there a reason "Call me when you're legal" is written on my arm? I'm 22..

(517): I puked in a mailbox on the way back from your house.

oh.....

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come heavy or don't come at all.

2009-04-28T09:25:00.001-07:00

Yart!
Originally uploaded by less like math

In case you somehow haven't heard, or you forgot, or you just can't get enough of hearing about it:

Yart Sale!!!!
Sunday May 3rd (this weekend)
Birdhouse Gallery
1304 E. Cesar Chavez
9a.m. until 9ish p.m.

Here's a very incomplete list of people who will have wonderful pleasers for sale:

myself, of course
Summer Anne
Bopnnie Rue
Jeff Freeman
Kathleen Noble
plus:
Amarin Enyart
Kevin Foote
Michelle Foster
Flip Solomon
Clayton Kalman
Patton Quinn

and oh jeez, lotsa other people too!!!!!

There will be lots and lots of lovely things to buy. We're having a Tito's sponsored Bloody Mary Mix-off at noon. (Open entry, bring your own ingredients, we supply the vodka, bring enough to mix for three judges, more if you're feeling generous).

There's an art raffle going on all day and we'll draw winners at 6 p.m.
There are cupcakes and cookies and sweetie treats in the works, and otter pops, and beers, and artsy craftsies, and maybe a hand-over-mouth kissing booth, and whatever else we can think of to entertain you between now and then.

I'm really excited about this and you should all come and bring everyone you know. My mom is going to be there, if that's a selling point for anyone.

It will be a total circus and it will be really really super fun!!!!!

So come to Yart! Do it do it do it!!!!

Christian the lion and a lesson about friendship.

2009-04-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

This is pretty much unbearably awesome to me. On just about every level that I have. There are plenty of versions of this same video/story on youtube that aren't set to the heart-curdling refrains of I Will Always Love You, but I can't imagine why you would prefer them. The song makes it. And if you don't think so then I don't even give a care. We can friend breakup if we need to. But then I'll just watch this video again and tearfully ask you if you're ready to reconnect.

YES!!!!

YART YART YART!!!!!

2009-04-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

Just in case you haven't heard about it elsewhere, I am putting together (with a lot of help from a lot of people) a YART sale!! It will all happen on Sunday May the 3rd at Birdhouse Gallery (1304 E. Cesar Chavez) and it'll be going on from about 9 in the a.m. until whenever Kevin makes us all go home.

This is your advance notice.

I'm not generally a planner of things. I occasionally have good ideas but I generally like to just pass them off to other people to accomplish. I'm trying to do better here and so far it all seems to be coming together nicely. The basic plan is simple, part yard sale part art sale. There will be a lot of people participating so there will be all sorts of different things for sale. There will be lots of art, of course, and there will be clothes and music and toys and baked goods and popsicles and beer and at least one kiddie pool and a polaroid photobooth. The latest edition to the days festivities is a Bloody Mary Cook-off, sponsored by Tito's (that part isn't quite finalized, so fingers crossed!!).

In short it is shaping up to be one of the best days ever. We're still looking for people to participate so if you're reading this and have yard sale wares or art or better yet BOTH, you should email me and get on the bus! Everyone else, you should just plan on attending.

I'll remind you about a million more times before the actual day, don't worry. I'll also have more firm info on the Bloody Mary Cook-off very soon if you're interested in participating in that. I'll also have fliers that weren't created using Microsoft Paint pretty soon too. I think we're all looking forward to that.

Damn flier.

And there'll be sun sun sun all over our bodies...

2009-04-10T11:12:00.001-07:00

Hey you guys!! Guess what!!

Summertime has made it's way to Austin, TX. And it's only April! Thank you global warming. Finally getting a little return on those Aqua Net years.

For seriously serious though, summertime is my favorite time and summertime in Austin just can't be beat. Ever since I was a little girl I've always looked forward to summer with stomach churning anticipation and that's still the way things are today. Holla back, summer babies.

