to celebrate the fourth of july this year, i put on one of a few outlandish red, white & blue combos and put together some food to grill at a friend’s house. i am so used to my arsenal of funny clothes that i didn’t bother with a full-body shot, but i did take a self-portrait at some point during the day. my red pants are represented by reflections on the white walls.

after obligatory grilling, we headed over to machine project for their 2nd annual porch of july spectacular. i mean, look at these ladies, who wouldn’t want to sing folk songs of american history with them?

[image: machine project]

we sang all manner of folk songs happy and sad. it’s amazing to think about how many years we have been singing about injustice, slavery, war, and crimes against nature with so much hope for change. to be singing the same songs so many years later and see so little evidence of progress is discouraging. i suppose evolution happens too slowly to observe, in any case. we did a lot of new [to me] favorites, like tree of the valley, oh healing river, and rare bog, rattlin bog, and revisited ones i grew up with, like the answer is blowin in the wind, when the saints go marching in, and this land is your land. i can muster up some spirit for some of them, but man, when they mention “the gulf stream waters” as part of the america we get to revere and share, my friend and i stopped in our tracks. hippie kid moment: um, america, what ARE you doing to this great land, anyway?

laura steenberge took a few breaks to mention how awesome and powerful it is to sing heartily with other people, and i totally agree. it was really fun to belt out songs about protest and fellowship with my friends & neighbors.

after that, we took a quick walk down to echo park lake where the usual suspects were lighting fireworks. my main worry in all this is about the ducks, but it looks like they manage to take refuge on the island. then we headed home to where kitty kazoo was hiding from the perceived warfare under the covers of our bed [motor & ray are relatively unphased by fireworks].

today is a whole new story. i have taken a desk in a co-working arrangement at fetch creative with some other awesome designers, and today was our first day working together. i am already so excited about this decision, because while i love working at home on my own, if i can get a chance to work in a group space with talented, driven, like-minded people, i’m thrilled. i’ll be writing more about this in the coming weeks, but for today it was great to pull up a chair, get away from my ordinary distractions and take in-person chat breaks instead of facebook or twitter breaks. a big yes to co-working!