Raw Denim

Not that you should take my advise on whats cool or fashionable, because I get made fun of at work for tucking my shirt into my underwear, but I think raw denim is hot. I also think Elijah Wood as Frodo is hot.

Problem is it’s hard to find raw denim for girls. I guess there’s not a huge market for women who want to wear their jeans everyday for six months with out washing them. But I think the product is worth the six months. I heart the idea of a custom wash. What it really is is something like performance art. It’s unique to you and your body and what you put in your pockets and the way you sit and walk. Your denim tells the story of your life. I am in love with raw denim. It's the best way for your denim to define you and that's cool.... Says the girl who owns full body, drop-bottom flannel pajamas.

"Anna Lee" Pablo Blaqk

Here's some new stuff from my very talented and very funny friend Pablo, who currently resembles another friend of mine, Che Guevara. You should check out his stuff, if you want to.

This is his latest. You might recognize the awkward figure in the background attempting to throw in some harmonies. Cheers.

Guns Don't Kill People...

This picture was taken in the state I am currently located in. Hurray! Nothings classier than drinking shirts. And nothings scarier than knowing this guy is armed. I just became pro-gun control.

"Damn Everything But the Circus!"

Here you go Mom. This is my new favorite thing, walking on an inch wide line. It's really more fun than it sounds. I need a lot of practice but the goal is to someday do this a lot higher off the ground. I feel like maybe I missed my calling in life, the circus. I also feel like now that I'm practicing being a tight rope walker, if I were to trip walking down the sidewalk, it would be unacceptable.

Severe Swine Flu Symptoms: Metal Confusion

Yesterday my new phone was wigging out and making up a bogus time/date. If you're like me, this is a big deal because my cell is my only source for the time. Without my phone I wouldn't know which ways up. It's authority and I abide by what it tells me is truth. If it says its 930 AM Oct 3 2010 then it is 930 AM Oct 3 2010 (when its really 10:05 AM Oct 26, 2009 and I'm late to pick up my roommate from the airport).

The worst part of this story is this: when I reset the date and time I was bewildered at what year it really was. Not for a brief second but for long enough that I had to type in the google search engine "what year is it?" And when the Google Gods told me I didn't go "oh yeah duh," I questioned it all day long. True story.

The moral of this story is: I don't know a lot of things, like what year it is but I do know its Halloween (don't ask me what month that's in) but you can ask me what my pumpkin looks like. It looks like the JOKER.

...or it did look like the Joker but the sun melted his face.

Teach Me How to Jerk

How about my two new favorite dances....


(go to about 20 seconds in)

"What the Hell Kinda Picture's That?!"

I went to Mexico a while back with my friend Jennie and her family. One evening we were walking along the beach, the sun was disappearing into the silvery sea, palm trees were perfectly framing an ideal shot. I think dolphins were jumping out of the water. And Jennies mom asks “Why is Ashley taking pictures of the garbage?” And that’s when I discovered something was wrong with me. Everyone's camera was pointing westward and I had mine pointing at a pile of trash and a rotting fish.

So I like decaying, rusting, rotting things. I’d hang that fish carcass on my wall and everyday I'd wake up and think "How beautiful!"

I took this picture just the other day and some crazy old construction worker walked by and said, "What the hell kinda picture's that?!" Its my favorite kind.

Well I don't think I'm alone. I walked into F-Stop Cafe the other day and was blown away by this artist. Kelly Larsen. He's incredible. He uses industrial objects as well as decomposed, putrefied and oxidized materials from the earth. Check him out.

A Revival

Never before have people been more concerned with my well being than after my disappearance from the blog world. Sometimes I feel like my internet existence is more substantial than my real one. That’s no way to live. I’m a real girl! I’m 3-dimensional. And sometimes on really strange and difficult days when the moon is full in the sky I feel like I’m more dimensional than three.

And yet even though the internet world is so abstract, you can’t see me and I can’t see you. And my pictures and words don’t exist on anything concrete like paper, just invisible space, I still feel empowered, connected and illuminated with it. In this context I am Queen slash scholar on anything I feel like discussing/lying about. My blog philosophy is my biography. This is my only public account, my desperate attempt to not be forgotten.

And that’s why Postcard from Mars has been resurrected from the dead.

