Silent Film Stars and napping on the job...

I am a research assistant for one of my professors. Technically, I am an editorial assistant on a book that is forthcoming on women silent film pioneers. No, no, no, not actresses, but writers and directors and producers and other such positions of power that most people assume only men held in those days...it turns out there were waaaaaay more women working in the silent era of film, than in the 30s, 40s or 50s! If you're sort of curious what it is all about, you can get an idea by clicking here (this is the old site, the professor I work for recently recently left Duke):
http://literature.aas.duke.edu/wfp/index.html

There are also lots of fabulous pictures too, like this one of Natacha Rambova, who was a rumored lesbian, professional dancer, production and art designer, married to Valentino and born in Salt Lake City!

She also designed one of the most visually sumptuous and yet utterly stilted and boring films ever, Nazimova's SALOME (which featured an all gay man cast, which Nazimova said was a tribute to Oscar Wilde). Rambova's style in this particular film looked like a Beardsley drawing come to life and remains one of the best art nouveau designed films ever.

She is just one example of many. When I go home for Christmas I will likely spend some time at the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU which has a huge repository of film ephemera, including Cecil B. DeMille's papers. He hired and used (in more ways than one if you get my drift) numerous women to write the scenarios for his silent films. So, over the holiday I'll be collecting documents and photographs. I mean really, what can be more fun than doing research for your Christmas holiday?

I keep falling asleep on the job. It's not cause it's boring. It's cause I'm not sleeping enough at night. Which is to say, I am trundling off to slumberland RIGHT NOW!

You Know You Love Me! XO XO Gossip Girl.

So yes, sometimes I watch Gossip Girl. It's all Rashi fault if you must know. Rashi is a friend from school who told me it was her favorite show. I laughed until I realized she wasn't kidding. She was dead serious. Granted she is like 12 (okay, 25) and I am 40 (not true...but closer to 40 than 20). But she was going to drag me into loving it too, regardless of how I might feel about spoiled New York rich kids.

I hate spoiled New York rich kids.

And yet, Gossip Girl is like watching Beverly Hills 90210 15 years ago. It's a soap opera for teenagers. Spoiled, wealthy upper east siders. The kind of people I loathe going to school with and should loathe watching on a tv show. But I guess I am a 33 year old teen because I am strangely hooked. And today it paid off.

I am producing a classmates thesis film. It's about teenagers in Middle America. And half of the girls who auditioned mentioned auditioning to be on the show Gossip Girl. And they all essentially look like this:

The director and assistant director had never seen Gossip Girl (and said girls who dressed like this were not appropriate for the film), but there was something comforting that I, as the oldest person in the room, knew a lot about teenage culture.

Making arty movies and producing like crazy!

It's November. It's also 64 degrees outside. This little body of mine (well...maybe not that little) doesn't know what to wear! Coat? Sweater? Skivvies? It's so hard. Maybe it's why I have banned getting dressed ever again until the weather decides to behave and make up its mind.

I have been producing and production designing up a storm. What this means to all you lay people is that I have been making all the plans and prep work for a film a classmate is directing (everything from finding locations, casting and figuring out how to feed the crew). Part of the time it's fun. The other part of the time I want to rip all of my hair out.

Production design, on the other hand, is almost always fun. Production design is all the art work involved in the movie. Making sets, designing rooms, finding props and (sometimes) doing the wardrobe. It's sort of like interior decorating. The last film I worked on the people were catholic and I ended up using this cross in the film:I don't know why this photo makes me laugh so hard. Or why my hair looks so weird. But the cross is pretty scary I think. Someone used it as a hammer at one point on set, which I think might be sacrilegious.

Been working on some experimental stuff. Like this film I shot of my best friend Karin in Israel last summer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6c0Ynudsdk

or this, which is supposed to capture the frenetic energy of getting ready every morning while I was there (make sure you click on the "watch in high quality" button):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_2GjY_mbtA

Israel was lovely by the way. You should go. I enlarged my student loans to shoot some of my pre-thesis work there. What's another $5000 when I am already over $100,000 in debt?

