The fine and talented people I work with, standing on the observatory deck of the beautiful building we work in. Beers, margaritas, the sun and the sky. Not a bad workday.
I grow a beard every year, from the first of winter, to the first of spring. It’s a reminder that even though I live somewhere without black and white seasons, the days still pass.
Easy to get lost in all this sun.
She loves snow, and I love her, so up the mountain we went.
Left to right, Shweb, Dan, Charlie, Frankie, Chris, me, and Anthony. I was probably 11. Was one hell of water balloon fight. Anthony’s mom, Sally, took this picture. I can’t imagine an image that better captures how we grew up.
We’d spend our days seeing who could throw what the farthest. Who was the fastest. Who was the bravest, which typically entailed wrestling Frankie. He had such a strength advantage, that anyone only ever agreed to wrestle him if he was on his knees. We were wild and we ran like it, and the suburbs was our place to do it. Couldn’t have gown up anywhere better. Not specifically my hometown, but just the fact that it was the suburbs.
I live in the urban sprawl of Los Angeles now, a long ways from my hometown. I like it here, but didn’t always. It’s the people I’ve found and the girl I love that make it what it is for me. It’s where I belong now, but I couldn’t imagine being a kid here. I don’t know that I could have grown if not in suburban soil. I don’t know that any kid could. Confinement and wild freedom seem at odds. For that, I think some far off day, I may belong to those suburbs again.
King Bud Lidas. Turning all he touches to beer, even beer itself.
He had a staring problem.
My mom forbade me from taking a picture of her and my dad wearing their tie-dye t-shirts together. Putting that picture here just seemed like the right thing to do.