Welcome to Los Angeles September

It's Monday and the last day of August. I want to say that I'm going to take the beginning of the new month and the beginning of my new job tomorrow as a clean slate and a fresh start but the problem is I don't know how I got here. The indirection in my career seemed to happen while I wasn't looking and the drive and focus that I once maintained so effortlessly to stay in shape and stay healthy seems now a continuous struggle. I've always had a roller coaster relationship with sleep ever since I can remember, if I sleep well for a few months than I won't sleep well for the few after that. The past week I dove back into the land of insomnia and I absolutely hate it's repercussions. When I was in high school and even my first year or two in LA, not sleeping became natural although I knew very well that it wasn't but I didn't feel its affects. I could sleep an hour or two a night, work all day, party all night and I felt like this amazing machine that couldn't be stopped by a silly thing like lack of rest but perhaps that's what happens when we get older. I feel like even when my eyes are closed, my mind is still running a mile a minute and its hard not to think as the hours go by that you should be sleeping as the sun comes up slowly in between your spurts of drifting in and out. My friends used to wonder where I found the time to work on so many creative outlets during high school and I feel like I owe it all to my lack of sleeping. During the night, it was quiet, it was dark and you feel like not only are you alone but your thoughts feel more free.

I spent some nights writing for hours or working on scripts or story lines, watching movie after movie after movie, going on my lawn with my telescope and stargazing, I miss the person that I used to be because although I knew it wasn't healthy and I couldn't be like that forever, I felt like I was always so stimulated. I feel like I use this word frequently, I have a philosophy on life that we should all be stimulated. I think our jobs should do so, I think our hobbies and passions should do so, our relationships and friendships should and if we are lucky than we can open ourselves up to allowing everything we take in, perceive, enjoy or detest to stimulate us. I feel like stimulation has to go somewhere, to me it goes into everything I accomplish, everything that I like about myself, it's what goes into my writing, my photography or even something as small as my daydreams.

I would say I'm pretty much back to square one and not at all where I wanted to be with my job or my routine in life but I think since I've found a very happy place of being positive, open minded and taking the stimulation from all the beautiful things in this world than I can put that into getting that drive and routine back and fixing the pieces of my life that aren't where I want them to be.
In conclusion, It's easy to complain about the things that used to be better, that aren't where you want them to be now but when I think back on a few years ago and when things seemingly were better in those departments, I realize how much more analytical, worried, stressed and generally unhappy I was and to find myself almost every hour of the day being happy lately even with heavy eyes a delirious personality...it doesn't seem that bad to be back to square one. Change is good and having a goal is good so here we go....fresh slate, Welcome to Los Angeles September....we are one hell of a town.

Ze Crepe Place-



Friends in my bedroom...these hot summer days



Song of the day: Celine Dion- Le vol d'un ange

Abigail Frank~

Heavens to Murgatroyd

Top of the muffin to you! It’s Thursday and the fact that it’s the end of August already is terrifying me. Gazoy! It feels like only a few years ago that I was drinking out of a bottle and whining to my mommy that I had a stomachache…well that actually happened a few days ago but you get my point. We are getting older people and it’s a scary thing to embrace but I’m trying. As I was checking my age group in an audition the other day I realized that I soon would no longer be in the 18-24 box, I really hope I’m one of those old ladies that can work it with grey hair. Question! Why do women cut there hair short when they get old? I plan not to.

Subject of the day class: “Degoshdarn Heat”
It’s been hot the past week and by hot I mean really hot and never ending. During the day I’ve been looking forward to the night thinking it will be colder but what might be a slight two degree drop in temperature isn’t turning this head! Last night we ventured out for some good times and at approximately midnight I found myself on the sidelines of a dance floor feeling numbed by the heat. Trust me, I thought about dancing but the sweat layer forming over my entire body kept making me want more shots of tequila so I would hopefully forget the heat stroke that was baring down on me. Yes ladies and gentlemen, that’s a healthy lifestyle for you. After a club you think maybe outside will be cooler, alas it is not. After outside you think, maybe if I lay naked on top of the covers it will be cooler, alas it is not. My moral is that it’s hot and I want winter like a fat kid wants cake.

I uploaded some photos from my camping trip and heavens to murgatroyd was it fun! The fact that I was just complaining about the heat in lalaland and the first night of camping I awoke to raindrops falling on the roof of my tent should tell you how happy I was.





Here is a cool picture that I like a lot that I snapped a few nights ago. My friend Gabrielle and I were sitting at "The Woods" and I took out my honking camera because our table and our legs had something in common....there stems.



To read the full story and more check out my Flickr below.

FLICKR....I don't even know her!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40488733@N07/

Song of the Day: Tim Myers- The Lucky Ones

Happy happy hot Thursday Los Angeles, someone bring me some ice cream.

Abigail Frank~

I'll be Whistlin Dixie

My hands are blotched in pink and white.

The subject today class is camping and the great outdoors.

Living in the only other two locations I have besides LA which were Stockbridge, VT and El Dorado, CA led to a large adjustment when relocating. Although I have no doubt that all of us non-natives had an adjustment period, I think that we all have one or two things that were the main change and mine was most definitely the Great Outdoors!.....and not being near my family...whatever ;)

My home town was an hour drive from Lake Tahoe and was maybe a 30 minute drive to numerous good camping spots, ten minutes up the road was what we so cleverly deemed "The River" where we spent most aimless summer days laying on hot rocks, drinking adolescent concoctions and swimming down stream surrounded by huge trees and the smell of the most untampered air in the world. Camping in Norcal is just a way of life and I miss it so much here. A group of my friends would plan trips frequently just for a night or two, my mother and I would go once a month to fish and she would tell me stories from her life, every year at our family reunions we would basically rent out the entire grounds because of the pure mass of our clan....these are the things I think of when I think of camping. There is something about being out in the wilderness that soothes your body, you immediately start moving slower and joining the pace of the forest as the trees sway with the wind and sounds of creatures and a crackling fire take over your thoughts.

I am departing this evening to go camping for the weekend and get out of this crazy city if even for a short while and I took a moment to reminisce prior to heighten my already stirred excitement for the trip. Here is a collage of some good memories of hanging out with mother nature. I didn't want to really dive into my archives so these are very random but I realized I apparently have an affinity for taking pictures of Smores and the one on the bottom right was my friend and I playing with my camera and the light from the fire, I'm not really a sorcerer.

In other news....I still live in LA and drink coffee and wear boots....

Little baby Taylor has left us once again to return to the Whale's Vagina so I bid her adieu once more with a photo I snapped yesterday laying on my sill.

Love you Taylor even though you have strange attributes, dubious grooming habits and pooped in my room.

Exercise called and it's coming for me on Monday, I need a tan and a vat of concealer.

Happy Friday!

Song of the Day: Train- Feist & Ben Gibbard

To be Friends or Not to be

It's Thursday, the sun is shining and the tank is clean. Good Afternoon Hollywood!

I've been soaking in this thought about friendship the past week and felt like venting. I could say sharing but it's really just a way for me to blab about something that most likely my friends wouldn't want to have an earful of.

I feel like at some point along the way or I will disclaim that perhaps the variable is where I live but I feel as though there has been a certain standard that was put on being "Friends" with someone that to me seems to border on what the standard of a "Relationship" entails.

Example. I text my friend for coffee which I did last week as well but this week I also want to get together to borrow something for a shoot. All of a sudden I am getting semi put in the hot seat about only wanting to see him to borrow something and how I don't hang out or call as much as I used to. Now maybe it would be awesome to hear another point of view on this because maybe this is the standard of being friends and I'm just a shitty friend but I feel like once I've known someone for a while and would admit to knowing them and them being my friend, I don't need to question there motives for wanting to borrow something or needing a ride. Why are we all so ready to jump at someones throat? Is it because so many people out there are users or is it our own insecurities that people don't like us for who we are?