Last year I made a list of summer '08 official things and while it's a bit early to make my list for summer '09, I do want to post last year's winners. We'll see a little later in the season which ones hold up.

the official yellow shorts of summer '08.

a few more:

official adult beverage: vodka & blue powerade
official song: 5 Years Time by Noah and The Whale
official everyone beverage: water
official passtime: swimming in pools that aren't yours
official vehicle: trucks
official grooming habit to give up: washing your hair
official confection: two ball screwball (mo!!!)
official bedtime: never, apparently.
official comeback: taking pictures of oneself

I can already tell you that the vodka/powerade combo (since named Blue Ruin) has some stiff competition from Paul's homemade margaritas. And the Noah and the Whale song will most likely be beat out by the Chad VanGaalen song Cries of the Dead. I'm almost ready to just go ahead and call that the official but it's a tight race between that song and Phosphorescent's cover of Pick Up the Tempo so we'll just have to wait and see. The official yellow shorts, as much as I love them, will sadly not be the official shorts of this summer because at thrift the other day I picked up a killer pair of blue and white American Apparel running shorts that are perfectly short and say "JELLYFISH!!" on the booty part. There is absolutely no way around them winning official shorts. On the sub-topic of summer time garb, I will have to make a new category so that this amazing skort can be an official. Maybe just, official article of clothing!!!

It was designed by the lovely and talented Bonnie Rue and it's your lucky day because they are up for sale on her website right this very minute. Go getcha some at Model Citizen Clothing! While you're there you might want to put some serious thought into picking up a few other fancies cause she's got lotsa new stuff up and it's all pretty much too awesome to be believed. (Hint: Bake & Destroy t-shirt / secret cupcake recipe combo!!!!)

Back to summertime and how great it is? Okay!

"I would rather be swimming" and "I would rather be laying out" are pretty much constant mantras for me during the summer months. A bathing suit, a body of water, a cold Lonestar and the smell of suntan oil make me a happy happy girl. I spent years of my life hating on the concept of "laying out". This was ridiculous on my part. Totally ridiculous. There are very few things in the world that feel better than the above described scenario. Some of my favorite childhood memories involve being at the lake in Cisco, Texas and hanging out with my mom and my aunt while they were laying out. They would make this concoction of baby oil and iodine and grease up and hang out in those awesome plastic tubing lawn chairs for hours, with me right there alongside (properly sunblocked, i'm sure). For the life of me I can't imagine why they added the iodine to the baby oil and neither of them can remember either. Seeing as it's not the 80's anymore I would recommend taking a pass on the baby oil and going for my favorite summertime product:

It has a little bit of SPF, which is better than none I guess, but most of all it just smells like summertime. It is the official smell of summer. Every summer.

So here's to summer time y'all! Here's to swimming and sunshine and crazy heat and margaritas and shorts and Barton Springs and not washing your hair and zinc on your nose and happy songs in your speakers and flippy floppies and anything else you love about it!!!

I Want To Do This With You. (and you and you and you and you and you...)

2009-04-07T08:25:00.001-07:00

This is a new (?) T-mobile commercial that obvs originally aired in the UK. I suppose it's not actually that "new" but it's new to me and it'll prolly be new to at least a couple of my many thousands of readers. Okay, so yeah, this is probably where you remind me that it's an advertisement. T-mobile spent a lot of time and monies to make this happen so that hundreds of people would pull out their cell phones and take pictures and videos and send them to lots of people and then we see that and we're like "oh yeah!! joy happens because of cell phones, I almost forgot!". They're manipulating me into buying what they sell. But, you joyless naysaying hater of fun, T-mobile is already my cell phone provider so I'm not really being manipulated here. I can just enjoy it.

I can't stress enough how much I love the concept of lots of people seemingly spontaneously busting a move. The first time I watched this video this morning I cried a little. Then a little more the second time. By the third time I managed not to cry at all but I do feel like crying a little as I'm typing this. I am not joking, it just makes me REALLY REALLY happy. When was the last time you cried from joy? Think hard. I bet it was awhile ago. If you're anything like me, it's probably about to happen again. Watch the video. Then we can learn this dance together!!! Or we can make up a different dance!!! And we can teach it to a lot of people!!! And we can just up and start doing it somewhere one day!!! We will need a boombox!!!

We are going to do this. Me and every last one of you. I mean it.

