ghost.

sometimes when things stop making sense it’s best to slowly remove yourself from everything & become a secret little ghost. unplugging your phone, leaving the internet, refusing to speak. you can drift through your days in a fog & not think much about anything because thinking would lead to too many things & your frail little heart may be too full of sadness to really want to bring those things up. well my handsome little ghosties, usually this hiding away only leads to being a ghost much longer than anticipated. these ghostly vacations do not solve anything. they store your problems in a locked case deep in your glass hearts & once the box is full it will explode & then & then & then you’ll be haunted. let’s try something new. ghost to ghost secret: it will be tough & it may hurt a tiny bit but think of how bad a glass-heart explosion could hurt! grab my hand & please listen: being a ghost is oh so easy but is it as satisfying as we first believed? no no no. so let’s change. it will take a very brave heart. we must say what we believe! fight for what we believe! never back down. we must call on our close friends when we just feel like escaping. we must NOT escape. we must say yes to invitations to be surrounded by people who truly care. we must say no when we mean no. we must say yes when our heart says ‘yes yes yes’ but our fears make us want to say ‘no no no’. we must TALK. we must share our silly stories. we must not fear how we come off to strangers. we must believe that the people who will love us & stay with us will be drawn to everything we do, every piece of our unlocked heart they see. being a ghost is quite easy & the easy way hardly ever leads to the most rewarding outcome.

let’s grab hands & watch the colour return to our cheeks.

There is love all around us:

YOU are a beautiful human being.

You are a beautiful human being.

I already love you.

There is love all around us.

Love is everywhere.
Please keep your eyes open.
Even in elevators, bakeries, and bathroom stalls–people are intent on spreading messages of love and joy.

Please leave messages of joy for others to find.
Please spread love, publicly or privately.
A note, a flower, a song.

EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL.

hello friends, we have some things to tell you & we think they are quite exciting.
please use your eyes & your imaginations & be part of everything.

YOU ARE REMARKABLE the book
we are making a book! finally! the book will feature new written words of inspiration as well as photographs. it will also (hopefully!) feature some interviews. the book will most likely be about one hundred pages, black & white, paper back, professionally made. the price set will depend on how many orders we receive but will probably be less than $12. more concrete information about the book will be available in july & it will probably be pressed & ready in august. if you love youareremarkable, we can assure you it will be something you’ll want to get your hands on!

YOU ARE REMARKABLE day
the one year anniversary of youareremarkable is quickly approaching! the official first entry was written july 11, 2008. where has all the time gone?! in honor of the success of youareremarkable, JULY 8TH 2009 is going to be the official YOUAREREMARKABLE day of celebration!!! how does one celebrate such a thing? well, we are going to celebrate in our lovely guerrilla lovefare way. we will spend all of our time between now & then crafting signs & cards & everything wonderful for youareremarkable: big sheets painted with positive phrases (signed youareremarkable), glass messages in bottles, flyers, cardboard signs, etc. then, in the wee hours of the morning of 7/8/09, we will sneak out into the world & hang the banners in places everyone will see (from tree to tree in parks, highway overpasses, where ever you wish!) when the world rises that wednesday morning, give them something positive to see. something beautiful to start their day! please join in! get your friends to help celebrate YOUAREREMARKABLE day in your town!!! you may celebrate in any way you wish! you can do a project like the one mentioned above or maybe you’d rather sit on the street & hand cupcakes out. who knows! we’d love to know your plan if you do wish to join! let’s make it beautiful. we made a facebook event for this because we’re silly. invite everyone you know!

THE FEEL GOOD REVOLUTION.
everyone, thank you so much for your interest in joining the cause! if you have been waiting patiently for a list of addresses we will ask you to sit tight a little longer!!! so many people are interested in sharing the love but unfortunately we are not receiving enough addresses to send out! please send us the addresses of anyone you believe needs some love. from now on, we will send out a batch email once a month to all the people who have requested addresses.

oceans of fears.

we’ve got to change we’ve got to grow we’ve got to throw our fears away? what use are fears? most of them at least. they hold us back. are you afraid to love? why? are you afraid of getting your heart broken? (IT WILL HEAL IT WILL.) are you afraid to make friends? why? are you afraid they’ll grow disinterested & run? (THEY MAY, THOSE ONES ARE NOT WORTH IT.) are you afraid to live the life you desire? why? someone may disapprove, you may not have as much money to spend, you may lose yourself for a bit? (THOSE THINGS MAY JUST HAPPEN REGARDLESS.) think of all there is to gain by GOING FORWARD past these fears & embracing what you may gain? love someone! you may find your future & yourself. make friends! even if you don’t stay in contact with them all, you may network & meet neater ones with more interesting interests! live your life! you may just discover how truly beautiful it can be. make a list of your biggest fears, the ones that hold you back from truly existing to the fullest. write a pro for what you could gain by facing the fear & one con for the worst that could happen (something plausible) & see which one offers you the better life.

what are big girls made of?