Hanging in Georgia

So.

At the moment I am in Georgia at my friend Molly's wedding. I drove down from New York with two friends from school, Beth and Rammy. Beth borrowed her parents' car and Rammy found us a place to stay for free in Raleigh, NC last night. And now we are in Savannah at the Holiday Inn. Tonight was the rehearsal dinner...lots of beautiful New York people transported to the deep South...I found myself wanting to ask, "Ummm...excuse me, but I forgot my headshot and I am not really sure I am pretty enough to be at this reception..."

Those of you who know me really well, know that I adore road trips. We stopped along the way in South Carolina called South of the Border. So so so offensive to Mexican people. And yet I laughed at all the stereotypes, which makes me a very bad person.

Whoa! You all probably thought I died!!!

Well, my dears...I didn't die. In fact, I've just been in New York City making movies. And I have to say, it has been the hardest two years of my life. By a LONG shot.

The good news is, with the end of course work, I have to produce a bunch of films in order to graduate. Which mean I don't have to go to class. The bad news is that i need to find job fast!

Been working on a bunch of little films. Just recut an experimental music film. Check it out here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=N3jqbFPab9E

I am also starting to write grants for two different films I am producing. One is shooting in a month! Eeeek! If you're ever in the mood to donate to up and coming directors and film projects (and you want a tax write off) let me know. Seriously. We have fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas. This means you donate money to the organization, then they cut us a check, and provide you with a tax write off. Yes, the non-profit world likes to call it fiscal sponsorship. My friend Catherine, who is my sometimes producing partner, likes to call it legal money laundering. Regardless, in an imperfect world, it gets the work done.

I just got an educational loan increase to go to Israel for the summer to make a short documentary about Darfur refugees in Tel Aviv. It will be my non-thesis film. I am interested in displacement, and I have a few connections there (not to mention my best friend Karin), so my costs should stay fairly low. Plus, I am already so incredibly far beyond what I can ever make up in debt, that $5,000 more doesn't seem like a lot. It is sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that I'll be close to $200,000 in debt when this is all said and done.

I worked five jobs this spring. I am seriously a masochist. Thankfully, most of them were freelance...and all but two of them are over! But having enough money to be able to pay rent is great! And if I hadn't worked so hard I never would've have been able to afford Israel.

Life is good. I promise to try and keep in better touch.

Seriously.

Facing yourself face to face...

Last night I went to a modern dance show in the village with my friend Mollye. It was very intimate, with five dancers on a small stage. I enjoyed the show very much, but had a very strange moment when the lead dancer (and choreographer) finally appeared. She looked like me.

People always think I look like someone they know. Someone familiar. And occasionally I get a "you look just like Drew Barrymore" or "you have Cybill Shepard's profile," neither of which I understand when people say it. Of course, it could be worse. I used to have a friend who used to be told (who is a girl mind you) that she is the spitting image of Michael J. Fox, which is not a nice thing to say to a girl...

That said, I actually recognized that this girl looked like me. Highish forehead, same eyes...it was very odd. Sort of a strange realization of what I would look like if I hadn't cut my hair short.

Writing with regularity

It's nearly the end of January and I find myself suffering from a lack of completion. At least where my writing is concerned. Sure, I've managed to write and direct a three-minute film and work on 12 of my classmates' films (yes, I CAN tell you what a gaffer actually does), but my writing has suffered. I have notebooks and notebooks of ideas, but nothing concrete, just lots of story outlines and snippets of dialogue and the first pages of much longer ideas.

My best friend Karin thinks I should write a book about going to Columbia called "The Narrative Year," all about my efforts to try and be a narrative filmmaker rather than an experimental filmmaker, which I find far more intuitive. But how could I even start such a project when I can't even keep up on writing a blog?