The Sweetest Songs...

2009-04-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

Fact: I am creeped out to some degree by almost all 50's and 60's candy coated pop songs.

For a long time I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized that I'm creeped out by the genre because for as long as I've been old enough to appreciate movies for reasons other than whether or not they feature one of the Coreys people have been using these songs as the soundtrack for horrific things happening onscreen. Maybe to you this seems obvious and not really something that one would have to "realize" necessarily, but I was pretty proud of myself. It all makes perfect sense, of course. All of those songs, especially the ones bemoaning broken hearts, are so sweetly melodramatic. You can't really pull that off anymore. These days if you're making a song that is supposed to say "you leaving me has put me in a really dark place and now there's no telling what I might do" you basically just have to say it. Back then you could say some really dark stuff but shroud it in taffeta and backing vocals and hairspray and make the Top 40. I find that really appealing. If Tragic Twee had a soundtrack it would all be 50's and 60's pop music. I'm listening to a lot of it today and you should too. Later maybe we can get together and hang ourselves with our ex-boyfriends' letterman sweaters.

some personal favorite examples:
(feel free to contribute)

Of course:

had End of the World by Skeeter Davis

had Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra

and last but not at all least

had Without You by Harry Nilsson

I want more!!!!

a litte salt - revisited.

2009-03-27T09:30:00.001-07:00

crappy letter
Originally uploaded by less like math

Things in Rissaland have been really crazy lately. I feel like every aspect of my life has crashed down around me and then built back up and then crashed again, just in the last 72 hours. There are so many people that I want to help and be there for and have a positive impact on and I'm not sure that I'm accomplishing that with anyone.

Seeing as I refuse to emote about my personal life in this blog I'm instead posting something that I love and that makes me think and that I didn't write. The following was written by my Summer Anne and I hope she doesn't mind my posting it. (You don't......do you?) The first time I read this I really needed to read it and I feel like I really need to read it today and I feel like some of you guys might feel that way too.

a little salt

A boy we’ll never know who’s locked himself in a cabin says what we’ve been trying to for years now: “I told you to be patient; I told you to be fine; I told you to be balanced; I told you to be kind. Now all your love is wasted? Then who the hell was I? Now I'm breaking at the britches and at the end of all your lines” Yeah, that’s it. There’s a mistake I make all the time in which I think that if you love a song that’s in the same shape as my heart, you might start to understand me a little along the way. It never works out like that. Music is just music, and that time I waited was wasted.

The asphalt on my feet and my phone hot on my ear asks “why don’t anyone’s relationships ever work?” I wish I had an answer to that question that isn’t one of the same things we’ve said a dozen times. I wish I had the answer she wants to hear. On the other side of town and the other side of my conversation, blue eyes fill with tears and Willie Nelson sings along.

Later, Hamilton Leithauser sings a Leonard Cohen song I’d forgotten. It goes “We swore to each other that our love would surely last. You kept right on loving me and I went on a fast. Now I am too thin, your love is too vast.” At least Hamilton and Leonard know what they have done. The weight of it all shows up in their eyes. Look for it.

“Why does it matter so much?”, someone asks or wants to. Someone who can fill up all the empty space inside of them by themselves, with words and pictures and songs and video games and ice cream. We reply or want to: it matters because we are vessels and we are water. We want to drink, and we want to be drunk. We are parched, and we are flooding. We have love that will replace the blood in our veins and stop our heartbeat if we can’t breathe it into someone’s mouth soon.

“Elliott says that most men just can’t be as committed as the women in relationships and that’s why it doesn’t work.” Thanks, Elliott. We all figured that out when our dad’s were gone on business for our entire lives, and the first time our first loves looked past our eyes when we were speaking and fixed on a foreign body, and we figured it out when we got left & left & left & left.

We wish we could love the rare exceptions, but it never works out that way because the world is too mean. The truth is that they’re out there. Way past the love we examine every day and all of the endings that make us wring our hands and tearducts, there’s a small army of boys who want us. They aren’t the ones we chose. When they’re asleep, we don’t stay awake staring and imagining ways for them to wake up to the world they want to live in. They’re just asleep, and soon enough we are too. When we kiss them because of whiskey, our bodies don’t change and the world doesn’t spin. When we try to explain, we’re sad -- but only because it reminds us of you (and you and you), and your explanations or lack-of.