If politicians don’t destroy us in a nuclear hail storm and the internet still exists in our earths future I will have this virtual biography to account for my existence which will be grossly exaggerated and photo-shopped. Hurray!

The first of many updates from months past. Played a couple songs in an acoustic show in Las Vegas that my friend Stephanie put together. Very terrifying and in the end satisfying.

This message has been sent using the picture and Video service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, Quicktime@ 6.5 or higher is required.

The Amazing Race

I love cities that start with San. That would include one of my all time favorite cities San Francisco.

I signed up with my friend Rob for something like the Amazing Race in which we were given clues and had to run with a bunch of crazies all over the city.

It was so hot and we were on foot the whole day walking up and down the hills of S.F. At one point I almost called it quits but we finally finished.

I decided the real Amazing Race would be way too hard and I probably couldn't do it but I still want to be on WIPEOUT.

Hola: A Quick Spanish Tutorial

On my way up through the Golden State I stopped in Huntington Beach. My friend Mr. Mike was Mr. Connections this trip with the hook up at 910 in La Jolla and then he got us all third row tickets to an Angels game from the President himself. (Not Obama President-though Mike really wishes they were tight-but Angels President).

There I am. Third from the right. I'm the one whose wearing the sun.

Allison took us to Taco Loco in Laguna Beach (which means Crazy Taco gracias). I can't even look at that picture with out salivating. In Mission Beach I tried a famous fish taco place that was on "Diner's Drive-In's and Dives" and I'm real sorry Guy Fieri but this place was muchos better.

Then we went to Magic Mountain with all the vato's and Jr. High kids. We rode all sorts of crazy rides like the one shown below. I'm the one who looks handicap.

San Diego

San Diego’s Eucalyptus and humming birds. And the ocean breathes salty. In San Diego time moves maybe more like dream time. One day was three weeks. I woke up and it was time to go.

Mission Beach and Coronado. La Jolla and 910. Ran everyday at Mission Bay, it was so beautiful it tricked me into liking it (running that is). Made a trip to the zoo.

This guy was my favorite, I'm pretty sure he was dancing for me.

I could barely take my eyes off my rear view mirror as San Diego faded into the smog of Los Angeles.

H1N1 Cruise

Some friends and I found a 4 night Baja Mexico Cruise for only 130 bones! I figured that's about how much it costs for gas and food for four days regularly and Carnival might as well have payed us to board their ship so we all signed up and crossed our fingers we weren't spending four nights on a fishing boat.

Unfortunately, the rendezvous of some poor child and an infamous pig caused something of an epidemic and the cancellation of our Mexico Port. For a mother like my own and a hypochondriac like myself it turned out to be good news.

So we boarded the ship (that's me celebrating that we weren't on a fishing boat)


We went to Catalina instead and drove around the island.

Then we took a boat on the water.

...which was terrifying because we were going para sailing.

I went through with it... See! There I am nothing but dust in the wind. Soaring 335 feet above shark waters. Hurray for terrifying experiences and almost peeing my pants 35 stories high!

And then their was dancing...

And yeah I dropped it like its hot.

Gypsies and Truck Drivers

I had nothing but time and money to kill and an itch to scratch. So I packed up my new traveling companion who had only 43,000 miles on it (I added another 5,000) and I hit the road like a gypsy.

I stopped in a little city where the sun don’t set called The Vegas and visited mi amigo Stephanie, who moves like a jelly fish and used to drink a teaspoon of soy sauce before bedtime. Her roommate Mindy, who called me "Ash" and I liked that, came bearing gifts.

All along my trip I filled my car with gifts, collections from my travels and half an Asian market. My car got heavier. My soul got lighter and started to smell like Korea.

I’m in love with the open road. Nothing but dust and burning desert to distract me from finding things I’ve lost, like peace of mind. An abandoned highway and the red and orange of dusk gives me clarity from the jumble and routine of our modern day lives. I'd left behind the numbing of everyday, the red-yellow-green, the assault of irrelevance.

On the road the sunset is mine to own. I don’t have to share it with anyone else, except Earl that creepy truck driver who seriously gives me the willies. Even though Creepster McGee probably had some poor soul duct taped in his passenger seat, maybe he found my same clarity. And so someplace between Provo and Sin City Earl and I shared a fleeting and soon forgotten sunset.