The construction of a woman:
a woman is not made of flesh
of bone and sinew
belly and breasts, elbows and liver and toe.
She is manufactured like a sports sedan.
She is retooled, refitted and redesigned
every decade.

Cecile had been seduction itself in college.
She wriggled through bars like a satin eel,
her hips and ass promising, her mouth pursed
in the dark red lipstick of desire.

She visited in ‘68 still wearing skirts
tight to the knees, dark red lipstick,
while I danced through Manhattan in mini skirt,
lipstick pale as apricot milk,
hair loose as a horse’s mane. Oh dear,
I thought in my superiority of the moment,
whatever has happened to poor Cecile?
She was out of fashion, out of the game,
disqualified, disdained, dis-
membered from the club of desire.

Look at pictures in French fashion
magazines of the 18th century:
century of the ultimate lady
fantasy wrought of silk and corseting.
Paniers bring her hips out three feet
each way, while the waist is pinched
and the belly flattened under wood.
The breasts are stuffed up and out
offered like apples in a bowl.
The tiny foot is encased in a slipper
never meant for walking.
On top is a grandiose headache:
hair like a museum piece, daily
ornamented with ribbons, vases,
grottoes, mountains, frigates in full
sail, balloons, baboons, the fancy
of a hairdresser turned loose.
The hats were rococo wedding cakes
that would dim the Las Vegas strip.
Here is a woman forced into shape
rigid exoskeleton torturing flesh:
a woman made of pain.

How superior we are now: see the modern woman
thin as a blade of scissors.
She runs on a treadmill every morning,
fits herself into machines of weights
and pulleys to heave and grunt,
an image in her mind she can never
approximate, a body of rosy
glass that never wrinkles,
never grows, never fades. She
sits at the table closing her eyes to food
hungry, always hungry:
a woman made of pain.

A cat or dog approaches another,
they sniff noses. They sniff asses.
They bristle or lick. They fall
in love as often as we do,
as passionately. But they fall
in love or lust with furry flesh,
not hoop skirts or push up bras
rib removal or liposuction.
It is not for male or female dogs
that poodles are clipped
to topiary hedges.

If only we could like each other raw.
If only we could love ourselves
like healthy babies burbling in our arms.
If only we were not programmed and reprogrammed
to need what is sold us.
Why should we want to live inside ads?
Why should we want to scourge our softness
to straight lines like a Mondrian painting?
Why should we punish each other with scorn
as if to have a large ass
were worse than being greedy or mean?

When will women not be compelled
to view their bodies as science projects,
gardens to be weeded,
dogs to be trained?
When will a woman cease
to be made of pain?
-Marge Piercy

love & beauty with dallas clayton!

what makes you feel wonderful?
My son , My friends , meeting new people , having new experiences

if you are having a sub-par day, what do you do &/or say to make yourself feel good again?
It doesn’t take much, maybe just look up at the sky or out at the city and realize how little control we have, and how much more there is to do.

where do you think love hides?
In plain sight

when do you feel most loved?
When I wake up

what inspires most of your writing?
My desire to make people happy

what is your favourite rainy day activity?
It doesn’t rain in Los Angeles. That’s why I live here.

what do you think is the most beautiful thing about people?
The ability to try, fail, then try again

when you hear the word “beautiful” what image immediately pops up in your mind?
My son.

when you hear the word “love” what sound resonates in your ears?
Children’s laughter.

what is your favourite thing about being a dad?
The hugs.

what is your favourite thing about being an artist?
No alarm clock.

why did you write AN AWESOME BOOK & did you expect it to be such a smash hit?
I wrote it because it seemed like it would be really fun and I wanted something to read to my son. Something I hadn’t seen anywhere else. I didn’t think it would be such a smash hit, but I’m glad it is. Very happy indeed.

