and she's so busy being free

The thought of summer and its nearing end is causing me to make unnecessarily profound observations about the way the light is hitting all the crap on my desk while the sun sets. I feel ridiculous! But sincerely sad! Summer nostalgia is the worst kind because you're thrown into an entirely different routine so fast. You go from going to McDonald's barefoot whenever you want to having to get an education. (Some people might argue that the reverse of that would be the undesirable circumstance, but these people have obviously never felt the pure bliss of a stoner's spilled ketchup between their toes, or the sheer dread of a privileged teenager to have to listen to a smart adult who knows what they're talking about.)

Another part of it is summer itself. The yellow tint of old photos and the haze of blurry memories are inherent to its weather. Also, how readily romanticize-able the weather is when you want it to be. Like, it'll be December 26th, and you'll be like, I can't wait until the summer so I can look like Kirsten Dunst in the Virgin Suicides and dance in a field with a unicorn! Then it comes and you're like, oh, nevermind, that's cool I guess, I'll just continue to sit in front of the air conditioner picking at my scabs while watching Why Would You Wear That What The Hell Is Wrong With You: Gay BFF To The Rescue! Edition. (This also happens when you watch it and you're like, I am definitely going to have a crush on the next person I see! And then you're like, wow, everyone I know is way, way sweatier than Josh Hartnett, including myself.) (Note my use of a general "you" so no one knows that I am actually the sweaty one.)

Summer also comes with other pop culture that can really make a person sigh wistfully. Stand By Me, The Sandlot, The Wonder Years, Now and Then, Almost Famous; music like the Beach Boys and Cat Stevens. These can be referenced and momentarily revived with bike riding, ice cream trucks, the fourth of July, and people at Lollapalooza who say things like "This is our Woodstock!" while a nearby aging bearded sound guy gently weeps.

This dress was really important to my summer. I bought it at a vintage store with my friends and wore it when we performed spells in the park and drew pentacles on the pitcher's mound at midnight. It has 16 buttons and a good Mormon/70's vibe. Spencer took really nice smokebomb photos when I was wearing it when we went to Michigan in June. What a multi-talented young sir.

It also suited my mood quite well when my dad and I went to Los Angeles in July. Petra took this pretty picture when we were hanging out. I am so popular and I have so many friends and everyone just wants to take pictures of me all the time!!!!!!!!!!!

(Me: Do you think you could, um, take a picture of me in this dress, for like, my blog, or something? I don't know I just really want to um, capture this moment because like, I don't know I really like this dress and I feel like it has a lot to do with my summer, and so does LA, and I really like being here, and I really like California, and it makes me miss my grandparents, and um, do you think that would be possible?

Petra: Yeah sure?

Frankie: RELAX)

It's now very odor-ridden. I don't mind smells or stains on my clothes, it's like hiding flowers and stickers in all my books...I like having a lot of stuff that show some signs of life, mine and their own both. This is also why I like birth marks, pimples, rashes, and scabs.

And I really do love California. Its VIBES SPEAK to me. It's a good place to be bored.

I went to an antique store with Autumn and Arrow and got a lot of nice old photos and postcards. I couldn't believe this one a soldier or nurse wrote, or that it ended up in an antique store somewhere:

I wish I knew shorthand.

The acquired records:

I'm really excited about the recordings from Alan Lomax's trip to the south in the late 50's I got at Ooga Booga. Also, I never find anything like Carole King or Carly Simon at the thrift stores here! Always a lot of Barry Manilow and Barbra Streisand. This was basically my soundtrack to LA as well as the whole summer, or, "Movie Soundtracks!"

Oogum Boogum by Brenton Wood Maybe Baby by Buddy Holly Breaking Up is Hard To Do by Little Eva Signed Sealed Delivered by Stevie Wonder Surfer Girl by Beach Boys Society's Child by Janis Ian Band of Gold by Freda Payne My One and Only Jimmy Boy by the Girlfriends America by Simon & Garfunkel Stand By Me by Ben E. King I Want You Back by Jackson 5 You're So Vain by Carly Simon I've Seen All Good People by Yes Congratulations by the Chantels Lollipop by the Chordettes Second Hand News by Fleetwood Mac Let the Good Times Roll by Shirley & Lee Magic Man by Heart Johnny Angel by Shelley Fabares House of the Rising Sun by Joan Baez That's the Way Boys Are by Lesley Gore Where Do the Children Play? by Cat Stevens Yakety Yak by the Coasters One Fine Day by the Chiffons Come to the Sunshine by Van Dyke Parks Tiny Dancer by Elton John Be My Baby by the Ronettes So Far Away by Carole King Summer Breeze by Seals and Croft Cactus Tree by Joni Mitchell.

But it's coming to a nice close. Ella and I found a spot of grass by the highway that doesn't feel like the streets next to it and spent some time singing there, and at Spencer's yesterday his cousin, mom and I looked at his mom's old diaries and letters from her friends from the ages of I think 9-16, in the late 60s and early 70s. Things like Peter Max stationary and a diary entry asking where a Harold from Harold and Maude-type boy was made me really weirdly sad, and want to utilize all this stationary I hoard.

And with that, I must now write in my notebook. It's 3:30 AM! So excited to start getting up at 6:30. Like, soooooo excited.

Ah, well. Thankfully, stoners spill ketchup on the floor of the school cafeteria, too. And while I have not been known to take my shoes off during lunch, perhaps I'll find myself feeling especially sentimental some day this year, and these babies will see the low-watt institutional light of day for just one moment of relived glory.