Future Posts:

Seattle The Emerald City

What you’ve heard is true, it rains a lot there. The cities skies are gray, the color of thought and for me contentment, and for some depression. But I love it. It’s unique and it has character. See…

Seattle, where the ground is paved with... Sponge Bob figurines and GI Joes, broken gold watches and heart shaped glasses.

I purchased this gem for $1 from a guy selling his past on the street in Broadway.

Trolls under bridges


and I agree..

Back on the Information Highway

[That’s me in my most primitive condition. Living in a cave]

So many days without internet. I know I started devolving. I started communicating in grunts, drew prehistoric elephants on stone in the dark. I’m grateful to be back in the 21st century. For access to unlimited irrelevance. And fire for light and warmth. To walk upright again like the modern woman I am. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go find my house on google earth and then tweet about it.

…

“That’s it?!” my internet audience wonders in discontent.

“Think I’d leave you high and dry without updates as to where I have been for six weeks?” I say.

“Don’t flatter yourself. Like we care,” the few occasional readers actually think.

But see, I’m going to tell you anyways because here at Postcardfrommars.blogspot.com we do what we want.

To be cont…

Sneak peak of entries to come...

My Swine Flu Adventure 2009

I know you all have been curious about my where-abouts, definitley feening for an update on my life, your fix, because my lives details are a hot commodity. Postcard From Mars might as well be US Weekly. No? Not so much?

Well maybe some of you thought I caught the Swine Flu, or am in Mexico City in the trunk of a Caddilac full of cocaine stuffed toy dolls. Well dry your eyes I just took off with my new wheels on my first grand adventure, in which I'm calling "My Swine Flu Adventure 2009."

Made it to The Vegas, then to San Diego, went on my Swine Flu Cruise (Catalina and into International Pirate Waters) and now off through California... Hurray!

Lots of pictures and stories to come when my adventure comes to a close...but for now...

Roger and the Dodger

I’ve mentioned before the Dodger’s days were numbered. Well the inevitable came when The Dodger left me in a cloud of smoke that poured out of its rattling exhaust pipe as Roger the car salesman (and aspiring photographer) stole it away. It took me all morning to clean out my little Neon. When I opened up my trunk I found all the things I’ve been looking for for years. The junk in my trunk could tell the story of my life.

As the blue smoke cleared from Roger and the Dodger I was left standing next to my new traveling companion, whose trunk would soon tell all my lives stories, now empty and unwritten.

Currently, I feel the Passat is a little mature for my tastes. I almost can’t take myself seriously in it. It has all sorts of crazy doodads I should be super stoked about, like that my engine is as fast as a rocket missile and that these computers on my dash calculate and crunch all sorts of equations things- like how long till I’m on the side of the dusty highway thumbing my way to a gas station. But truthfully, I’m just grateful for the simple things. Simple things such as when somebody outside of my passenger side window wants to talk to me I don’t have to put my car in park, lean across the seat and roll the window down while my arm cramps up.

The time is now yours to share a few thoughts slash memories about The Dodger (or claim any of your belongings that may haven been in its trunk)

Creatures From the Blue Lagoon

I've been helping Garrit and Rachel out with their wedding announcements. They wanted them to look like old Film Noir movie posters. We modeled it after the poster "Creatures from the Blue Lagoon." Glad to work on some announcements that look totally different.

Unemployment or Early Retirement?

Something about St. George makes me act like either a ten year old boy or a 60 year old man, but never my own age..or my own sex? St. George makes me want to hit rock off of cliffs with bats.

Or long board down roads I'm usually scared of.


Or rock climb, hike,explore, chase lizards, and play in the dirt.


At the same exact time St George makes me want to hit a bucket of balls, read the morning paper out on the patio with a glass of orange juice, eat breakfast at the local diner, take afternoon naps. (These are all things I decided old people do).

I think me and my old man knees are ready for early retirement right in the heart of old people land!

Garrit and Rach's Photo's

Shot my first engagement photo's for my friends Rachel and Garrit. They were taken at the old Heber Creeper Train Station in the snow (PS why is it still snowing? My soul's in hibernation right now waiting for warmer climates.) This is what the three of us put together.