anything else you’d like to share?
I’m setting up a foundation which will allow me to visit schools, children’s hospitals, shelters, and camps all over the world give away books to children, read to them and talk to them about their hopes and dreams. The foundation will be called Awesome World. I should have everything finalized in the coming month. I’m very excited!

buy AN AWESOME BOOK right now.

direct connect.

one of the most important things in a person’s life is positive physical contact. whether it be a long hug from an old friend or new mate, intertwining fingers with the one you touch noses with, touching noses with someone, or even just a brush past the person your heart beat for it can change everything. it can lift your spirits from the ground to way up in the sky, it can make you feel more positive, more energetic, it can change your entire day. go go go & make that connection. right now! send electric sparks out your fingertips & into the heart of someone extra special. go!

love & beauty with the ABC ADVENTURERS

how often do you sit at home racking your brain for something exciting to do? how often do you get together with a friend & debate back & fourth over who will decide a fun activity? the wonderful people at ABC ADVENTURES now have a cure! visit their blog & see all the wonderful beautiful things you can do with your free time (from A-Z!)

what makes you feel wonderful?
Liz Adventure: The small things that we all get to see and be a part of every day. Things like getting mail, or changing the station and finding Queen or David Bowie on the radio and getting to belt your heart out, freeway romances, 40’s and 50’s fashion (particularly the dresses) and white blouses… I really love white blouses.
Brian Adventure: Creating things! If I don’t practice an instrument or write a piece or make something every single day, I don’t feel right. ABC Adventures in general has been a great source of feeling wonderful too. Not only do I get to go out and do fun, strange things with my friends, but we get to share it to a world that has open ears! Knowing that someone else might even get a few minutes of fun out of our blog feels incredible.

what makes you feel beautiful?
Liz Adventure: My confidence, my brain, my sense of humor, my friends, and my family. I think the combination of these things working together are the foundation for how I see myself.
Brian Adventure: Smiling and waving to complete strangers. There’s that moment where they just look kinda cockeyed and smile/wave back and wonder, “Do I know him?” It’s an easy way to make someone smile, and you might just meet a new friend too.

if you are having a sub-par day, what do you do or say to make yourself feel good again again?
Liz Adventure: It varies from occasion to occasion, and similarly, it varies from the silly to serious. Sometimes the fix is to don a false moustache, but sometimes a nap will help, or merely talking myself out my sub-par mood because there is too damn much in this world that is good to dwell on the things that would make you think otherwise.
Brian Adventure: Lately, I listen to Johnny Cash. His music feels incredibly sincere and I feel like there’s a song for every situation you could possibly be in. After an hour of his music I almost always feel 10x better.

where does love hide?
Liz Adventure: Love hides in the loveliest places, of course! Love hides just around door frames, and in the bottoms of seemingly empty bottles, in flower patches, down long, twisting roads, and most importantly, in every single one of us.
Brian Adventure: Everywhere you aren’t looking! And by the time you’ve thought of looking there, it has moved on to somewhere new. I firmly believe that you can’t look for it, that it just drops in your lap one day and looks up at you with a smile on its face and says “TA-DA!”

when do you feel most loved?
Liz Adventure: When I am pursuing my goals and dreams. I feel love from the universe and it flows through me in the form of a huge smile, twinkles in my eyes, and mischief abounding.
Brian Adventure: When I’m around my good friends, or when I hear from old friends who I thought had forgotten about me.

what is your favourite part about being in TEAM ADVENTURE?
Liz Adventure: My favorite part about being an Adventure is the diversity of activities that this project has brought my way. I feel that far too often, we (everyone) will make plans to hang out with a friend. So you meet up and then one of you says: “So, what do you wanna do?”
And the other says “Mmm, I dunno… do you maybe wanna go get food or something?”
“Yeah, OK.”
And so it goes. Now when we (Team Adventure) hang out, we instantly pull out the list and say, “What can we do today?” This project has become self-prophesizing, because it’s never the same old thing when we hang out… it’s always something new
Brian Adventure: I sorta mentioned this up there already, but it’s definitely the combination of always having something awesome/fun to do with my friends and the fact that we can share that fun with other people in all parts of the world.

