Recently I was thinking about flowers, and how some orchids have prominent petals that actually match the insects who pollinate them. These “landing pad” petals are arranged on the bottom of the flower so that the pollinator, a bee maybe, will land there and nowhere else. He’ll rub his nubbly back against the inside of the orchid’s column, and carry its pollen out into the world.

What if people were like that? Not so much with the mating, but with the signal that comes before it. It’s more than good hair and hard muscles—it’s something that lasts longer and represents a relationship that works. I thought about couples who grow old together, whose personalities match so perfectly: a true, natural love, like insects and the flowers who support them. What would your petal look like for your partner?

Feeling misty about love in the world, I started reading an article online about a type of orchid that looks like, as well as smells like, a female wasp—thus tricking numerous male wasps into acts of fruitless reproduction. These flowers are so much like the real thing that the males will waste their sperm on them (which, ew, the flowers don’t have a particular use for), leaving less available to the real lady wasps! Why would the orchids do this?

So much for true, natural love. These flowers are as self-destructive as reality show contestants.

It is at the edge of a petal that love waits.

William Carlos Williams

“When I discovered YouTube, I didn’t work for five days. I did nothing. I viewed ‘Cookie Monster Sings Chocolate Rain’ about 1,000 times.”

Michael Scott, The Office

One of my favorite things to do when I don’t want to do anything I’m supposed to is watch how-to videos on YouTube. How to style hair, knit, do origami… typical things, for me. The origami stuff is helpful because written instructions are usually confusing, and my favorite hairstyling videos are the ones by teenage girls doing their own hair in their moms’ bathrooms.

Because of all this, YouTube has taken it upon itself to recommend more how-tos. I usually ignore them because they’re things like, “How To Bench Press By Yourself Without A Spotter.” Or, “How To Kiss With Passion.” I already know how to do one of these things, and have no real interest in the other (just guess)—but sometimes the recommendations are interesting, such as “How To Get Into Any Club.” I click to watch, and I learn that what you have to do is dress like you’re the DJ. Genius, right?

And then we have the suggestions that aren’t instructional, but are supposedly somehow related to my other interests, like the trailer for The Thing.

I don’t really see how it’s relevant, but I can’t argue that it’s not when the rest of my favorites are videos like these, both of which I’ve shared on Facebook before:

This was a joke but I love how spot-on some of these suggestions actually are. Ooh, swish, they probably didn’t expect that would happen. I’m really interested in that adaptable sleeve, too.

Graphic designers may also act like this, but we’re not [all] murderers like Bale in American Psycho.

Since it’s the first fresh day of the brand new year, I thought it’d be as good a time as ever to begin participating in a little project started by Schmutzie called Grace in Small Things. All you have to do is create a list of things—say, five of them—that make you happy, and put it in your weblog. You can do it whenever you want, like once a week or month, or on some other totally random schedule. It sounds easy, but aren’t there some days where you just can’t think of much that makes you happy? I have those days pretty often, where I’m either too grumpy, too busy, or too entirely stumped for fascinating topics to write a blog post, so I’m going to keep my list-making to once every Thursday. Schmutzie’s doing it every day for a whole year, and is nearly to day 40 right now. Some of the items in her lists are so simple (”Humid air after a hot shower”) and peaceful (”Dreaming of faraway places”) that they remind me of the translated lists I love by 11th century Japanese writer Sei Sh?nagon. Here’s an excerpt from Sh?nagon’s “Elegant Things”:

A white coat worn over a violet waistcoat.
Duck eggs.
Shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl.
A rosary of rock crystal.
Snow on wisteria or plum blossoms.
A pretty child eating strawberries.

From The Pillow Book

Her lists weren’t intended to be read, but I love how simple pleasures like these can transcend time. I’m hoping that even though I’ll only post my lists once a week, I’ll become more conscious of good things throughout all seven days and remember them for later.

Here are my first five:

1. The appearance of a Bartlett pear: from the scarred and speckled pale yellow exterior to the smooth, off-white flesh on the inside.

2. The satisfying scritch of a nail file.

3. The way the word “delete” feels to write in cursive. It’s like a rollercoaster of letters.

4. My subscription to Glamour magazine.

5. Wild Cherry Life-Savers.

This is a literal and totally brilliant translation of the music video for “Take On Me” by A-ha, showing you what can happen when the song being sung actually matches the contents of the video. It’s been making the rounds online for a while now, but watch it if you’ve missed it. It made me realize that my most favorite lyrics from songs actually tend to be pretty straightforward, yet still manage to be poetic.

Here are some of my favorite easy lyrics:

Seven-Up, I touched her thumb,
And she knew it was me
Although she couldn’t see,
Unless of course she peeked

Built to Spill, “Twin Falls”

You’re no rock n’ roll fun
Like a piece of art
That no one can touch

Your head is always up in the clouds
Writing your songs
Won’t you ever come down?

Sleater-Kinney, “You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun”

Here comes Tiffany
My best friend, Tiffany
Wearing a size too small of sweater

Me and Tiffany
Dressing up pretty
We love to ride, we love to canter

My best friend Tiffany
She is so popular
We’re going from site to site
And pool to pool tonight

Liz Phair, “Girls’ Room”

I met Ferdinand de Saussure
On a night like this
On love he said
“I’m not so sure
I even know what it is
No understanding
No closure
It is a nemesis
You can’t use a bulldozer
To study orchids”
He said, so
We don’t know anything
You don’t know anything
I don’t know anything
About love

The Magnetic Fields, “The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure”

Of course, nothing can ever really beat a good and crazy song by Beck, who himself changes the lyrics to his songs all the time live.

People like to say, “Oh, it’s in the blood.”

But art comes from nowhere. It comes from a vague, scary place.

It’s scary because you don’t know when it’s coming, or if it will ever come again.

Beck

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

“Fog” by Carl Sandburg

It’s been a long time since I participated in Illustration Friday, but it’s so fun that I’m starting again. Every Friday a new word is posted for anyone to interpret, so if you like to draw, even if only to doodle a little, you should join in!