After discovering the URL typefiend.com has been cybersquatted by some fellow yellow skinned brothers residing somewhere in China, I’ve decided to switch over to a new and improved site. Please redirect your browser to GregoryHan.com, where I now reside. See you soon!
Mom: “I told my friends you don’t want to live an ordinary life…I told them you were…abnormal?”
Me: “Abnormal?”
Mom [laughing]: “Isn’t that the opposite of normal and ordinary?”
Me: “Extraordinary, a life less ordinary…not abnormal.”
Mom: “Oh, I told them my son wants to be abnormal.” [all of us dying from laughter in the car]
I guess the description isn’t really too far off, all things considered. But then one could argue the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and my mom is surely one of a kind.
“So are you ready to have some dinner?”
“Sure, what are we having?”
“Roasted carrots.”
“That’s all?”
“No, also beet greens, tofu and some couscous.”
“Sounds good!”
Some days we’re the epitome of healthy living. Other days you can find us consuming a whole pack of Trader Joe’s Inside Out Carrot Cake Cookies in a single sitting or eating a week’s worth of homemade pasta casserole in half the time. We’re complex like that, yo.
The last day of the month and Spring decided to step aside and let Summer cut in for a dance with Los Angeles today. I don’t think anyone was quite ready for 90 degree temperatures, but only the most gothic and sloth are complaining about the surprise visit.
When you work at home, you’re privy to your home’s sometimes hidden qualities, being audience to the transitional states throughout the day you’d otherwise miss when working a 9-5er. I find it interesting how a rooms just a few feet over from one another can be so remarkably different in light and temperature.
Everyday, through the floorplan of just 4 rooms of our modest sized apartment, Emily, the cats and I follow the architectural sun dial of our rooms, directed by light and warmth. I work in a closet, literally, so it’s one of the cooler rooms of the apartment, decorated and planned to be a light-sucking black hole to reduce glare and reflections. The adjoining living room is the second darkest/coolest room, since the large windows face northward, toward an eyesore of an apartment building (I added frosted window film to block out the view).
The two most light filled rooms are the kitchen and the bedroom (alongside the utilitarian bathroom; I do admit basking the sun and view while relieving myself). In the morning, the east facing dining room glows amber, and our cats lazily slink underneath the dining table to retire for hours, not to be heard or bothered while enjoying the warm rays seemingly letterpressed in yellow onto our floors. By afternoon, the sun has migrated southbound, lighting up our view of the Silver Lake Reservoir in a teasing manner. It’s often around 3-4pm I start feeling an itching desire to set aside my work and head out to the water and light that beckons. Sounds like a bad UFO abduction tale, but I’ve yet to tire of the view outside these west-facing windows and view they afford.
Finally, by early evening, the hills surrounding the Reservoir glow neon oranges, pinks and blues, a hypercolors ode to my 80′s youth, streaked across the sky and into the bedroom in a fashion Pollock would recognize in spirit. It’s often the case Emily and I find ourselves napping here during weekends, watching the water fowl float in spirals above the water and the staccato of sunshine glimmering like angelic 8mm film, as we drift into sleep as the birds depart to nest for the evening. It’s appropriate the best room at dusk, welcoming the nocturnal hours, is the bedroom.
And then we begin all again the next morning.
I think these are amongst my favourite photos I’ve ever taken. They’re all from last year from about this time. I had 2 hours to myself inbetween nights during a whirlwind visit to Chicago to attend the The International Home + Housewares Show on the dime of a major vacuum manufacturer, a behemoth trade show where all those common cleaning, cooking, organizing and miscellaneous “As Seen On TV” coagulates into one gigantic ejaculation of consumer wares.
Amusingly enough, during my stay I found myself the sole male design blog representative thrown in amongst a gaggle of mommy bloggers (they’re a force to be reckoned with, no lie), not completely a surprise considering the event. But with just two nights in Chicago, my first visit ever, I decided to forgot the invite for early cocktails and a fancy dinner at the expense of my gracious host, instead settling for 2 lone hours inside the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and later some quality time with a box of one of Chi-town’s finest, a deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati’s. It ended up being the right decision, the early evening attendance sparse, allowing for quiet moments to reflect about art versus product and even watch a procession of birds along Lake Michigan gently spanning the icy early spring sky, returning to wherever they nest for the evening. It was certainly my kind of town.
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