sorry about that (part the first) -

i'm stealing this post idea from whiskeymarie,
but i already apologized for it on her blog,
so i'm in the karmic clear here.

in an effort to reboot the blog
(not that there was anything at all wrong with it, but some of you pointed out you liked it when i TALKED occasionally rather than just posting lots of pictures, and then there was this other thing that some of you might be able to figure out, but i'm not allowed to talk about, so i won't, and i'm not, because it might lead down an ugly path involving kerosene and . . . let's say i'm talking more in an effort to focus on some positive energy. white light IN, disbelief at the randomness of people OUT . . .)
i am going to try and talk about things that shape my world.

god, tangent much, landis?

so this is an effort to make amends for some of the things i've done wrong in my life,
but haven't so much made an effort to apologize or make amends for.

huh.

gimme a minute.

ok. wait. got one.


1) to john in college, captain of the men's heavyweight crew team and really beautiful writer:

sorry that once you started the torrid affair with me in creative writing class, all big sinewy blondness and longing glances followed by awkward knee touching and art movies, followed by dinners on the floor and intense making out, followed by a few blissful secretive weeks, followed by xmas break, followed by you showing up in the next semester's class fondling the bimbo we used to make fun of, followed by you being unable to make eye contact or answer my calls . . . (ok, here's the apology part) sorry that i felt it necessary to write a thirty page thinly veiled allegory about our relationship and hand it in for the class to read and critique in front of you.

and sorry (seriously) that your then girlfriend was so dimwitted that she actually came up to me after and told me how good my story was because you had been crying for two days and that you were sick and that's why you weren't in class. that actually made me feel sick. on many levels.

not regretful. kind of sick. 'cause i think i still missed you.

oh, and sorry that when, a year later, you came up to me and told me that you regretted a lot of what you had done in your past and were in AA and would love to "get together to talk it out" while your still kind of dim girlfriend stood beside you and grinned at me, that i kind of cold-shouldered you and left the bar and never spoke to or about you again.

wow.

this is kind of harder than i thought.

i can SO see your eyes that night in the Pines, and how your legs kept moving to either side of mine, trying to touch, and how kristen (god, was that her name?) kept talking to her blonde friend. and only looking back did i realize you were reaching out, a year too late.

ah.

college love. SO rife with poetic tragedy and heartache.

john, i hope you found some happiness. i hope you wrote that book you always wanted to.

just wanted you to know.

lest you think les pups are docile -

that's right. i used the word "lest". deal.

here, they show their true natures.

eager.

and stubborn.

and eagerer:

things you should know about tim johnson -

tim is a consummate gift-giver.

no, not just good.

penultimate good. defies superlative good.

freaking irritatingly good.

yoplait yogurt girls at a table good.

example:

when we were first dating, i mentioned to him that i loved fashion photography. we had purchased our first piece of art "together" (that critical step when you go from being people who happen to have stuff in the same apartment to people who have to hammer out their aesthetic differences and pick something as a couple), a herb ritts photograph of vladimir the acrobat from cirque du soleil. i was working at an ad agency, and thinking about my future, wondering where to go with things, and had thought that fashion photography would combine the best of all worlds for me. fashion. photos. art. fun.

that christmas, i bought tim the most beautiful moss green gucci cashmere coat. it was like a pelt, like snow in weight, with a lining that shimmered like the underside of a magnolia leaf. it was perfect because he tried it on, but had done the whole "it's too much" thing and handed it back to the salesperson.

i pounced.

xmas morning, he hands me a box. inside is a full nikon camera system, with lenses. elaborate, technical, and completely baffling. i looked up at him blankly.

"well," he said "i remembered how you said you loved fashion photography, and i want you to be able to follow your dreams, really explore your potential, so i got you this system, and nine weeks of personal camera lessons. so you can decide if you want to really follow this."

uh huh.

so I was like:

"here. i got you a coat."

JOYCE - hong kong - retail's raison d'etre -

one hong kong day, one hong kong night -

here's the thing about the HK.
it's packed and gritty and running around and modern and old and chic and painful all at the same time. and you see that ALL during the day, because it bears down on you, under you, around you, above you.

i happen to love that, some people hate it.

but i've learned that activity and challenge keep the blood flowing and the mind alive, and even navigating one of the city's bridges over traffic through people coming and going, it's good. it's alive.

and you can always stop into joyce:


yes, that's a giant diamond made of sparkly lights, not foil.

and yes, this is me in a dressing room, trying on a polo embroidered with cherry blossoms in mettalic thread.

cherry blossoms are the trip's theme, apparently.



and then there's HK at night.

dear lord it's beautiful. moody, humid, colored neon and night noises. it sparks your senses, makes you tingle a bit, sends you chasing down roads so you can hear your own heels on the concrete, echoing up the buildings.


i met sofia (of the aforementioned sofia suarez)
out at a new restaurant in the prince's building in central called Sevva.

you enter past a laduree style patisserie, and eat comfort food with an indian twist.

i had braised wagyu cheek and tongue pot pie with porcini fries.
and thought it sounds like i did, i did not make up those words.
swear.