We speak of silver linings. “Once you’ve had your heart broken once – really broken – no one can ever hurt you like that again.” But then you walk around in my brain for awhile and it all the knobs I’d switched to off get turned on again and suddenly we’re back where we started. It’s like you’re born over and over again every day, week, or year. You’re less beautiful each time around but my chest tightens it’s grip around my heart just the same and I’m too tired to notice anymore All I can do is love you, love you, love you, over and over, like a rat towards an electric current. Loving him is loving you five years ago. Loving you is loving you five years ago. Waking up is loving you five years ago.

They’re all the same. They’re not as special as we think they are, but writing that down feels like a lie and it won’t ever feel true. They could all be better than they are and they never will be. They will all miss us someday and be unable to figure out that they don’t have to. They won’t love anyone any more than they loved us, but that’s meaningless because they’re broken and the love they have to give is weak and pitiful.

When they are bored or lonely enough someday, they will take a pale photocopy of what they had with us to the altar. We ask them to call us up and let us have that chance, but the world doesn’t work that way and all we get in response is a distant stare -- someone we love’s eyes fixed on a wall that represents the future they don’t want us in because it’s all become too difficult and love isn’t supposed to be difficult. Except that it is.

It’s all arbitrary and meaningless. We find each other and we talk about it until our throats hurt, we talk to boys we pretend could replace you, we talk about those boys and encourage each other to pretend, and then we go home alone where we find you in a song or a computer screen or a memory. We lay down with it and we hold on. Sometimes we send words into space and hope that you’ll read them and hold on to them and maybe we’ll feel it somehow. Really we’re just vibrating on your bedside table, quivering and shaking like the night you left us, and you’re ignoring it, wincing, looking and looking away, dreaming of something bright and new.

“You deserve better,” says every boy who ever walked away.

“If I deserve better, why can’t I have you?”
“…”

The sun started coming out just as I was finishing this. The cheesy faux-significance of that is breaking my heart.

Baking is the best thing ever, today.

2009-03-26T14:01:00.001-07:00

pattycakes!
Originally uploaded by less like math

I've always been sort of fickle with my hobbies. And when I say always, I do actually mean for my entire life. Or at least as much of it as I can remember. As a little kid I would get whole-heartedly INTO one thing or another (playing teacher, dumpster diving, swimming, having cats) and it would be absolutely everything to me for about a week. Then on to something else. Collecting Garbage Pail Kids cards, Barbies, Christianity, whatever. I consider it to be one of my more endearing/frustrating qualities.

As an adult I tend to do the same thing. One week all I care about in the world is drawing pictures, the next week it's taking pictures, the next week it's reading as many books as possible, the next week it's reading about diseases on the internet. You get the idea. In fact, if you know me at all you don't even need that description. You're probably all too familiar with this business. It keeps things interesting but it also tends to make me into an unreliable collaborator and it frustrates my vague plan to someday parlay one my personal passions into a career.

That said, this week I remembered that I love to bake. When Summer and I were living together we baked a lot. She was a good baking muse and she tends to be a little more consistent with her pastimes than I do. But since I've branched out on my own I haven't really done that much baking, barring the obligatory holiday and special occasion stuff. While visiting my parents last weekend it was brought to my attention by my mom and my new beau that although my baking is often discussed he has never experienced it and my mom hadn't experienced it in quite some time. This lit the proverbial fire under my ass and ever since getting back to Austin all I seem to want to do is bake. The dreary weather we've been having also fuels that desire pretty well.

So far this week I've made the cupcakes you see up there and the cookies you see down there. The cupcakes start with my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe and have dark chocolate truffles in the center and cream cheese frosting with fresh slices of sugared plums on top. The plums + the dark chocolate ended up equaling pretty much complete gustatory perfection. The cookies are a variation on my christmas cookie recipe. I got the recipe from a master bakestress named Mia in Victoria, B.C. The christmas version are bite sized coffee flavored shortbread cookies with espresso infused dark chocolate on top. Since I have a pact with myself to only make those cookies for christmas (it's important to have arbitrary rules) I had to sort of freestyle them this time. I sweetened the shortbread recipe up some and then made a cinnamon vanilla cream cheese frosting for the tops. The resulting cookie tastes something like a really fattycaked out snickerdoodle. A snickerdoodle infused with shame. Delicious shame.

