How to Be in Love in Los Angeles

by Jessica Brookman in ,

FACT: ​NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. HAVE A GOOD FUCKING TIME ANYWAY. 

Hey assholes, remember when Tennyson wrote that it was better to have loved and crashed and burned than to have been a pussy all along alone in your studio apartment? I might have paraphrased some of that. For that, I am sorry. But I refuse ​to apologize for the sentiment. 

A few days ago, I was trolling YouTube for some audiovisual inspiration and I stumbled on this short film produced by Oliver Peoples set to Brindo by Devendra Banhart. It served its purpose, but as I realized where it was filmed -- John Lautner's Rainbow House in Nichols Canyon -- it also triggered a surge of nostalgia. Or oxytocin. 

As the first in two etymology lessons today, the word brindo is spanish for toast, as in the kind you make with champagne. The following is a story about living in Los Angeles. It is a story about french new wave film, mid-century modern architecture, and the hollywood hills. It's a story about the warm, golden light of long afternoons. 

Needless to say, it's also a story about love.​ 

xoxo, Jessa

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On (No Longer) Being a One-Woman Show

by Jessica Brookman in

FACT: When your project ideas get big enough, you can't do everything alone. Make friends. 

​Here's a thing, I have a team of people who love and support me. Thank the universe, they also hold me accountable and forgive me when I act like the love child of Charles Bukowski and Joan Rivers (I wish): 

True. I haven't written this week. At least, not here. Sometimes, despite being a brutal insomniac, the days slip away from me. 

Since I decided to focus on my creative projects this year, I've had to get brutally honest about how I spend my time. In addition to this blog, I do freelance social media & creative consulting. I'm also developing a series for which the research is...viscerally intense, let's say. 

I've been a one-woman show for a while; and I prided myself on building web properties up single-handedly or in small teams. It was an education, for sure. Then there's, you know, all of the parts of life that don't end up on the blog.

Plus, a girl needs a little bit of free time to relax and indulge in some of California's finest agricultural products, if you get me. 

 So, what I'm saying is, I've been burning the candle at both ends. I am exhausted.

But I am still on a mission. And, LUCKILY ( !!! ) since my post about advertising and monetizing content as well as my personal mission statement "The First Draft of Anything is Shit," a few lovely people have crawled out of the digital woodwork to offer me advice and/or development assistance. I'm happy to be offloading some of the behind-the-scenes work here so I can take a nap shortly. 

So what will be happening here?

  • The content will still be written and edited by me (and guests).
  • The content will (still) be independent of marketing objective. 
  • The site itself is getting a minor facelift and better organization. 

In terms of content and mission, I'm most interested in researching and opening dialogues about human sexuality, love, and how these things transform our lives. 

But once in a while creative block still hits. What's a girl to do? Ask her friends for topics: 

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OK. Maybe not. ​Back to real, actual writing. More soon...

#onward,

Jessa


The ONWARD Month in Review - February

by Jessica Brookman in

In addition to keeping a private diary, I also keep a visual diary on this blog.

Diaries (of any kind) are a way to record experience. As a reader of this blog pointed out, I am a conscious observer. I spend a lot of time taking photos and people-watching. 

I start more than my fair share of conversations with strangers. I talk about what I see and learn. The process itself brings me happiness;  which is why I spend the *rest* of my time finding new ways to crystallize experiences and generate a discussion around them. 

So, a small while ago, I got to work on another kind of visual diary - the one I keep on my body. I've written about my tattoos and what they mean to me before. But briefly, my tattoos are a way to condense transformative experiences permanently and artistically.  They are inextricably connected to vivid moments in my life. They serve me as both reminders and conversation pieces.

My first tattoo -- the one on my left arm -- is the word ONWARD and people are always asking me what it is and what it means. This is mostly because it's vertical and in my quasi-illegible handwriting. But, in the spirit of recording and discussing...and moving on from each month, the visual diary on this blog The ONWARD Month in Review. 

Here's some of February: ​

​

​What were you up to? 

xoxo, Jessa

oh, and by the way: ​

“My body is a journal in a way. It’s like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist.”
— Johnny Depp