One of the fun things about film school is appearing in classmates' films. So far this semester I've played a slut who is cheating with her best friend's boyfriend, an insane professor, a bisexual who is cheating on her girlfriend and is stabbed to death, a girl who steals $100 from her roommate to buy a Christmas tree, a bitch girlfriend who is mad at her boyfriend for losing tickets to the Nutcracker, someone who is randomly making out with her boyfriend at the library, the girlfriend of a hustler, and tomorrow I get to do my first nude scene! Okay, not really. But when my friend Lisa asked me to be in her film, the first thing I asked her jokingly was, "Do I get to be naked?" And her response? "Yeah, how did you know?" Actually, the film is about a one night stand and I am the girl in bed. So I don't REALLY get to be naked, just naked from the shoulders up. Right about now is when I wish I had a tube top.

I wonder why I am often cast as the slutty girlfriend. I asked Proferes, my directing professor last semester, why and he said, "Well, as [Elia] Kazan always said to me, 'you can't hire someone as an actor unless they have already lived part of the role.'" To which I replied, "So what are you saying, Nick? That I'm a slut?" And his response, "Well, if the shoe fits..." Yes, it seems I came to Columbia to be insulted by my professors.

So, for the three of you who read my blog, I thought I'd attach a couple of YouTube links so you can get an idea of the kind of films I am working on these days. They're crappy and made pretty quickly, but they'll give you an idea.


This is my film noir that I shot entirely out of sequence in 3 hours. I like my production design MUCH better than the performances.


This was the first short film I made at Columbia. It was also the first time I used a digital camera, worked with actors or edited on Final Cut Pro. The soundtrack is a Nouvelle Vague cover of Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough."

Eventually, I'll get the film I made over Christmas holiday up here too.

Random Bad Luck

The semester has just ended. And the winter holiday is going to be spent making my own, or working on other friend's short films. I like the idea that my job, essentially for the next three years, is making movies, writing scripts and learning all aspects of the film industry.

But I have to confess, I am exhausted, and more broke than I have ever been.

You see, this semester has been a series of bad luck. I am trying to remember what happened first. I think it may have been the guy who felt me up (he grabbed my right breast) from behind then took off on 125th Street. While I was rather freaked out, at least it was daytime, so I wasn't really worried about him dragging me off the street and raping me in some alley. But still...I did feel a bit violated.

Then my hard drive crashed. The best part? I had just backed up the entire contents of my computer on it, because my laptop wasn't behaving very well. This included my entire music collection, much of my digital art, and two books I am working on. The music (something like 20GB) can be replaced...not cheaply mind you...but it's possible). The book and art work...not so much. So I took it down to a couple of Mac shop in New York to see how much it would cost to do data recovery. You ready? $1,300. THIRTEEN HUNDRED FRIGGIN' DOLLARS!!! That is just wrong. So deeply wrong. I mean the hard drive only cost $250? How can data recovery cost $1300?

I was hoping my bad luck was getting better, but then on Wednesday I started throwing up and running a fever. I had to finish editing a film (it's a film noir and at least that turned out okay), write four papers, and get clearances to shoot on the street and in Central Park for a film I am producing this weekend. So, staying home wasn't an option. So, I chugged my Pepto, and went down to jump on my bike and found...I bet you know what's going to happen next...my bike had been stolen.

I think if I wasn't so exhausted, suffering from severe lack of sleep (I've averaged 4 hours a night in the last two weeks), I would probably be in tears. But I am too tired to cry. I'm just really, really sad because I liked my bike. It was great for transportation in New York. And yesterday was going to be the last time I rode it before putting it in the basement for the season. How to bike thieves steal a bike with two chains on it, including a U-lock, anyway?

Apple Picking, Pie and Incontinent Rainclouds

Fall on the East Coast is lovely. There are a number of small trees that turn bright red, which I like to call (in my best Biblical Moses voice) "the burning bush." While NYC does have its fair share of burning bushes, rust-colored oaks and weird yellow trees that drop stinky fruit, I decided it was time to get out of town. Actually, my friend Apryl decided it was time to get out of town and I facilitated her. So we, with an assist from my friends Josh and Mollye, set out on apple picking in New Jersey. We ended up on a farm, where we rode a tractor, picked ten pounds of Granny Smith and Pink Ladies, petted a goat and bought fresh vegetables for dinner. Back in town, I cored some of the apples and made a pretty good apple pie for my screenwriting class.

