Looks Like Another Perfect Day

Carly Martin

29 May 2026 — 5 min read

Good morning dear readers. Happy Friday! I've rebounded from the funk I was in per my last newsletter and this week, we're talking crude oil.

California Dreaming

This past week I was in beautiful Los Angeles, California to spend MDW with some West Coast pals. It was gorgeous in every way. Allow me to share some highlights:

Nat has had this trip booked for months but I joined the itinerary a little impulsively like 2 weeks ago, so I came out a few days after them. Besties Alex and Jule graciously let us sleep on their couch and cooked this amazing pasta from scratch the evening that I got in.

not rushing them bc this is their Sephora

We hit up Silver Lake and walked Sunset Boulevard, exploring many curated vintage work wear boutiques and bespoke coffee shops. That matcha was approximately $9 pre-tax, but it did have a delicious mascarpone foam so I would categorize as a sound financial decision.

I caught up with bestie Julia. We had some fab tiki drinks above a hot dog restaurant in West Hollywood and discussed how her coworker saw Mayhem Ball 8 times and how she now identifies as an early career esports driver and is actively taking on sponsorships. This is somehow the only photo I took from our hangout. Hope you can feel the drinks aura through your screen.

I don't think I would have liked this nearly as much if there weren't strange VR wolves you could download to take photos with

We experienced the La Brea Tar Pits in Downtown. I had never been before and was told by many it is a must-do, and I have to say that I was skeptical but am now a fan of this weird park filled with bubbling asphalt.

Basically, a tar pit is a naturally occurring phenomenon where decaying material is compressed underground for hundreds of thousands of years to create petroleum aka crude oil. This substance can bubble up to the surface through cracks in the Earth's crust and pool at the surface. The lighter components of the crude oil will burn off as it reaches the top, leaving a black, sticky material we all know as asphalt.

Animals and other bugs, plants, rocks, prehistoric creatures of all kinds throughout history have frequently found themselves stuck in the bubbling goo where they unfortunately meet their demise, but it does make for a very cool fossil deposit like 10,000-40,000 years later.

The La Brea (la brea = 'pitch' en español) tar pits in LA are smack in the middle of downtown and have been the site of archaeological excavation since the early 1900s. The museum that is now attached to the fossil dig sites became open to the public in 1977 and has thousands of specimens all found on property. Their collection is growing as every time the neighboring LA County Museum of Art starts a parking expansion project or the LA metro system starts adding a new station, they find more tar with more fossils.

We really enjoyed walking around the grounds and sticking things in the little tar pits that the workers have been so kind as to mark out with fluorescent cones labeled 'messy'.

We also made sure to swing by Dodger's Stadium to see Ohtani wipe the floor with the Rockies on Monday evening. Dodger Dogs do not hold a candle to Fenway Franks, I'll tell you that.

On our last full day, Nat wasn't feeling too hot so I joined Alex and Jule to do some light errands. Felt kinda like mom and dad were taking me out for a fun day because I got good grades or something. We swung by Ikea so they could look at a coat rack and appreciate the hard work of the Swedish copy editing team.

In summation, I love LA.

Caught Stealing

I'm adding a segment inspired by First Lady Rama Duwaji's monthly 'things that made me want to make art' insta posts. When I say 'inspired by' I mean I'm stealing her entire idea. Here are things in the month of May that made me want to make art:

From top to bottom:

1 - California Copied From 1965 Painting in 1987 by David Hockney, as seen at LACMA. I love the way the water is done and the texture contrast between the pool-goers and the pool.

2 - To Atom by ?, as seen at a Mar Vista thrift store. Love that this is done on a piece of cardboard that someone took the time to frame. If I had space in the suitcase it would've come home with me.

3 - Under Old Battersea Bridge by James McNeill Whistler and View from Massaki of Suijin Shrine, Uchigawa Inlet, and Sekiya by Utagawa Hiroshige, as seen at LACMA. This was part of a hallway exhibition juxtaposing the 19th century English artist's graphite drawings with Edo period Japanese woodblock prints. I loved the curation of putting these two things together.

4 - Flowers Nat got me for opening night :)

5 - Some good light while we made pizza

Please send me things you found pretty this month!