Sketchbook 18, The Book of Travels, continues with the other half of the drawings from my lovely holiday in San Francisco with mum, which was the happiest week of my life. This set opens with another lovely little coffee and cake place where everyone seemed to be an artist or a writer all working in their projects at the tables and a view of the street opposite the hotel after our first day out. There was a cafe opposite called The Promised Land, which seemed apt. Next another cafe - opposite the hotel called Caffe Trieste. Next was my favourite iconic building in the city (because Invasion of the Bodysnatchers was one of my total fave films). On the Sunday morning I wanted to find the Triratna Buddhist Centre but, pre-smartphone I failed so I wandered and found the NKT Centre. It suddenly rained heavy warm rain on the way and I remember a man at the bus stop doing the 24 Form of Tai Chi in the downpour - very slow and undisturbed. I went and sat morning meditation with the Kadam and they were very welcoming. I bought a statue of Vajrayogini for Kev and they wrapped it for me in a San Francisco Buddhist T-shirt as an extra souvenir when they heard I was from Liverpool. Next, my first ever performance work. I had decided to take a pilgrimage and make prostrations and traditional offerings of water, perfume incense etc at the memorial to Harvey Milk. The line from the Triratna puja “I make offerings at all the holy places and places in which the Bodhisattvas have been” permissioned me to make a whole set of LGBT pilgrimages starting with this one - shown also added in here is a later visit to New York’s Stonewall Bar. #traveljournal #sketchbook #drawing #journaling #memories #performanceart #pilgrimage #harveymilk #harveymilkfoundation #offerings #secularsaints #bodhisattva #hero #sanfrancisco #mum #adventure #happiertimes #love #pride🌈 #queerartist #queerart #liverpoolartist #nkt #meditationinsanfrancisco #bayarea #joy #kadampabuddhism (at San Francisco, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cja-8qxMeXZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Going to miss this man Cleve Baker! He first spun "Messin With A Fool" in 2012 and from there we always were friends, laughed and I even visited him in the Carolina studio. Thank You for the music love over the years + your dedication to good music while keeping the blues alive... Rest In Paradise 💔 @bakercleve #ConfessingTheBlues #BluesRadio #RadioDJ #Oldschoolradio #HappierTimes https://www.instagram.com/p/CplK7PIun8V/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION ➤ GIFS: Cullen Rutherford

↳ Happier Times

Awkward Cully-Wully is the cutest ever 🥰🥰🥰

Throwback Thursday… • • #2016 #olympics #2016olympics #london #londonolympics #olympicgames #olympicgames2016 #towerbridge #towerbridgelondon #olympicrings #london #londonlife #londonnights #canarywharf #thames #riverthames #southbank #night #nightphotography #nightlords #leica #nikon #nikond80 #nikkor #instanight #bettertimes #happiertimes (at Tower Bridge, London) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnmBTf1oDQy/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Happier than an inflatable Tubeman. "HappierTimes" from Tom_FJM

Now on: Apple Music Spotify Youtube

.......for awhile now

still natural, still black, still beautiful 🖤

Things to say thanks for 🎀

🎈 for your personality

🎈 for your friends and family who truly cares about you

🎈 for your smile

🎈 for all the amazing songs you can listen to

🎈 for having food

🎈 for all the movies which are left to watch

🎈 for being alive today

🎈 for all the delicious meals you haven’t eaten yet

🎈 for your beautiful laughter

🎈 for all the places you still have to go

🎈 for your tender heart

🎈 for all the new people you’re about to meet

You know you are on the right path when you have no interest in looking back.

@everydaywildlife

Don't you just love it when you wake up in a good mood and someone just has to ruin it for you?! Good mornings are rare and that's one reason why I sleep all day. I'm going back to bed....

The Book of Travels continues with a final backward glimpse of beautiful San Francisco. We had discovered the wrong bridge across the bay and in the last day there we discovered the actual Golden Gate Bridge. It was drizzle but I wanted to sit and draw it and mum was the Bodhisattva of patience. Months passed and this next set was of my other favourite place in the world which is Amsterdam. We went every year at various points and with various people and this is really a set of less than flattering drawings of Kev, Steve and Paul sitting in bars the fifth image is actually Steve drawing in my sketchbook and then Kev drawing - the image of me that Kev did was my Facebook profile picture for a while. After that is Steve and then us sitting outside a bar at the Skinny Bridge and few pages of stickers from lampposts which I often collected as visual memories of places I visited. The last page includes Hammerstein from the ABC warriors and a Dharma text from a little scroll we got at the Kuan Yinn Buddhist temple in Amsterdam and some translations of Dutch that Kev could do after realising Dutch was just English with an unusual accent and completely random words. #traveljournal #journaling #drawing #sketchbook #memories #iamsterdam #amsterdam #skinnybridge #brownbar #goldengatebridge #nostalgia #happiertimes #liverpoolartist (at San Francisco, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjk5gFtsgQo/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Suicide Text Hotlines

The official National Suicide Hotline has put me on hold multiple times, have not answered, and if you use the text feature you have to wait and then it takes even longer to connect you. Here are some resources I used that actually connected almost immediately and helped me: 

IMAlive: Text based suicide hotline, can use from your laptop/computer for those who cannot use their phone or their parents will check texts: https://www.imalive.org/ 

Crisis Hotline: Can use from your phone, Text HOME to 741741 and you will be connected to someone. 

Feel free to add ones that helped you since personally, I don’t find the regular Suicide Hotline helpful based on my experience. 

Evyllen [25/?]

↳ Happier Times

Coming out today

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/tomfjm/happiertimes