The following week, I decided that perhaps getting out of town really was good for me. So, I drove upstate to the Storm King Art Center. Go visit it now! It is hands down one of the best sculpture parks I have ever visited. Not only that, the drive up was stunning. Small roads that curved along the Hudson (yep, I took the long way home), rust-colored trees past their fall foliage prime--but still beautiful, steel span bridges. I literally ached with the beauty of it all and dreaded coming back to the city.

Finally, my sister has a blog which I often read. While she is always pretty funny, her drawing of an Incontinent Raincloud is maybe the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Check it out.

Halloween

Last night I went to a Halloween party in Chelsea thrown by the School of the Arts at Columbia. It was held at a bar called Crobar. It's the sort of place where people queue outside and people like J. Lo show up. Essentially not my scene. I guess that's not exactly true, because if J. Lo WERE outside and singing "Jenny From the Block" I might be compelled to stay and watch.

Regardless, while the event was not really my style, the best part of the party were the costumes! Art folks are pretty funny when it comes to dressing. Sure, there were a lot of sexy doctors, sexy animals and downright slutty girls, but there was also Patty Hearst, a girl named Jeannie dressed up as Jeannie from "I Dream of Jeannie," a swarm of avian flu and one HOT sailor...oh wait, that was me! Maybe I'll post a photo later. But I have to say, my favorite part of the night was the fact that I made masks for everyone who did not have a costume. Yes, 15 masks of my friend Apryl's face. My cousin Josh said it should be a band...The Fifteen Masks of Apryl. Watching Apryl walk around with 15 other Apryl's was weird and amazingly funny. I think on Tuesday I am definitely going to school as Apryl...or maybe I'll go super post-modern and make a mask of my own face!

Why I Love Boston

I've run into a number of people lately who were raised in the greater Boston area, but now live in New York. Whenever I say, "I love Boston" they say (usually with a roll of the eyes), "How can you like Boston? It's so provincial!" This weekend I spent a couple of sun drenched days in Somerville, Cambridge and Boston and fell in love all over again with the city. So, to all of those dorks who don't get it, let me state exactly why I love Boston...

1. I love that Boston IS provincial compared to New York, that the town and people are friendlier and I always feel safe in Boston (a feeling I rarely have in New York).

2. I love that I know where everything is in Boston. I love that I know where to look for used books (McIntyre and Moore, Brattle Book Shop, Harvard Bookstore), know where to buy vinyl (Looney Tunes, Cheapo Records, In Your Ear, Stereo Jacks... and that is just in Cambridge alone), know where to buy a good cheap burrito (Ana's and Felipe's). I also know that eventually I will have a grasp on this sort of stuff in New York, but right now I miss the ease and familiarity.

3. I love the film scene in Boston. Sure, the film scene is technically better in New York, but it's more expensive...much more expensive as I used to have a job in Boston that afforded me free movies in all of the theatres in Cambridge. I love that I used to be able to walk four blocks and see rep films at the Brattle Theatre and new releases at the Harvard Square Cinemas.

4. I love that I really became an adult in Cambridge. Had my first real relationships, my first real job, my first solely rented apartment (yeah, so I am back to having multiple roommates in New York).

5. I love (and miss) intellectual conversations at the Harvard Film Archive. I assumed going to film school that all of my classmates would be well versed in cinema...but not so! I miss the days when we'd sit around and discuss Ozu, Hollis Frampton, Janet Gaynor and Hal Hartley all in one go. While I do have friends in New York with that sort of knowledge, the people I see on a daily basis do not.

6. I love Linda and Despina in Somerville.

7. I love that you can put your bike on the commuter rail and in one hour be on the best beach (Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea) in New England. While Fire Island (and even Coney Island) do have their appeal, I love Singing Beach...well, because of its provincialness (is that even a word?)