My next endeavor will be the little darlings you see below. I had one at Rio Rita awhile back and told Summer about them. She made them and they were a huge hit with everyone who ate one. This did not include me.......I'm just saying. *ahem* Anyway, I'm excited to take a crack at them. It's basically just a yellow cake with the fruit part of the orange mixed into the batter and then poured back into the hollowed out orange peel. Word on the street is that it's actually a campfire recipe, which is unassailably cool. I, however, will be baking them in a regular oven under a roof.

So......if you're into eating baked goods now is a good time to hang out with me. And if you have fun recipes pass them along.

BAKING!!!! Hell YES!!!!

All around from far away across the world.....

2009-03-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

oh.my.god!!!!!!!!!!

Life things have been crazy for me lately and my friend Jen sent me this today to cheer me up a little. What I assume she didn't realize was that somehow I completely missed any kind of news that there were even plans to MAKE a movie of Where The Wild Things Are. This is the best surprise I've had in a LONG time. I know I'm not even close to alone when I say that this was my VERY FAVORITE book when I was little. I think it's at least in most peoples' top three. That doesn't diminish the feeling that it is MORE important to me than it is to other people. That's the great thing about having all-time favorites. They always feel like they're more your favorite than they've ever been anyone else's. I still have the same copy of Where The Wild Things Are that I had when I was five years old. It has actually belonged to Braedyn for the past 6 (almost 7) years. It's falling apart and the pages are yellowed and it smells great!! And now there's a MOVIE!!!! A Spike Jonze directed movie with a screenplay by Dave Eggers (!!!!) and it stars Catherine Keener, Paul Dano, James Gandolfini, and Forest Whitaker!!!!!

This is a great day to be me. This is a great day to be anyone.

This day is brought to you by exclamation points!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's a tiny house by a tiny stream where a lovely lass had a lovely dream.

2009-03-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

Oh oh oh oh oh!!!!!!!!!!

If you know anything at all about me you know that I love TINY THINGS!!! Seriously, anything in miniature. Dresses, food, toys, instruments, animals, people. Small, smaller, smallest!!! So imagine my complete and utter joy when I came across Tiny Texas Houses. Seriously, look at the gallery. LOOK AT THESE HOUSES!!!! The brainchild of Austinite Brad Kittel, these things are amazing! The website is pretty informative and gives you a lot of reasons, outside of an overarching love of tininess, why owning one of these homes is a great idea. These houses are the perfect answer to the insanity of sprawl. They are made almost entirely from salvaged material, they are simple, they are personal, and they are ridiculously beautiful. And they are TINY!!!! I feel like all I'm capable of doing right now is daydreaming about my tiny house. I've always loved looking through architecture books that feature small houses. And the little displays they have in IKEA stores that are all "living well in under 300 sq. ft." and suchlike. But these houses, these Tiny Texas Houses aren't some concrete and brushed steel love letter to the future. These are gorgeous, soulful little pieces of heaven. I want one, I need one, I WILL have one and you're all invited for dinner. One at a time.

Damn, this is so exciting!!

Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love!!

2009-03-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Okay....yes.....blerg! I know, i know, i know....just stick with me for a second. I went to a wedding over the weekend and now I've got weddings down in my soul. My lovely friends Claire and Tommy tied the knot on Saturday and it was super fun! Of course, I'm not too hard to please in this respect because I completely LOVE weddings. And more than that wedding receptions. And more than that open bars. But even in light of my predisposition to love weddings in general theirs was great.
Much to my chagrin though, weddings tend to get me all "Love Actually'd" out. I used to feel kind of pissed about how hearts and stars they made me feel but these days I just sort of roll with it. My hand to god, my marrying days are over but there is no better kind of fun than daydreaming about how you would go about trumping the wedding scene from Love Actually. You know the one.....

