The 1990s

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a dear friend of mine.



We're celebrating with dinner tonight, but this weekend we are going to have a super 1990s birthday, from which I hope I will have some photos to post next week. It's going to be amazing! Oh 90s fashion, I miss you sometimes.









Picture-A-Day:

Luckily this is garden decor and not a functional door, or I'd curse these storms that knocked it over. My house, morning..

Listening to 90s music on iTunes.

Love and War

Aphrodite, Goddess of love and beauty, symbolized by pink roses and warm gold and the vast ocean, has an affair with the blood-lusting god of war. The god Ares, who has no loyalties, leaves a path of destruction in his wake, cannot quench his thirst for mayhem and battle.

Why? Because love doesn't make any sense. Because sometimes passion outweighs self-preservation. Because sometimes we are pulled to the flame and let everything burn around us...

Picture-A-Day:

Time to get a new bunch. My house, evening.

Listening to Jonsi Birgisson.

When the Universe Wills It...

Sometimes the Universe just really wants you to have something. I was browsing Etsy today (just looking!), and one of my favorite sellers, Persephone Vintage, had this, and I WANTED this:
but, alas, I have no money, and I need to stop the Etsy addiction, so I passed :(

But THEN, on my way home from work, I realized I have a gift card from Christmas that I need to spend before it starts charging fees, and so I popped into one of my favorite vintage stores, and LOOK what I found! and for $24 too. Sometimes things work out so nicely.

Listening to AA Bondy.

Expertise

It is a little late to be discussing New Year's resolutions, and I didn't really make any. I have vague ideas about the things I want to accomplish this year, but I didn't metaphorically set them in stone or even write them down.

I'm not going to do that now, either. But I am going to write down, right here, something I do wish to get back to this year. Studying. I used to be an obsessive researcher/studier. When I became interested in something, I devoured all the information I could on the topic. A few years ago it was an obsession with Louise Brooks. Lately I've just been halfheartedly interested in too many things. This year I want to become and "expert" on something.

Perhaps I'll document my progress here and share the knowledge, or maybe I'll end up doing that on my secret blog, either way, I am not going to remain afraid of the fact that this behavior can be (and has in the past been) socially isolating. I am a nerd. That's okay. I will just have to work harder to find other avenues in conversation. Unless I find someone else out there on the same path of study. You know, once I figure out what that path may be.

And...completely unrelated, although somewhat ironic given yesterday's post, my Etsy purchase came today. Hooray. I guess I'm not doing as well as I thought with self-restraint.




Listening to Theoretical Girl.

Wanting What You Can't Have.

Call it a reaction to buying so many things for other people over the holidays, but I am in a shopping mood. I want, want, want, but I can't have. But a little window shopping never hurt anyone.






Listening to Phoenix.

Let it Snow.

It's been snowing in so many other parts of the country lately, yet here it has been sunny and warm the past week or so. Although I know I should be counting my blessings and despite the fact that I have a very annoying cold that I can't seem to kick, I would love to see some snow right now. I want cold, sharp air and foggy, wet light. I want to feel the relief of the warmth of indoors, sit by a fire and be grateful for it. The quiet and the peace. I want that for just a little while.

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Listening to Broken Bells.

POE (Photographers on Etsy)

Etsy Photographer I like:

Tracey Capone







I am going to try to start up picture-a-day again next week. I have a lot going on right now...feeling the stress.

An Abundance of Cameras

While cleaning my house the other day, I realized how many cameras I have collected (both working and not), and I am still trying to find a nice way to display them. Easier than finding shelf space, however, would be to draw them as a collection and hang them up on the wall à la the following. I love these:

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Also, I WANT this book:

Listening to She Keeps Bees.

Gender Roles, Anyone?

Whew! That was a long break, and I have to say, I did not like it. One would think by my absence that I do not like the holidays, but it is in fact the opposite and I was too involved in holiday mayhem to blog. That's over now, however, and it is time again to relax and breathe deep and keep getting inspired by the people out there in internet land.

My thoughts have been a little chaotic, so bear with me, this is another string-of-randomness-led-me-here post.

SO, I was catching up on reading magazines I never have time for anymore and my favorite on that list is Bitch. One of the many things I love about this magazine is that it leads me to think of gender roles in new and interesting ways, and to think about the ways in which the culture around me influences who I am as a person. I am not a hard-core believer in nurture vs. nature--I think we are fascinatingly complex mixtures of both--but I do believe that we don't always realize how much the little things in our life shape who we are and how we behave.

I think it is a good idea once in a while to think about what it is we are surrounding ourselves with, what those things (and people) say about us, and how they influence our behavior and image of ourselves. Also, how have our lives been shaped since before we were old enough to really know what we wanted in life? How autonomous are we from societal influence? ... That is why I find JoengMee Yoon's Pink & Blue Project amazing, amazing, amazing.










Listening to Lhasa de Sela. RIP.