8. I miss the Boston skyline. I miss riding my bike along the Charles River and looking at the sail boats and many bridges and the Pru and the stacked houses and capitol dome of Beacon Hill.

The truth is, I could go on like this for days, but it just makes me feel homesick.

T-Shirt Shame

As a pre-teen during summer holiday, I was obsessed with watching the TV show "Too Close For Comfort," which I deeply hated (JM J. Bullock was supposed to be straight...I mean really, that was just too much to ask in terms of suspension of disbelief) but which I felt compelled to watch every day at 12:30 pm. Ted Knight, who played Henry the father, always wore a sweat shirt from an American university. A different University every episode. In an interview during the mid-80s he said it was because he never graduated from college, which he always regretted, and this was his way of paying respect to all the great universities.

Charles, my childhood best friend, also wore a sweat shirt around this time that announced his allegiance to Harvard, which his father had attended, and which he and I used to fight over who would actually end up going there. I think we may have even had a ten dollar bet going. I secretly wanted the Harvard shirt, but made a conscious decision that I would NEVER wear a college shirt...that I was too cool to be a walking billboard for a University.

At BYU I sneered at the students who wore the BYU cougar shirts. "Stupid out of towners," I thought, "BYU is so stupid..." and then I would put on my "That Slut Girl" shirt that had a great cartoon of a girl with cleavage and a 60s flip smoking a cigarette and looking deliciously bitchy.

Even when I started working at Harvard (yeah, so neither Charles nor I actually went to Harvard, but I think I still win our 5th grade bet--Charles, if you're out there I want my ten dollars!), I looked at all the undergraduates and would sneer, "silly spoiled brats whose mommies and daddies make a billion dollars and can actually send them to this stupid ivy league school...I'd never wear a stupid college shirt." But that didn't stop me from buying Harvard t-shirts for all of my nieces and nephews one Christmas...

Last night I was helping my friends Josh and Mollye on some design work for a film project they are working on. It got to be late and I was exhausted after a very long day at school and I ended up sleeping on their couch. Now this would have been fine, only I had an appointment at 9 am on campus and I didn't wake up until 8:30, which did not give me time to go home and change my clothes (I had to brush my teeth with my finger and baking soda...) and because I have a busy day today, I won't make it home until tonight. And I hate wearing the same clothes twice. And there are no clothes stores near Columbia.

I suppose you know where I am going with this.

Yes, today I actually bit the bullet and bought a Columbia shirt. It's cute. It's black with white stitching. It's fitted and makes me look hot...but across my boobs, it definitely says Columbia.

I have become what I hate.

And I sort of like it.

The oddness of school

I have 21 credits this semester. Full time is considered anything over 12 credits. Needless to say, I have a busy schedule. But, unlike being an undergraduate, there are no grades, just pass/fail classes. And this makes it a lot easier to worry about making interesting films rather than worrying about merely grade grubing.

I also have an acting class. It's called Directing the Actor, only for the first 9 weeks, we ARE the actors. I've never been very good at memorizing lines and this class has been hard because I have to memorize AND block scenes. Last week I was assigned a scene from David Hare's Plenty. In it, the main character asks a man she hardly knows to impregnant her so she can be a single mother. I was totally fine with this in concept, until I actually read the scene (five pages is freaking me out...how do people memorize whole plays anyway?) and realized I am going to have to kiss one of my classmates that I hardly know! Eeek!

This week I am also shooting my first film exercise. You should all be forewarned that if you come to visit me any time soon I will force you to be in my films!

Note to Self...Things to Not Repeat Living in NYC

1. Walking alone in Morningside Park after dark. I actually watched a couple of junkies shooting up in the park earlier today. It is quite a lovely park, but not so good at night.
2. Riding my bike home at night without a helmet or a light.
3. Wandering the side streets alone in Harlem after midnight.
4. Eating at any establishment that has the word "fried" more than three times on the awning "Fried Chicken, Hamburgers, Fried Cheese, Fried Okra, Mac n Cheese."
5. Telling the corner grocer that I am not married.
6. Stepping on the betting money of the seven guys who continually play dice outside of my house.
7. Calling my professor a "poopface" and having them overhear.
8. Hmmm....I am sure there are more...