yep, that one. In case you count yourself among the poor, hard-hearted souls that haven't seen this movie, the scene plays as such. Vows, kiss, smile, low and behold a great many people in the audience have instruments and break into All You Need Is Love (all of this having been orchestrated by the best man who is secretly in love with the bride who is Keira Knightly who is terrible but who cares). Not being able to do it justice in description I'll just say that it is only TOTALLY AWESOME! To be perfectly honest I could write a pretty long love letter to Love Actually and mean every single word of it. The movie got brought up during this wedding and in a shocking upheaval of all I thought I knew I was informed that one of my dear girlfriends does NOT love this movie. In fact she hates it. Kind of a lot. Normally my ears would just close to any kind of hating that anyone might want to do on Love Actually but this a friend whose opinions and taste I have a lot of faith in, so I listened. And dear readers, for a short but terrifying period of time I thought maybe I hated Love Actually too. Ack! Not true. I will say that having these following things pointed out to me stung....it really did sting.

* Alan Rickman's May/December office romance is terrible and not very believable and just kind of gross.

* Emma Thompson is supposed to be younger than Hugh Grant (is that true? time for a re-watch)

* Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister. ahem.

* Laura Linney's character never gets laid.

* Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister.

*Keira Knightley in general.

There were more, I've blocked them. But ya know, at the end of the day, at the end of pretty much any day I'll watch Love Actually and I will fucking totally love it. Because it's great and I'm a spaz. And without hope or agenda my wasted heart will love you, Love Actually, until you look like this

And since I know you're all wondering, the moment in my imaginary wedding that will totally bring the house down will be after the vows/kissy face part and my robot husband and I turn around and right then the OK Go version of This Will Be Our Year kicks in and everyone has simultaneous heart attacks. The good kind. I love that idea. Don't steal it. Seriously, I will mess you up.

Did I just write an entire pretty lengthy blog post about Love Actually? Yes I did. And what?

Staple 2009!!!!

2009-03-09T10:19:00.003-07:00

!!!!!!!
Originally uploaded by less like math

Oh dear readers,

What a crazy weekend. For simplicity's sake we'll just say that it was all around amazing. Friday night was uneventful in the traditional sense but I did get to take a bath in a HUGE bathtub which is not my normal bath situation. My back is still giving me a lot of trouble so laying in a bathtub that makes you feel like a baby and reading comics and eating good food and sleeping a really long time was exactly what was called for.

moving on to what you all came to hear:

Saturday Summer, Jen, Paul, Braedyn and I went to Staple!!!! It was seriously, seriously THE MOST fun. There were lots of great comics and zines and great makers of comics and zines. I discovered a couple of new favorites. Namely Meaghan Rosales, whose comics I completely adore. I bought one of her mini books and now wish I would have picked up a couple more. She has a smart, wry, self deprecating sense of humor that is immediately infectious and her loose, personal drawing style is completely endearing. She is also, by chance, the girlfriend of my friend and ex-BP co-worker Manfred. So, that's cool too. I also discovered and really liked Neil Brideau. His characters are AMAZING! Lots of robots and animals and big-eyed children. He has a scratchy, frenetic, dense drawing style that makes me want to spend a lot more time with my pens and his stories are funny and sweet and weird and just great great great. I also especially liked him because he traded me one of his comics for a page out of my sketchbook. TRADESIES!!!!!!! ilovetrading!!!!

but it doesn't stop there:
Jeffrey Brown was in attendance so we got to see him speak and we got to meet him and he drew us some pictures and he signed our books and he talked to us a lot and he was incredibly nice and personable and exactly what you want people whose work you really like and respect to be like, should you ever meet them in person.

the crowd to see him speak was pretty small, by anyone's standards. that did mean that there was a lot of time for questions and instead of shying away like I normally would in that kind of situation I went ahead and asked my question. Two of them actually. But not before Braedyn, whose hand was in the air as soon as they opened the floor to questions. His question to Mr. Brown?

Braedyn: "Do you like monsters?"
J. Brown: "Yes.....i mean, kind of.......sometimes. Unless they're really scary. I mean, no.....monsters aren't real. Is that what I should say?"