what was your favourite ABC adventure?
Liz Adventure: While we post every three days, we often knock out multiple adventures in one day. If we didn’t do it this way, we would never be able to update as often as we do. At the beginning of our magical journey of adventures, we spent one beautiful day taking care of a bunch. We played on swings, had a picnic, blew bubbles with little kids, pretended we were ninjas, donned moustaches, climbed trees, let go of hopes and dreams and secrets on balloons, and left the YOU ARE AMAZING note over the freeway overpass. That was such a spectacular day, so all of those adventures are very dear to me. Also, as I remember, this was the first day on which our idea had become a reality and we were giddy with happiness by the end of it.  The squirt gun duel was a lot of fun as well, actually. It was another adventure that made us feel giddy. The kind of giddy that wears you out and makes you want to fall asleep in a pile of friends — just like puppies do!
Brian Adventure: Either playing in a fountain or squirt gun duel. They were both just so ridiculous and wet, and neither of us expected to have the immense amount of fun that we did on each of them.

what are the future plans for team adventure?
Liz Adventure: Well, at the moment the plan is just to keep adventuring. I am going off to Europe for a year soon, so we’re trying to get lots done before my departure. However, this is by no means the end of things. I would love to meet up with fans in Europe and have adventures/make new friends over there. Brian will of course continue to update from Arizona, I will update when I can, and once reunited we will continue to adventure together. Some people have said that we should make a book, which I would love to do, especially seeing as ABC Adventures began as an idea to have a sort of adventure scrapbook. I think the blog needs to gain some more loyal readers before this would be reasonable, but given time, who knows!! If we were able to publish a book, it’d be an absolute dream come true.
Brian Adventure: Now that summer has arrived, Liz and I are going to be out adventuring as much as possible in the next month. She is (very very sadly) leaving to Europe for a year in June. At this point, we’re not positive how the blog will work out given the amount of distance between us, but we’re going to try as hard as we can to keep it going.

READ THEIR BLOG NOW!!!
FOLLOW THEM ON TWITTER!!!

we might as well love ourselves.

i love you & your faults included. you must learn to embrace your awkward legs, chubby thighs, every limb. yes you may hate them & may think they are ugly & messy but they’re YOURS, & they will be YOURS for the rest of your life. why spend your time hating them? perfectly beautiful things are ugly, because nothing in nature is perfect. even the most beautiful flower must have creases, a random splash of colour, or a broken petal. trees are very awkward if you look at them closely. all those bulky roots coming out of the ground, i bet that if they were people they’d invent something that would help them HIDE THOSE UGLY ROOTS. what is ugly to you might be gorgeous to someone else. not every girl has to be tall, slim, big boobs, big ass, small hips, pouty lips & shiny hair kind of barbie. those are a lot of features to maintain & you know what, beauty is so ephemeral. even real life barbies will start sagging, wrinkling, having cellulite & stretch marks & gray frizzy hair, losing their teeth.

in the end, we’ll all be either dust or eaten up by WORMS, there is really no escape, so honestly, we might as well love ourselves while we’re alive.

write your story now.

every day you get another chance to write your story. you get add the characters, you get to decide the plot. who will you write in? who will you write out? yes it’s important to have a good cast of characters & of course you’ll want your foils but try not to create any villains. try to write out anyone who will cause you to spend late nights up in bed alone & wiping the salt off your face. try to write out anyone who makes you feel anything less than incredible. if you happen to write in a character like that, make sure they only serve to make your character strong. make sure they only serve to show how beautiful your character is. now the plot is the tricky part because of course a story needs a rise, climax, fall, resolution. it’s very easy to have the conflict be a negative one. it’s a lot tougher to write a beautiful story without a conflict but it can be done if you’re willing to pull those late nights & wake up before the sun. are you willing to? every day you get another chance to write your story. write a new story everyday or work on an epic tale tying together every day for thousands of days. just write it beautiful.

say it.

did you say it? ‘i love you. i don’t ever want to live without you. you changed my life.’ did you say it? make a plan. set a goal. work toward it, but every now and then, look around; drink it in ’cause this is it. it might all be gone tomorrow.
-grey’s anatomy

wake up!

“waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness,
it is a revolutionary stance, from the inside out,
for the benefit of all beings in existence.”
noah levine

dear you, keep in touch.

what do you do if your best friend moves to a new town, state country? what do you do if the person who makes your soul glow is miles & miles & miles away (oh & even if they’re not!)
1. letters upon letters upon letters. nothing is better (as we at yar certainly believe) than receiving mail. send the one you miss letters. include pictures, poems, trinkets they would like, or even just a simple word. it’s a surprise way to let them know you’ve got them in your heart.
2. make good use of a webcamera. you can chat for free on a variety of things including gtalk, skype, aim, etc. it’s silly & perfect & you’ll feel like they never left.
3. write a journal for them. write an entry each time you think about them or see something you know they like. include photos, fortunes, quotes, anything. once it is filled up, send it their way.
4. plane tickets, plane tickets. flying is expensive but if you search there are good deals to be found & nothing is better than seeing the look on that person’s face when you step out of the plane. nothing.

love is rebellion.

Sometimes you look outside and all you see is grey, sometimes you wonder if you’re sick inside, if all that trash on the side of the road is seeping into you and making your head hurt. Migraines are just a symptom, just veins constricting and making the edges of your vision blur. Taking pills doesn’t help. Sometimes it helps just to stare into the sun for a while, maybe it hurts but its a different sort of pain, your corneas can take it.

Blow warm air into your cold red fingers, knowing this is the same air that’s been breathed for thousands of years, only it keeps getting dirtier. We’ve all got roots somewhere though and as long as you keep them wet they’ll keep growing, reaching down into the earth past all the lead and hydrocarbons and finding some sustenance down there somewhere.

Even when it seems like we keep making the earth smaller with all our advances, with all our technology that just gives people an excuse to stay further and further away. They’ll keep laying down that pavement but it’s more corruptible than our hearts, if you keep pushing it’ll give way. Sometimes pushing makes your head hurt too, but don’t ever stop. Keep reaching for the sunlight and counting the stars you can still see.

Maybe if you scream loud enough someone somewhere will hear you, and join in. All the tunnels under the earth will ring with it and we’ll wake up the worms, and they’ll scream too.

If you sit in the woods at night you can hear the trees groaning. Press your lips to the bark and say “I’m sorry, tree, everything is going to be ok”, even if everything’s not, and just let your forehead rest there for a while. Try counting the stars again “one, two, three, four… five? six?”, just don’t give up.

Falling in love is rebellion so you should just love everything as hard as you can.
-written by flo isoceles.

hide & seek.

everyone is so busy hiding behind this tred or that one. their internet personality, their favourite scene. what’s so wrong with being messy & laughing until your lungs hurt? why is that not cool? why is that not something we photograph & if it does per chance get photographed we immediately de-tag ourselves or throw it into photoshop because god-forbid we don’t look perfect.  it would be easy to capture that intensity oh the perfect moment of happiness but no oh no! we’d much rather look at photos of skinny girls smoking cigarettes & drinking on the street. boys in tight pants & silly glasses looking as if they’re waiting just waiting to kick your ass. girls with feathers in their hair speaking in nursery-rhyme tongue. boys hiding behind their short stories channeling their inner burkowski, ‘drunken’ poetry. why can’t we let those smiles slip out? that is cool. the smile that shows all your gums & your bones. that smile that contorts your face into maybe not the most flattering shape but oh, it’s beautiful i assure you!  LISTEN: it’s cool to run around laughing & to make funny jokes & to be yourself. that is really cool. why hide behind something? why be afraid? don’t be afraid of who you are. you’re beautiful.

may

do you have your pens out? may is the month for reflection, for creativity. keep a pen & paper with you at all times. question everything & observe every movement you see. don’t forget any of it!!!! inspiration is all around us. CREATE!!!!

april showers.

spring has sprung. the lion has lost to the lamb. the days are getting longer. the earth is turning green. it’s time to lay on your back & make shapes out of the bright white clouds. it’s time to grab your instruments & make silly music on the sidewalk. it’s time to call your friends & invite them on late night drives. touch the earth. breathe the air in & let it fill your lungs. you are alive & the season’s have changed. you’ve made it through another month. another day. you’ll make it through many more. wake up early & watch the sunrise. let yourself FEEL how beautiful it is to be alive.

wild thing.

-where the wild things are (trailer)

notes.

remember: twitter.com/feelgoodrevolt
we’ve been busy little bees (as you’ve probably heard) so if you’ve been waiting for addresses they’ll be coming soon. also coming soon, new lists, new love, new things to delight your heart. we love you.

we are.

we’re alive. we’re lost. we’re lonely & it’s going to be okay. the friends we’ve lost, they’re not gone, they’re simply part of us now. can can you hear her infectious laugh in your heart beat? can you see his smile on the back of your eyelids? it will be okay. everything is beautiful.