Starting school in NYC

I finally have an apartment! I am living in West Harlem in a 2nd floor flat with two girls who are a year ahead of me in the film program at Columbia. It is a recently refurbished building with hardwoods and decent light and a mere four long blocks walk to Columbia. Email me if you want the new address to send me hundreds of dollars (or to send me a nice postcard)!

I like Harlem. One of the difficulties of New York is that it feels like such a rat race, like you must wear the best clothes and know the right places to brunch and be intimately familiar with all the “cool” neighborhoods. And there is only so much of that that I can do without feeling utterly exhausted. But Harlem feels like a community. Like a neighborhood. So many people have lived here for years. People say hello and good morning on the street. If I walk around the neighborhood in jeans, flip flops and a hoodie no one really cares. You can buy a can of soda for 50¢ and get an egg sandwich for $1.50. Rent in New York City is still outrageous, but at least I’ll be able to afford to eat. Plus, I’m only nine short blocks from Central Park, where I walk almost every day and heed the advice of my friend John who said, “find the green spaces in Manhattan, they will keep you sane.”

School started this week. Not real school mind you, but orientation that involved everyone in my program getting into small groups and making a short film. My film involved me sitting in a public toilet for three hours. If this is what the rest of grad school is going to be like, I can’t wait!

An Apartment, Susan Sontag and Boston

For the last six years I have managed to attend all of the films I want to see for free. It's one of the perks of working for a theatre. Recently, I've been able to add museums to that list because Harvard Film Archive is under the Fine Arts Library, which gave us a pass to get into museums for free. When I quit Harvard I had to turn in my official ID, but not my museum pass, which has come in handy in New York because it allows me to get in free to every museum! I am allowed to spend as much time as I like in the Met to appreciate a lovely tribute show of photographs coupled with Susan Sontag's text or a small drawing show of Schiele and Klimt. Or I can wander into the Whitney and see the brilliant "Mothlight" by Stan Brakhage every day at 5 pm, or see Christian Marclay's video installation on the fourth floor. Or I can go on Tuesday morning to see the Dada show at the MoMA.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to con anyone into letting me into the movies for free. I've seen three films, which cost me $30! And while LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, SCOOP and LEONARD COHEN: I'M YOUR MAN, were all fun and worthwhile, I am going to have to find a cheaper (read: free) way of seeing movies.

I've also found an apartment. It's in Harlem with two girls. It's a newly renovated flat where I can keep my bicycle in the basement (right next to the washer and dryer)! It's perfect and by far the cheapest place I've found, and I am so grateful to be so close to school. In fact, until the bad weather shows up, I can easily ride my bike to school every day!

At the moment I'm in Boston, housesitting. As I've officially been a displaced person for the last 46 days, I'll take any offer to squat in an unoccupied house. Thankfully in 10 days I will be moving my stuff from a storage unit in Boston to NYC. Anyone interested in helping?

Pretty Jewelry

So, for those of you who like pretty jewelry (or know girls who do), check out this site:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=54750

A couple of my friends have started making stuff which I think is nice. And if you like it and actually buy it, they will be super happy!

Living versus visiting New York

Living in a place, rather than merely visiting, is a whole different experience with its own set of rules and negotiations. I have been searching for an apartment in Manhattan for the last four days. I have walked varied neighborhoods, talked to ten potential roommates, looked at six apartments in Harlem, Spanish Harlem, the Upper West Side, Midtown West, and Lower East Side (which was way too far from Columbia--150 short blocks and two local train transfers that would take an hour and fifteen minutes on a good day--but it was still fun to look). I have still not found a place. I have walked through Central Park and cooled myself off in 100 degree weather by walking through loosened hydrants spewing water. I've been whistled at (best comment ever? "Sure is hot out here, little lady, but not as hot as you!"), walked probably the equivalent of 20 miles and got free sushi when a cockroach ran across my table--which was probably a good thing as I didn't really have the $15 to pay for it.