I had two really grand ideas that didn't end up happening 1)Garrit and Rach wearing just old wooden barrels and nothing else 2)to dress them up in old B&W striped Burglar outfits. Both would have been so cool around the train station. But where do you find old wooden barrels and burglar outfits?


This guy below is my own indulgence (THE SPIRIT!)

I Shouldn't have to ask for an Intervention!

It started off seemingly innocent, with a harmless little blog called "Postcard from Mars." Four blogs, a myspace, a facebook, a twitter, a youtube, and a flickr account later... That's right FOUR blogs. (How self-indulgent can one person be?!) Yeah, this entry is really just about a new page called "Take Me Away Astroplane." This isn't about an internet intervention.

I just want to plug tumblr.com, the site that hosts my page. It's rotten COOL! And easy. I can text blog entries! It posts my twitter account and my youtube account! And if i see a video, a picture, a quote or a link I like I click on it and its posted! Its the fastest, simplest way to express/ represent yourself.

Take Me Away Astroplane is more just things that inspire me slash projects I'm working on. Its a quick lay out of whats going on in my life.

Sunshine Cleaning

I saw Sunshine Cleaning last night and stinking loved it. Both Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are my new favorite. At the end of the movie I felt like maybe we were friends.

The reason this film is so great is because it's both hopeful and honest. Life doesn't always work out the way we imagine and sometimes it gets pretty dark but we can find sunshine in even the saddest and darkest places. When we have no money, no husband, and we clean up after dead bodies. When we feel like a total loser. When someone we love dies. This movie is all about finding hope when terrible things happen and life doesn't provide us with the happy ending we expected. I just loved it, so go see it!

Where the Wild Things Are..

Oh boy oh boy! Stinking excited for this movie to come out October 16th. I know in many ways I'm a child in a bad way. But I'd like to think, maybe sometimes, I'm a child in a good way.

Where's the Fiesta?

I completed my Fiesta Movement Film. Almost all of the videos I saw that were uploaded looked a lot more like video resumes than anything else. Not really my style. I believe in less is more, (unless we're talking about one of my many indulges, in which I can't help but practice the principle more is never enough).

The dilemma: in a short film how can I prove I have an internet audience, that I know how to put together an entertaining video, and I like road trips without it looking like shameless self-promotion?

This is what I came up with....



The open road, our life journey, all the random, strange people we pick up along the way and the places we go. And the people along the road will do all the promoting for me.

Fiesta Movement

Ford is giving away 100 2011 Ford Fiesta's before their official release in America. The catch is that you promote the Fiesta for six months. It seems brilliant to me that Ford caught onto the potential of the new world wide web (twitter, blogging, facebook, myspace, youtube). Before the internet meant the world was at your fingertips, these days a blogger is at the world's fingertips. And Twitter has allowed anyone to be mass produced and distributed.

I'm sure Ford's marketing department thought, "why put all this money into advertising ourselves when we can have a diverse group of 100 do it for us?

For six months gas and insurance is paid for. You just go on these special trips in your Ford Fiesta, then talk about them to your internet audience. To apply all you need to do is upload a clip on youtube proving you can make a video, you're entertaining enough, and that you have an internet audience. I think it's genius. So I jumped on board immediately.

I told my friend Tyler at work I wanted to win this Ford Fiesta. He paused for a second, looked at me and said, "Why don't you just buy a car?" I felt like a freeloader for a minute... Now I say to you Tyler... "Whats the fun in that?"

Anywhere But Here...

This past month I've rediscovered all the things I forgot I loved to do. Been crazy busy working on a short video project (further details on the project later).

My Film in the Making:

That's Paul in my opening shot. Paul helped me brainstorm the idea and is writing an original song for me which I'm excited about.


Justin is my camera genius and pretty much helped me figure it all out from the beginning. That's his battle wound after a tragic barbed wire accident.

These shots we got of Bekah were really incredible and she looks so great.




This shot cracks me up, because I told her, "throw the sign but don't throw it in the lake please" so she dramatically throws it and then watches it till it drops.

Some more shots and people who helped me out.


Found this abandoned road right next to the train tracks. Such an incredible spot. Justin risked his life on a skateboard next to my car for this shot.

I have to have it done by Sunday. So check back in a couple days!