so we just talked for hours. talked about where we were going, talked about what we had missed, talked about what the world was doing (and of course how we would solve it all).

it reminded me how important the random connection can become,
when you meet someone whose energy makes yours sing a little louder,
who makes you laugh without effort,
and lets you open up
because you are breathing from the deepest part of your lungs,
relaxed in the moment,
perhaps for the first time in ages.


we all have to be a little more thankful for these moments.
for these people.

and yes,
for the times you get to step out after dinner and look out over this:

i love hong kong in the spring time -

maybe for me, tokyo is uptown,
and hong kong is the east village.


it's gritty, yes, but you actually feel the energy and the industry all around you.
everything isn't perfect,
but there's a "street energy" you can absorb as you step outside.


brands even sponsor their own grafitti here:



tim would LOVE this, he's all over the animation,
from avatar to venom.
so i guess that would be from A to V.

but don't get me wrong.
there is definitely a healthy dose of glamour to the grit.
it just tends to whiz by really fast, no matter how frequent:

on the road, again -

i am spending a ridiculous amount of time unconscious
on those things in the background.

bless you little ambiens.
you make time zones a blur,
and i end up someplace new, all happy.

unlike this poor boy, who seems to have crashed mid-trip:



this is the hong kong airport, one of like sixty lounges scattered between the shops.

they take cherry blossom time SERIOUSLY here:

just try to escape em.

they are freakin' everywhere.

creepy little flowers . . .

found my groove in tokyo town -

all it took was a little gray sable,
and someone to lead me a bit through the translation:


sweet jim franzen never knew what hit him.
i wanted to see everything, so he took me to see . . . EVERYTHING.

traditional flower arranging: check.


a view of the city from "on high": check.


cherry blossoms (tis the season): check.


fine dining hidden down side streets that you have to enter through the back courtyard: check.


the most amazing part of this restaurant (well, besides the classic landis desire to move in immediately), was the vanilla and stilton bleu cheese ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

i know what it sounds like, but we were all like "oh. my. gawd. yes. please. master. more."

jim rocks the "julie the cruise director" category.

and he does it without cocaine. amazing.

OMETESANDO, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh -

can i just move in?

it's the prada flagship. surely they won't mind.

i'm small. i don't take up much space. (the dogs MIGHT be an issue, but i'll give them something other than a nine hundred dollar floral heel stiletto to gnaw on.)

i'm sure this will work out JUST fine.

ometesando is the (one of the) pricier areas of japan. more madison avenue, where they call the retail flagships, not "flagships", but "cathedrals". i kid you not. because they are that much beyond a flagship. i wandered inside that prada store for half an hour not even seeing the merch because the architecture was so amazing, all bubble windows and doubling back stairs.

even the produce (which here is considered a great gift) is not cheap. witness HUNDRED DOLLAR BOX OF CHERRIES:


or the great wall of soy:


or my fave store, LOVELESS, which is underground. well, located under the goyard store, in the catacombs. but the poster! ah, BLISS!


then down an alley behind dolce and gabbana to this amazing gyoza shop. all they serve is one kind of gyoza, steamed or fried, with or without leeks and garlic. and cucumbers in peanut sauce. that's it. people lined up around the block. and worth it!

say SHIBUYA six times fast -

the shibuya area is a crosswalk of insane proportions, mainly from the sheer crush of humanity pushing it's way through the walkway at all hours of the day. it's the home to the cheap chic part of tokyo, the fast fashion, and more than it's fair share of the costumes you see so often on the blogspots.


overall, i love the freedom with which people dress here. for a culture based on uniformity, it's hella fulla individuals, none of whom seem to blink at statements small:


or slightly more distinct:


or downright intentionally bold:


but it's the un-intentional beauty of the dressing here that most often is catching me off guard:


oh. and HERE. proof that i'm actually in the city:

well! EBISU you, too!

'allo.

writing to you from semi-sunny tokyo here. can you see the shadow of my plane from my landing? it's like where's waldo if waldo were a several ton piece of metal hurtling through the atmosphere and trying to land on a small strip of concrete on an island.

(i'm a GOOD flyer, i clonazepAM)


just in and out for a week, soaking up some alien culture. because it is more other-worldly here than it is foreign, and the strange keeps seeping in in weird ways.

like their oh-so-easy to nav subway system. can you get anywhere by subway? uh huh. is it easy? well:


however the street fashion defies description. it's sick. it's chic. sometimes, it's both:


and they love them some american cultural influences:


you can't see hillary duff and the multi-colored disney phones in the picture. because i purposely cropped them out. because they are hillary duff and multi . . . never mind.


i just love the above shot. who are pinky and dianne? i don't have any idea, but they like thems some blonde girls.

more, above ground, tomorrow.

besos, mi mochis!

the old navy episodes - road trip part 3

N is for "Nina" in the sun.

pool party time, kidlets:



and S is for "Sam" in the sun.



and S is for "style team" in the sun, too:


and S is for "Sebastien".

obviously also in the sun. hawt hawt sun . . .


see, sarah? you look INCREDIBLE in that suit.


paul norman, and his double, karim:



and sila, keeping it ALL IN PERSPECTIVE: