In the Arts

On Saturday the husband and I finally made our way westward for seven miles to LACMA. We had been meaning to go since moving here, but we kept getting caught up in some pressing activity like watching Breaking Bad marathons on Netflix or getting five dollar Old Fashioneds at The Thirsty Crow.

Our plan for this Saturday had actually been to go on a little hike through Will Rogers State Park, but when I got dressed that morning I put on a pretty new shirt (born of a birthday present gift card from my awesome mother-in-law, thanks Kelley!) and suddenly I didn't want to get all dirty in The Nature.

I wanted to stand around contemplatively in The Arts.

What am I even looking at here?

On our way to the museum we stopped and had lunch at a place I'd read about called Little Next Door and my goodness was it lovely. It's a sweet french cafe with a darling outdoor patio all covered in vines. It was bustling at 3pm, which is one of the many little things I love about living in a city again.
(In Iowa once we tried to get Sunday brunch at like 11:45am and they looked at us like we were depraved.)

New as I am to blogging, I was too shy to whip out my camera and get a picture of my gorgeous sandwich and macaron and teeny little espresso, but picture this: Lightly toasted home baked walnut raisin bread laid artfully in two triangles on a square plate. Inside, creamy white brie oozes out ever so slightly, blending with sweet, earthy figs and peppery arugula. There is a tiny square bowl on the plate, filled with exactly four chick peas, three teensy slices of tomato and some chips of cucumber.

My mouth is watering just writing about it.

The pistachio macaron looked like a pistachio macaron and was sweet and green and perfect and the teeny little espresso hit the spot and had us both raring to go see some Art!

We got to the museum and played around a little in Chris Burden's Urban Light installation, as one does.

(kissy face)

But when we went to get our tickets we realized that the museum wasn't free that weekend like we thought it was. But instead of feeling thwarted, we decided it would be fun and potentially cost effective to get a year long membership anyway, so that's what we did! They even gave us a fancy exhibit catalog (but alas, no tote bag, those were reserved for higher level memberships than ours.)

Our brand new membership allowed us into a special member preview of their new exhibit "In Wonderland: the Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States." It was awesome! (No flash photography allowed, but picture lots of Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo and Lee Miller and you'll get the gist)

Then we walked in and around and through Richard Serra's Band

Then I messed about in front of these giant hands of Bruce Nauman

Then, though we had lots of energy and time left, we decided to call it a day. Why? Because we're members now!  We can go back as much as we like!  (Perhaps I am a little over excited by this?)

We stopped one more time at Urban Lights because the sky was getting darker and it was pretty in a new way.

And of course we hung out for a few minutes by the giant animal heads

And then we headed home to play canasta.

It was a fine Saturday, I must say. And I tell ya, between this and our half season subscription to the LA Philharmonic that Jared got us, it is getting cultured around here.

New Age

I turned thirty the other day.

Wait.

Let's try that again.

I turned thirty the other day!!

That's better.

But, man, the day itself was not as rainbowy as I expected.

I thought I was more than ready. In fact for the past two years I've been trying to inoculate myself by rounding up, declaring myself practically thirty and making obnoxious pronouncements like, "Oh I embrace getting older."

But, shock of shocks, that doesn't actually work! As the clock inched toward midnight on the evening before the big day I found myself having these strange, panicked feelings about the end of my twenties and the identity I've relied on for so long as a cheery, rudderless young person.

Now don't worry about informing me that thirty is still considered young. I understand that it is. (Just yesterday I was arguing with my insurance provider about my rate and she kept saying, "It's high because you are so young." Which, whatever, insurance lady.)

It's just that my age no longer seems like an excuse I can fall back on. Being in your twenties is supposed to be a time of directionless rambling, which is one of the few things I happen to excel at. But your thirties? Not so much. Plus I no longer feel like I have all the time in the entire world to get things figured out and to accomplish great feats and oh I dunno, have babies?

My mother had four children by the time she was my age. And my dad? If I think about everything my dad had accomplished artistically by the time he was thirty I just want to crawl into a little bassinet in the corner somewhere and sleep til I'm eighty-seven.

This is me looking conflicted over a birthday margarita 

Oh angst angst. It was all pretty standard in the end. Girl gets older, girl has generic observations about growing older, girl makes funfetti cake from a box. Age = just a number, etc etc.

I got mostly over myself and we threw a big party (and then forgot to take any pictures of it).

Except of this snack table. We have like eight shots of this for some reason.

Balloons and streamers from the 99 cent store help to cure the 30 year blues!

And a friend took this one of Loki at the end of the night and oh my lands is that dog photogenic

I'm thinking that if I just keep pushing forward with streamers and box cake and Liza Frank inspired self portraits, I will be ok. 

People in LA

Finally.

The Googles

My stat tracker just informed me that, on Google, this blog comes up in fifth place for the search term "Annie Nilsson Blog."

Which means that there are four other spots on the internet that are somehow more representative of "Annie Nilsson Blog" than Annie Nilsson's blog.

And that is for some reason amusing to me.

(This picture, a product of a Google image search, was spotted on Susan Fama's blog. These ladies are competing for Miss Color TV!)

Sandwich Artist

Look at these art sandwiches that Brittany Powell made!

So clever and tasty. I think my fave is the Mondrian, but the Christo made me lol. 

There are even more here. Can you guess them all?

Merry, Bright

I am in love with this sweet sign that Melanie Blodgett made last month on You Are My Fave. It was for Christmastime, but I could be totally happy with it hanging above my fireplace all year long. 
I especially love that tri-colored ampersand! 


Brilliant, don't you think?

I love simple projects like this that serve as a jumping off point. You could make this sign say anything you want. You could make it as big as you like. You could paint the wood. You could cover it in felt. You could use ribbons instead of yarn. You could do it exactly the way Melanie did it. Either way, total win.

Instructions are here!

A collection of pizza-themed clip art

Remember when a Pizza Party! was just about the most awesome thing that anyone could bribe you with?

I do. I remember it well.

I love you, books

New York Trip in Pictures

I had a quick visit to New York in December to see my sister and meet with my editor (which feels like a fancy thing to say!)  It was a lovely little trip.  Here is what it looked like:

Buildings, charming buildings:

My sister Olivia and her fiance Tristan, who broke his foot playing football in a knife fight. You should see the other guy.

He makes her laugh :)

Oh look, more buildings. Here's the view from their balcony/patio in Carroll Gardens

Here I am on the Highline. Just LOOK at that foliage, my friends.

Olivia composts.

Cupcakes are still a thing, so we eat some, plus gingerbread men:

We go see a very big tree:

Then we buy a littler one from Petey, the abominably cute 8 year old tree seller.

And what trip to Brooklyn would be complete without visiting that carousel everyone is talking about? 

Or stopping by the Williamsburg Milk Bar outpost and getting some cereal milk soft serve to drop on the ground in the rain?

Next time I'll get the bagel bomb.