Hilarious. Braedyn and Jeffrey Brown also talked at some length about how Braedyn is an artist and the value of keeping a sketchbook and also a little about Transformers. He signed my copy of Little Things, which as per my awesome plan, I gave to Paul. He's been reading it on my suggestion and REALLY liking it. It is the first autobiographical graphic novel he's ever read so it's not just like discovering a new author/artist you like, it's discovering a whole new genre. I totally remember that feeling and how life changing it seemed. I don't really know how much it ACTUALLY changed my life but it sure seemed like it was going to. It's a nice feeling to get to introduce someone you really like to something you know they're going to really like. The people who first introduced me to all of my favorite comics are so so so important to me (Summer Anne!!), and it's great to get to be that for someone else.

It was such a great way to spend a Saturday. More than anything it was just inspirational to see all of these great people writing and drawing their stories and then just getting them out into the world. It's easy to forget the the only things you really need to publish yourself are a copy machine, a stapler, and something to put down on paper. It's nice to be reminded of that. So, thanks Staple, thanks comics, thanks Jeffrey Brown. Maybe by this time next year I'll have my own table.

*gulp*

until we all make it.

2009-03-06T10:56:00.001-08:00

fake it.
Originally uploaded by less like math

Happy Friday Everybody!!!!!

You know how, for no real reason, some days just sort of shape up for you. Every normal little thing you do feels special or hilarious or important or awesome. Every thing looks like it was lit professionally. This is that kind of day for me. Reason? Well, dear reader, let me break it down for you:

* I'm working, but everyone else is out of town or has the day off. It's weird but it's not not fun.

* i changed my relationship status today. ahem.

* Bradders and I are both working in offices so we're playing office games. Particularly fax games. Facts fax games. And we made file folders for our facts faxes. If you don't think faxes are funny you are wrong.

* Staple is this weekend and Jeffrey Brown is in town for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* Yesterday I went swimming for this first time this year, went to softball for the first time this year and had a conversation with a boy that I really like. The kind where it seems like something bad is going to happen and really something crazy good happens.

* I put pictures up on Flickr for the first time in awhile. And that always feels good. Always.

* I've spent my whole day listening to Maritime, which is a band that I LOVE and that I had sort of forgotten to love lately.

Have a great weekend, readership. Seriously. You better do it.

A Nautical Themed Pashmina Ascot and other things that are funny.

2009-02-26T10:13:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty much ALWAYS way behind on all of the viral video bounty floating around the internet and this, I'm sure, is no exception. That fact notwithstanding I still think this is funny enough to warrant it's own blog post. So I am giving it to you, because I love you.

Also of note, this book:

It is full of comics based on real life Missed Connection ads. Julia Wertz of Fart Party fame edited and contributed to it as did other personal heroes and heroines of mine, Laura Park, Gabrielle Bell, Jeffrey Brown, and many many many other really great folks. It is hilarious and sad and sometimes, well.....uncomfortably easy to relate too. You should get it and read it. That is my advice to you.

Also, because I love all of you so much, here is my own little missed connection drawing sent here straight from my ultra unfancy phone. You love this shit.

That should do it for today, i think. You're all doing a really good job.

Are you there Rissa? It's me, the rest of the world.

2009-02-24T14:22:00.001-08:00

Where the heck did i go, right?

Semi-crazy, and totally broke were def. places I visited. Who's kidding who here? I'm still kind of in both of those places.

I did get a new job though, which is always a great feeling. Unless you get a sucky new job, I guess.

I'm keeping this brief, tip-toeing back into the world of my totally kickass blog so I'll just say that if you need things to care about this week care about my new awesome job at a place called They Might Be Monkeys! (you read that right, but Brad Pitt does not work here) Also, you should be caring about how this album has and is still saving my life.

We're all so lucky that people are taking care of trees and Phosphorescent is recording Willie Nelson tribute albums, and that my awesome blog is back! yay!!!!

the little four. pt. 1

2009-01-05T14:43:00.001-08:00

the little four. pt. 1
Originally uploaded by less like math

These are half of a series of drawings that I finished last night for my friend Jen's upcoming art show/party. I'm pretty sure these four little characters are going to be my new pet project for awhile. They're the new bear suit. Except that I'm still really feeling the bear suits. They are the cousins of the bear suit. Or something. Anyway, if you click through to my Flickr you can see it much much bigger which is much much better, of course.

Oh! tragic twee. You are everything.

Happy Two Thousand and Nine!!!!

2009-01-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

To my many thousands of readers I would like to extend the warmest ever New Years wishes. They smell like cut grass, and thunderstorms, and good grades, and new toys. Enjoy them.

My resolutions, you ask?
Gladly.

#1. Finally get that flying car:

#2. Finally get that robot boyfriend:

#3. Finally make Audio Books of your favorite (short) book:

As anyone who knows anything already knows, only one of these resolutions stands much of a chance of happening. So try not to be all weird to my robot boyfriend when you meet him.

Seriously, this will be the year of the audio book by me. Now taking requests. No Tolstoy, no foreign language, and nothing where I have to use too many sexual euphemisms or you'll just have a tape of me giggling. Because I'm twelve.

So so sorry quail.

2008-12-28T07:51:00.000-08:00

*

Dear Animal Kingdom,

I'm sorry I'm an asshole.

*I almost did murder on one of these over christmas. How's that for the spirit of the season? Almost though, the almost is the important part.

Foto Goldmine!

2008-12-22T15:39:00.000-08:00

I went to the Trophy's Christmas party last night with Bonnie. I drank, I laughed, I took lots and lots of pictures. That party was a total goldmine of good faces. In hindsight I wish I would have stayed longer. I've always been really shy about asking strangers if I can take their picture. I'm trying to get over that. People generally love having their picture taken. Especially at parties. Right? I mean, I do. So from now on I will be more assertive when I see a great face in public. And, I will not take my very nice new camera along on especially drunken nights. It didn't occur to me until this morning but that's a really bad idea. Noted. If you see me out, please, treat my camera like my car keys. Take it the frig away from me if I've had too many. It's not hard to tell. Ask anyone.

1 Part Validation to 1 Part Self Deprication.

2008-12-19T14:54:00.001-08:00

lovey.
Originally uploaded by less like math

I finally sold something (some things) from my art show!! Maybe that shouldn't be as big of a deal as it is. Maybe I shouldn't be such a capitalist about the things that I make. Maybe I shouldn't want to appeal to the larger populace. Well.....yeah, but it is and I do. I sold three prints and the original of the stitched calculator watch and I could not possibly be more pleased. Ya know, with myself. *ahem*

In the interest of humbling myself down from this crest of self congratulatory behavior I've decided to provide you, my readership, with an anecdote involving myself, poetry, and no shortage of cringe-worthy ridiculousness.

Like we all do, from time to time I Google myself just to see what I'm up to. Other than things from my Flickr page and the Eastland County record of my birth the only thing that ever consistently comes up when searching my name is A LOT, and I do mean A LOT, of porn websites. Now with a name like Larissa Swindle that's not a huge huge surprise, I guess. I do sometimes like to imagine that some really pissed ex-boyfriend embedded my full name in a bunch of hardcore porn sites just to be mean. I don't even know if that's a thing, embedding my name, but it seems funny and better than my parents choosing the same name for me that many many women choose along with a career in porn.

Anywho....last week, amongst all the porn, was a link that I've never seen come up before. Egads!!!! I did something new?!?! No, I didn't. It was a link to a poetry website where I made the misguided and ill-advised decision to post a rancorous bit of adolescent poetry. Except I wasn't really an adolescent. Okay, I wasn't an adolescent at all. I was like, 23. And because I love each and every one of you, my honeys, here ya go.

It's like I'm kicking Anne Sexton in the babymaker over and over again.

Hello and welcome to my blog. It will be great. You will really like it.

2008-12-18T14:31:00.001-08:00

mah selph and some foodstuffs
Originally uploaded by less like math

I'm not really sure what it will be about. Shamelessly promoting myself, of course, but in what way and to what end I haven't yet decided. But like I said before it will be great for you, my future readership. I'm going to spend the rest of the night thinking of some talking points. Be ready. I mean it godamnit. You better be ready.