I bought a weekly pass for the subway. I love the subway. It's one of the few places where you are allowed to stare at people and make up stories. Yesterday I sat across from a native American dwarf. I am not making this up! As my friends are acutely aware, I am a little person magnet. His face was perfect. He was noble, clear-eyed and somehow intimidating, and in a previous life might have been Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux. In fact, I wanted to befriend him and ask him to keep in touch with me so I could use him some day in a film. This morning, I listened to two men in full mariachi suits play the accordion and guitar and sing. Everyone in the train car smiled and it reminded me of my trip to Mexico last summer, where a full 12-piece mariachi band played us "Besame Mucho," and the men on the train made me feel a little sad.

Three Things I Love About Utah

Tomorrow morning I will be heading back to the East Coast. And while I love the east and I have no desire to live permanently in Utah, there are a number of things I love about this state that I think I've taken for granted and would like to tell the three people who read this blog about right now!

First, I love the canyons. I grew up in Northern Utah, I learned to ski here, I rafted in the Provo River and even attempted water skiing in Deer Creek Reservoir. I particularly love Provo Canyon and had forgotten its vertical heights, lush greenery and waterfalls. If you ever visit Utah (or you happen to live here), at least take a drive through Provo Canyon to Heber or Park City because it's amazingly beautiful.

Second, I love free fruit. When I was in college I used to make a lot of pies and jam. Lately, I've been walking in the morning (both in Provo and Salt Lake City) and I realized why I made so many lovely desserts. There are a million fruit trees! This morning I passed three plum trees, a raspberry bush, an apricot tree, a blackberry bush, a pear tree and a peach tree. And I was only walking for 20 minutes!

Third, I love weird "only in Utah" structures and businesses. Whether it is the enormous 20 foot high balloon of a Mormon missionary on top of a store called "Missionary Mall," or video stores called "Clean Flicks" that edit films to clean up language and/or anything else that might possibly be considered offensive--nope, they don't carry The Last Temptation of Christ, but they DO carry The Passion if any of you are curious--or the strangest park in the world called Gilgal Gardens (if you're ever in SLC you HAVE to go; see http://www.gilgalgarden.org/) or basement houses that popped up when people put down a foundation, but couldn't afford to build the rest of the house (see image below), Utah is filled with kitsch that makes many Utahns crazy, but that I have learned to absolutely love.



I should really make a book called Roadside Utah with images of all the funny, weird, and utterly unique... well... crap that I love about this state.

Driving to Eugene, Oregon

My sister Jennifer decided to drive from Provo, UT to visit our other sister Suzanne in Eugene, Oregon. And, since I've been couch surfing at my mom's house in Utah, I decided I'd jump in Jenny's car and drive with her to Eugene.

The western United States is amazing, diverse and allows for days and days of big sky driving. Most people don't realize that the land west of the great Salt Lake to the the Sierra and Cascade Mountains is a big desert. This includes eastern Oregon and southern Idaho. Perhaps the most fascinating part of the trip was a huge tree with probably 1,000 pairs of shoes thrown up into it near the Oregon/Idaho border. We decided to take a small state road through Oregon and only got waylaid in the Cascades when a large forest fire forced us to take an alternate route.

Yesterday, we drove to Silverfalls State Park east of Salem and hiked. Silverfalls State Park is made up of 10 waterfalls. We only saw 8 of them because we took the short hike (5 miles) rather than the long hike (8.3 miles). We were wishing we had brought bathing suits (or at least water socks) because the water under the falls collected in deep clear pools which looked really refreshing and after hiking we were really hot. My niece Vanessa claimed that Silverfalls is where fairies live and I think she might be right. We took this photo of a magical tree.



Today we are driving out to the ocean. It's strange that in one month I will have seen the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterrean. Particularly strange as I'm totally broke and I've managed to do all of this traveling for free. I'm grateful I have such good friend and family who allow me to couch surf during this strange inbetween time.