Author: Jana

  • vistas

    IMG_3469
    This has been a week of hard work and travel. It’s the end of the semester crunch, I’ve been in the last stages of training for the opening of my outrigger season, and have layered on to that some significant obligations to friends and family. Oh, and also…I’ve found a house for the kids and I to move into later this summer (a house with roses, no less. Roses. And did I mention roses?)…

    As I look out at the months to come, I feel a lot like those wide open vistas that I encountered coming down highway 89 in Arizona last weekend. There’s so much ahead. Some of it is mysterious and indistinct. Some of it I can see clearly, but it’s going to be a bit of a climb. And some of it still lies around the bend in the road and I have no idea what will emerge as I move forward.

    Whew.

    It’s a lot, even for a pilgrim soul like mine.

    But it’s all good.

  • Twitter Weekly Digest for @janaremy, 2011-05-06

  • shutterbug

    shutterbug

    How I’m spending much of my time these days…(behind the lens).

    (Photo by D’Arcy)

  • Twitter Weekly Digest for @janaremy, 2011-04-29

    • Is having one of those "wishing I was in Paris" kinds of days. #
    • Just made my travel plans for #thatcamp prime! Now I should do the same for #DH2011 :) #
    • MT @westcenter @TheHuntington Designers of L.A. Noire game used vintage maps from Huntington to create virtual city http://lat.ms/hNqRxe #
    • MT @ddchamberlain @laurenfklein: Mentally bookmarking this. RT @mattwilkens: Rstudio makes R more approachable. http://bit.ly/gZzk3c #
    • Can't drive Malibu Cyn w/o thinking of Mike Davis… #
    • It was about time for a little bit of ocean http://plixi.com/p/95684044 #
    • Note to self: Easter pastries do not taste very fresh at 2pm. Not even worth the deeply discounted price at the local bakery… #
    • Just remembered that I took journalism classes at CalPolySLO way back in the summer of 1987(!). #roadtripflashback #
    • San Luis Obispo feels much more touristy, far less charming than 20 years ago (when I honeymooned here). Has it changed or have I? #
    • Much harder to tweet while driving that when I was on I-5, however! Now, at a rest stop: http://plixi.com/p/95607087 #
    • Driving down the 101 on a drizzly day–the clouds are spectacular against the green hills http://plixi.com/p/95606507 #
    • Most important takeaway from #wherecamp I need to upgrade my old-school iPhone #
    • Fascinating twitter visualizations by hashtag & location #wherecamp http://bit.ly/f1LdmV #
    • Recommended reading at #wherecamp for thinking abt Augmented reality: http://bit.ly/hHk3qv #
    • RT @froginthevalley: Visualization of the #earthquake in Japan as it happened on Twitter by @rioakasaka http://l.afrog.in/ejnQsI #wherecamp #
    • MT @vanriper: Twitter Dots(geolocated tweets) is next up at #wherecamp lightning talks http://bit.ly/dJgSHR #
    • Ooo, hypothesizing a grocery shopping/recipe geo-game #wherecamp #
    • Games workshop #wherecamp http://color.com/s/HKzcavY #color #
    • Tweeting with Color http://color.com/s/1KEXKTa #color #
    • And love that someone from flickr weighs in to challenge this ( because good photography matters, not just cellphone pics) #wherecamp #
    • Is Color the new flickr? #wherecamp #
    • Considering how facial recognition affects the "privacy" of the public street (scary? Or not?). #wherecamp #
    • Can Color (or similar apps) offer you enough incentives that you don't care that you're giving up so much privacy? #wherecamp #
    • Playing with Color (a new social networking app for recording public space interactions), on iPad bc my iPhone OS is too old #wherecamp #
    • Will be tweeting #wherecamp from my iPad today. What's the best Twitter app for the iPad? #
    • Irvine to Palo Alto on one tank of gas. I heart my #Prius #
    • Gilroy smells like garlic (yum) #
    • The Beatles seem the perfect accompaniment to this: http://plixi.com/p/94901499 #
    • Waving to Stockdale Hwy, where I lived for 4 years.. #Bakersfield #
    • Oh, the orange blossoms #sanjoaquinvalley #
    • A change in plans has me driving up I-5, from SoCal to NorCal. A perfect day for roadtripping! Just crossed the Tejon Pass. :) #

  • IMG_2842

    A few classic lines from A.E. Housman:

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
    Is hung with bloom along the bough,
    And stands about the woodland ride
    Wearing white for Eastertide.

    Of course, I love the white-pink blossoms. But what gets me most about this picture is that blue blue sky. I want to dip in my paddle and ride right into it!

  • trying again

    IMG_2777

    Nearly every picture I take, I evaluate it and find things that I could have done differently. I’m learning. I’m making mistakes. But I’m enjoying the process and trying and trying and trying again. When I’m behind the lens my whole body relaxes and it’s just me and whatever is in my viewfinder.