I love watching TV shows because in these made up lands, the characters will pull the most outrageous pranks, make the most ridiculous mistakes and be forgiven. They will show up unannounced at the other characters apartments and just need something and everything seems normal because they are "Friends" and they don't need to reiterate how special there friendship is every time they do what friends do....like helping each other out.
Okay....rant over. I've had these situations many times in the past and sometimes they are completely justified but other times I just feel like I'm ready to drop the friends that apparently need a relationship standard from me and are pretty much always ready to stand trial on my character. Somehow I've found a mismatched group of friends who all love each other for who they are and are there for each other no matter what happens without questioning the motives and for this I am without a doubt most thankful for. Since I don't know where to send this note of gratitude....I plan to put it in everything I do. The End.

This is a photo I took of my friend walking down the street with a Pizza Pie we bought for the gang. I want to sell it to Dominoes as there campaign.....Call me?


Go Check out my Flickr
ABIGAIL FRANK PHOTOGRAPHY

Song of the Day: Josh Radin- Sundrenched World

Kisses World Kisses

The summer is almost over, the temperature is changing and tonight might be the first to use my trusty rice bag. I love that I used to make them in Junior High for my mom's clients and they would revel at how amazing they were. I always be thinking..."Humm...it's just rice I put into a bag and sowed up and if they were lucky threw a spruce of jasmine or rosemary in there". The comfort of sleeping with one though is amazing, I should start a business for singles in LA with animal allergies...I could make millions!

I took photos a few days ago at the Hollywood Artwalk in Hollywood where there numerous different artists, bands and even my friend getting his first tattoo done live onstage. Great event, please check out my Flickr to see them all :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40488733@N07/

Song of the Day: Gimme Sympathy- Metric

I Can Feel a Hot One

Last night I dreamt that I was a giraffe and I looked so ridiculous that I wanted to laugh but giraffes can't talk so how could they laugh? Who ever saw a giraffe laugh?

Movie Review of the week- I went and saw "500 Days of Summer" this weekend and although I already knew how much I loved the actors in it, love stories and indie style flicks, I was amazed at the trip it took me on. Anyone who sees this film will admit to having been in a relationship like the one depicted here playing one of the roles. I don't believe I'm spoiling by saying I left the theater with the thought that relationships end all the time and people always want someone to blame for it. Friends always ask who ended it, who cheated, whose fault is it that it didn't work out? Yet the truth of all human connections, non connections or every frequency in between is that they happen and don't happen and the reasons for can't always be tracked or traced back to a reason. The indescribableness of there magic or there disaster is what makes us keep loving, fighting, writing, creating and dreaming.

I felt like this movie made you think and made you smile while displaying amazing visual cinematography and seasoned acting chops not to mention the off the Richter scale cuteness level of Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zoey Deschanel.

This weekend consisted of magic, Movie at the Grove, Beer Pong at Happy Endings, Brunch in Los Feliz, Boba and Hooka in Burbank, Cappuchino's in Weho, Dj's and drinks in Culver City, Bank adventures in Downtown and Standard Rooftop Pool Party. I can't complain.

Here are some photo favorites I took this weekend, please check out my flickr to look at them all :)

FLICKR PHOTOGRAPHY PAGE-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40488733@N07/

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend!

Song of the day: Manchester Orchestra- I can feel a hot one

Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge". Sometimes I find that the two can be one in the same because when you use your imagination you explore the possibilities that a person who uses the left side of there brain more wouldn't reach using there reasoning and knowledge. When one explores the other possibilities and finds the solutions to things that equations and textbook know how cannot, they are then perceived as being knowledgeable. A circle...life is a circle.

This is a picture I took on Fairfax by Whole Foods...




Here are shots from the shoot I did with my friend Wayne, for more please go check out my flickr page by clicking the link below...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40488733@N07/



Song of the day: K'naan- Flag