take me to paradise

Here is a collection of paradise inspiring photos for summertime. I, being a city dweller year round, meaning no vacations whatsoever, have made it my duty to discover a paradise within my city, full of retro/vintage/grunge vibes, and maybe even little bits of Disneyland-ness here or there. If only good ol' Walt wasn't a misogynist/anti-semitic dick face, Disneyland might be a lil' more enjoyable. But I am willing to ignore the horrid side of Walt, and focus on the awesome side of Walt, which is the side that created DISNEYLAND! Walt should totally be added to the It's Complicated zine. Also, I think my perfect paradise for the summer would be a nice vintage/old fashioned/retro diner, with red leather booths and milk shakes and black/white tiled floors and cheap food I can afford and cool wall décor and vintage photos all over the walls!

Look at the pretty colors and the 1950's vibes and the awesome font and the fish scale background OMG it's too perfect! (source unknown)

Hella unknown sources, but bottom right is Neil Krug.

More unknown sources. Thanks, google.

More unknown sources.

unknown, unknown

Look at the awesome clothing!! Unknowns.

Unknown sources

source, Davelandweb.com!

via Grease, ze movie!

AHHHHHHHHDGKLHSAUIEHG:LKA. I'm so unbelievably in love with this photo you have no idea OMG. Ugh, look at the 70s colors that have appeared to be kissed by the sun! The beautiful Burger King sign that is rocking life to the max, the striped walls that remind me of that striped gum that tastes amazing, and the awesome yellow taxi with the dent! So seventies and so many Reese's Pieces vibes! (unknown)

GOODBYEEEEEEEEE (unknown)

where are the butterflies?

A mish-mosh of my thoughts. Of my brain.

I love butterflies. They are just so simple and beautiful and easy and nice and free. Disgusted by caterpillars... yet a lover of butterflies? The world is a sad place.

SMILE! You're alive!

Poop.

Haven't worn a crown in a while.... a symbol of my seemingly increasing "outfit insecurity?" I hope not. I need to be brave!

The moment when I need to  pee  poop but I'm too lazy to get up.

I feel like life should be easier. I wish the stress and angst and anxiety wasn't a factor in growing up, but at the same time I feel like it's a necessity in order to fully mature and become smarter/cooler/wiser/more awesome. It seems unfair that you're intelligence is tested at school. I think the world is a pretty fucked up place, so I'm pretty dang thankful I live in such a pretty, somewhat surrealistic city. It always feel magical, overflowing with aesthetic pleasures that seem to reference my favorite movies, TV shows, songs, albums, and inspiring people.

Final exams don't test whether a student has learned a semesters worth of material, they test a students ability to memorize all the information they've learned in a semester. STUUUUPIIIIIIDDD.

It's weird how light and shadows transmit images to our MINDS.

Psychedelia.

My bedroom feels empty of a teenage presence.

Those of us who have a deep desire to live in another decade always seem to romanticize all the shit that took place. Like, the 60s, we all love the 60s, but do we love the oppression and objectification of women? Um, no. But we choose to ignore that it was there, ignore it's presence. It's pretty fucked up, but that aspect of "looking through rose colored glasses" is present in everything. We don't want to acknowledge the bad, upsetting crap, so we ignore it. It's a pretty bad habit, actually. You can't forget the horrible stuff that went on in days/months/years/decades past. Because you need to be aware of the horrible stuff, in order to grow, mature, learn, and appreciate all the greatness that goes on, and it's important to remember. You can't ignore the fact that the Holocaust happened, and that innocent people were MURDERED and KILLED and SCARRED EMOTIONALLY AS WELL AS PHYSICALLY. You can't ignore it, and you can't pretend it's not there, or that it didn't happen, because those people who went through that crap deserve to be remembered, and their suffering deserves to be recognized, which sounds weird, but it's true. They suffered so you could live a better life. The Holocaust was horrible and evil and makes me want to cry when I really think about it/read about it, but in some ways, didn't it almost have to happen? Or didn't something like it HAVE to happen? Because if it didn't, or if something like it didn't happen, we probably wouldn't have the laws that protect us against that stuff today. We all romanticize the stuff we don't want to be there, or the stuff we don't want to hear. We choose to ignore the stuff that upsets us, or convince ourselves it's less of an issue. Even in small things, like that snarky comment you said to your friend; you feel guilty, but you convince yourself they didn't hear, or they didn't care, you romanticize the moment so you can feel better. This ends it on a weird note... pretty narcissistic.

Nuns are pretty cool. They just intrigue me. Especially those awesome rebel nuns.