    And, on a mostly-unrelated note, I was feeling sad about some divorce-related things yesterday. A friend mentioned to me that it was okay to cry. I don’t think he knew that I usually don’t think it’s okay to cry. And so when another friend comforted me last night I let myself acknowledge what I was feeling inside and the tears flowed. I think I’ve only done that once since my marriage ended. It felt awkward and embarrassing to be so emotional. But I did it anyways. And it was okay. I was okay.

  • short shameful confession #11

    (It’s been awhile since I’ve posted one of these, you can see earlier entries in this series here):

    On the night before I Easter I ate a grilled lamb.  Not the entire thing, exactly, but a meal that had pieces taken from all of the very best lamb-parts, including the skin.  It was tasty and made my inner carnivore quite satisfied.

    The irony of eating a lamb on Easter weekend didn’t hit me until the following day (when I was ooh-ing over the baby lambs frolicking in the pastures as I drove along).  My mind just doesn’t ruminate on Jesus anymore.  And my ethical vegetarianism seems rather far behind me right now…

     

  • rose garden

    IMG_2864

    On Thursday I was having a day. A day that was full of all kinds of emotions and appointments and things. And so I planned to escape for about an hour late in the afternoon to the rose gardens at the Huntington Library. But my camera battery needed charging and I was trying to coordinate with someone else and my jaunt kept getting delayed. So by the time I headed out to the roses it was almost closing time. I’d counted on sweet-talking my favorite security guards so I could have just 10 minutes in the rose garden, but there were guards on duty who didn’t recognize me and who were not one bit swayed by my smile and plea.

    So I left, without even one picture of a flower, much less a rose. Which put me in a bit of a funk.

    Until, of course, I remembered that I was in Pasadena.  And it took only a few minutes before there was another rose garden in my viewfinder.

  • whirlwind

    orchards and sky
    It seems that sometimes life sends a convergence of happenings all at once.  Of course it can be thrilling when this happens, but it can also be tiring or stressful, or even the best-laid plans can go awry in the midst of the whirlwind.

    This past week held a bit of that craziness for me.  It was Spring Break for the kiddos and I had conference travel planned.  Then I added into the mix a much-needed four-day vacation to Portland…and then there was some major emotional stuff happening that I won’t go into now, but that definitely made this week out-of-the-norm (in a good way).

    So I was scheduled to fly to a conference in Palo Alto this weekend, and instead I decided to drive.  I realized that I needed the wide open spaces–both the landscape and the time to think as I sat behind the wheel.  And I needed very much just to be alone for awhile.

    I’m still digesting it all, making sense of change.  Making sense of this huge love I have for my life and for the state where I live (really, I feel like I could give the entire state of California a bit wet slobbery kiss after driving through the central valley, and following the meandering road over the Pacheco Pass).  Over the past ten years or so I’ve built up some strong walls around my emotions–as a protective mechanism to prevent being hurt (by the Mormons, by my ex-spouse, by academia, etc).  I’m breaking down a few of those barriers right now, ever-so-tentatively.  It’s hard work, being vulnerable again.  But I think I’m ready.

    At this moment I’m my bathrobe sitting on the balcony of a quiet hotel, looking out over a waterfall and dense trees.  It’s the first time that I’ve ever spent an Easter weekend alone (in recent years, I’ve been here). But it feels right for where I am in my life right now.  And I do have the loveliest view…

    IMG_2880

     

     

     

     

  • Twitter Weekly Digest for @janaremy, 2011-04-22

  • cooking

    homemade pizza

    When I was at Powell’s bookstore this past weekend, I spent a lot of time in the cookbooks. I didn’t buy any, but found much inspiration there! Now that I’m eating meat, I have a lot of thinking to do about incorporating new recipes and menus into my weekly routines. So I’d really appreciate your suggestions about your favorite cookbooks. For example, I’m now thinking of buying at least one of Thomas Keller’s cookbooks–perhaps The French Laundry Cookbook or Bouchon. I’ll also be getting my own copy of Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen, since I’ve been craving several of Clothilde’s recipes recently (ooo, and I might just have to pick up this one, too, to complete the Parisian menu: Laduree).

    Can you offer any other cookbook (or recipe) suggestions for me?

    Note: I’m also going to get some container gardening and a small potted herb garden growing soon.  Because there’s nothing better than garden-fresh.  :)

  • my weekend list…

    sakura
    Spent the weekend in Portland, and realized that I really needed to make a list of all I’d done, just so I wouldn’t forget anything, such as…
    cherry blossoms & tulips
    books (a la Powell’s and Heathman’s)
    chasing a bright moon
    riding the Max train
    getting dressed up
    getting dressed down
    telling stories from the past
    making plans for the future
    taking in the local history
    nibbling on chocolates in the afternoon
    nibbling on cheese & olives in the evening
    bubbling fountains & bubbling bathtubs
    Portlandia
    talking
    listening
    walking
    giggling
    (and then talking and listening and walking and giggling some more)
    Sunday brunch (crab benedict, oh my)
    and one more lesson in letting the rest of the world go by…
    blossoming