I think my style is gravitating toward a soft/whimsical/fairy-esque feel, which is bothering me? I feel like my style is.... labeling me? Is this weird? I just don't want to LOOK like a soft little bubblegum fairy. But at the same time, everything I put on just SCREAMS FAIRY. I like it, but I also don't...

i'd love to be a flower child

I suppose we could all say we're familiar with the term "flower children," a 60's term for the radical hippies that rocked the socks off that decade. I prefer saying flower children over hippies because it sounds really cool and foggy-pastely-wes anderson type movie-esque and just way cooler and more appealing than "hippie." I unabashedly admit to classifying myself as a flower child in the sense of "daisy chains meets crowns made of shit meets lots of flowery printed things/clothing/hair clips meets hanging out in fields of grass with daisies/nature meets listening to unknown music/bands meets trying too hard to be alternative meets hunting down thrift stores for used clothing." Clearly, my definition of flower child(ren) does and does not meet the definition of a flower child from the 60's. Due to the fact that I wasn't born in the 60's and am too lazy (considering it's 12:15 am and my "being a night person" is causing me to want to be AMBITIOUS when the rest of the world is ASLEEP or RAVING (yeah not for me I keep it classy with my butt glued to my desk chair while busying myself on my computer all day and reading books and decorating my room with pretty things that make me SMILE like a toothless baby smiles at Ronald McDonald.) So here is my inferential view and photo diary (via google images, and it's a pretty skimpy photo diary but my next post about flower children will be of much better photo diary worthiness) of 1960's flower children and their epic pwnage of the decade known for getting high and going on marches and protests about how much war sucks ass! (Which it does. I hope I get to go on a anti-war protest/march one day. It's on my bucket list, because I'm awesome and have a bucket list at 15 because I'm OCD about lists, even lists of thing I have to do before I die. See, I'm proactive. I plan ahead.) I guess I don't meet the drug (weed) standards necessary to be a FULL FLEDGED MODERN DAY FLOWER CHILD but that's cool because I take the low road in this case. (VERSUS THE HIGH ROAD HAHA LAUGH GUYS I'M FUNNY LOOK AND MY HUMOR.)

I suppose you could say I admire flower children more for their effortlessly cool and suave style and their peace-y-ness. I am totally a peace person and someone who hates war and violence and animal cruelty (speaking of animals, we have a mouse in my house and it's giving me a heart attack because I am scared it is going to come into my room and I'll see it and flip a shit, but I don't want it to die. I just want a member of my family that isn't me to gently capture it and free it in a nice grassy street island.)

Here are some rockin' flower children in their kick-ass painted bus. This is pretty much my dream car: tons of space for all your friends and it's perfect for laying roof-laying during late nights on the beach when you don't want to get sand down your pants but still want to look classy. Source

NECK BANDANA'S ARE SO COOL. Source

What's better than a peace sign? Um, HOW ABOUT A PEACE SIGN MADE OF DAISYS ON A GRASSY FIELD. I love this photo. It is pretty much the definition of a perfect summer. Doesn't this photo just scream "happy summer" to you?!!!?? Source

More flower children most likely high and dancing to some acoustic song being played at an outdoor concert on a cool summer's day. I see a ton of spectacular flower crowns and capes and head scarves and muted colors and just an epic amount of visual awesomeness and satisfaction. Vintage/retro photography is so much better than all this modern day HD shit. HD just needs to fuck off. Source

LOVE TRUMPS WAR. Source

Best photo in the world no question. It really speaks the truth in a way ignorant people can finally grasp. Source

In honor of trying to capture the wondrous essence of the glorious flower children, I decided to make my own flower crown. I had a bunch of fake flowers lying around my room because I have PIO (Personification of Inanimate Objects) which causes me to give detailed personalities to inanimate objects that have no emotional capabilities what-so-ever! This means that I am pretty much incapable of throwing stuff out, meaning my room is messy and full of bits of string and things I believe to have personalities or sentimental value or will have DEFINITE USEFULNESS someday. Sometimes I worry I may be one of those people who ends up on Hoarding: Buried Alive, but then I decide that that will never happen, because I usually make all my random crap into cool other crap!! So the laying around crap+crap I make into cool stuff cancel each other out, leaving my crap-meter (ew that sounds disgusting) neutral. INSERT TRANSITION: So I'm thinking of making a ton more of these crown-type things (which are EXTRAORDINARILY COMFORTABLE because the headbands are lined with FELT.) I'll probably make them with various materials such as barbie heads with the symbolism of "screw society and their fucked up ideas of beauty and the fact that I just really hate barbies and enjoy ripping their heads off their bodies!!" and other ones made of letter blocks and random things I find lying around my room+ebay!