what i'm doing right now

working on my gown for the Civil War Ball... the color doesn't show up well in pictures, it's not that reddish in person.

Drinking loose-leaf tea (it's so much better than bagged! i'm a tea-making queen. ya! come have tea with me sometime and see!)

...and then it just got silly. I'M A SEWING MUPPET!!

dut doo dah dah dum.... manamana!

hey monolog, check out my t-shirt. yes, it's the awesomest ever!

scrabble champs

Emily and I are rather good at Scrabble.

But she is WAY better than me.

Last Sunday it was delightfully sunny so we took to the outdoors with Scrabble and pretzels.

Beautiful Tuesday

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.


If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-W.Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

you,

have probably forgotten

-me

-via lettersfromthecrushed

thomas p. stalker insurance is watching you

I told you I had some stories to tell. #1:

Last weekend my friend Emily came over, and we went to see the late Heath Ledger's last movie, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus


-which, by the way is amazing. Go see it! Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python, produced/directed/visualised it, and it is gorgeous and wonderful, and somehow they managed to work around the whole "the star died" thing quite well.-


and when we got out, we went over to the mall to eat and watch the ice skaters. So, we're walking around, minding our own business, when suddenly, out of the blue, looming in view, I catch sight of a group of people I know.


Ok, you're thinking, why is this a problem? Isn't it ok to see your friends?


Ah ha ha ha. I thought you might be missing the idea.

You know the kind of friend who you kind of know, and you'd be completely fine with hanging with them, and you're both friendly when you see eachother in class and in your comfort zone (aka the place where you're accustomed to seeing them) ? The ones you like but you're not so sure how they feel about you?

[silence...silence...bueller...class, anyone?...bueller?...]


No? It's just me? Bah. Sheep, you lie!


WELL, thats the kind of friends these are, except one, who I know rather well, BUT I have reason to suspect a slight crush is happening there (on his side, not mine) and therefore I tread lightly.


So for many reasons, its awkward to see this feller away from all the old familiar places. Emily and I are standing there, in the store, and all of a sudden I COMPLETELY freak out, panic, grab Emily's arm and dive behind (more inside, really) a clothing rack to hide until the storm (aka large group of aquaintances) has passed.


Well, you know how it always is after you've insanely hidden from perfectly nice people. No? Just me again? Well, after that little adventure we felt as though we had to keep on hiding, and therefore logically decided that stalking them around the mall was the safest method. Think about it, if you're following them, there's no chance of them coming up behind you, suprising you, and finding you out! So we proceeded to stalk.


How did we not realise at the time how weird this all was?


After a while, we lost them, and decided to go get some coffee and watch the ice skaters fall on their booties. So we're sitting here in a little low fenced table/sitting/eating area, just minding our own business, when the awkward group comes and sits right behind me. Now, we'd been sitting there for a long time! We were ready to leave already! And add the people we're avoiding to the mix, and we really realllly wanted to leave. Panic panic panic.


Cue fat lady and baby stroller.


The best way to illustrate this is, in fact, with an illustration:

So we escaped, ate sandwiches, and today while looking at some of awkward friend's pictures I discovered that they went to the same sandwich place we went to... FIVE MINUTES AFTER WE LEFT.

AAAAAAA!!!

i know, i know

I just started the coolest event ever! The Great Facebook Mix CD Swap of 2010! I'm always wondering what other people listen to, and I always love finding new artists. So this should be fun! Lots of people have already joined the group. Whoop!

And yes. I know. I've been awfully lazy about posty posting lately. But really, you wouldn't believe how busy I am this semester. What with rehearsals, classes, applications, graduation, various projects with swiftly approaching deadlines, and general growing-up-responsibilities... I'm so busy.

But believe me, I've got some awesome stories to tell about the last couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll get a chance this week sometime!

macro means big, right? so... big food? huge pumpkins?

My mom and I are both experimenting with a macrobiotic diet right now - this basically means avoid all processed foods, eat raw fruits and vegetables, etc. It's super tasty, too.

I'll post more about this later, but for now I wanted to share the amazing mix smoothie we had for breakfast:

kale
avacado
mango
lime
soy milk

and SUPER tasty.

I'm already feeling healthier :)

Beautiful Tuesday

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

-Langston Hughes

boy in front row,

your name fits so easily into my heart. i bet your hand would fit easily into mine too.

— quiet girl

-via letterstocrushes.com

just so you know...

... i'm insanely jealous of all my friends who just started back to school today.

i've been going for two and a half weeks already! lucky beaver butt.

my Grandmother is the coolest.

Here's one of my favorite facts about my wonderful Grandmother:

She was the first girl to wear a ponytail at her highschool in the 50's. She actually started the trend there.

DEElightful!

three bits of you

Ok... I've been tagged in a silly meme, which I actually think is quite fun. The deal is you're supposed to post 3 songs which are... you.

You know what I mean? How some songs can just feel like a bit of you?

Pretty simple, I guess.

Except that my list got pretty long.

Here's my woefully pared down one.

1: Moon River

2: I Feel It All

3: Frank Churchill Arrives


And I tag tag tag...

Elliebird
Johnnie
Monolog

:(

I've officially got the Winter Blues.

I can't stop thinking about

standing in the sun

feeling warm

blue skies

not getting goosebumps from the cold every time I wash my hands.

Oh summer.

I realised this when I was overcome by jealousy on looking at the Sartorialist's Rio De Jainairo pictures. The girl in the sun. Grr.

But I can't change the seasons. For now all I can do is listen to Corrine Bailey Rae (the quintessential summer cd) and remember summer crushes and swimming.

Beautiful Tuesday

trendy girl,

you like bands that are good when they have become bad, but you should know, i liked you before it was cool.

— ahead of the curve

-via letterstocrushes

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven


Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

--W.B.Yeats

the third & the seventh

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

this is possibly the most beautiful film i have ever seen, and it amazes me that everything about it was created by one man. alex roman created this COMPLETELY CG-ANIMATED film illustrating architecture art.

if this is possible... what can possibly be impossible?

Beautiful Tuesday

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful.

Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path.

You know you may never get to the end of the journey.

But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."

- Sir Winston Churchill

Sleeping on the Wing

Perhaps it is to avoid some great sadness,
as in a Restoration tragedy the hero cries "Sleep!
O for a long sound sleep and so forget it!"
that one flies, soaring above the shoreless city,
veering upward from the pavement as a pigeon
does when a car honks or a door slams, the door
of dreams, life perpetuated in parti-colored loves
and beautiful lies all in different languages.

Fear drops away too, like the cement, and you
are over the Atlantic. Where is Spain? where is
who? The Civil War was fought to free the slaves,
was it? A sudden down-draught reminds you of gravity
and your position in respect to human love. But
here is where the gods are, speculating, bemused.
Once you are helpless, you are free, can you believe
that? Never to waken to the sad struggle of a face?
to travel always over some impersonal vastness,
to be out of, forever, neither in nor for!

The eyes roll asleep as if turned by the wind
and the lids flutter open slightly like a wing.
The world is an iceberg, so much is invisible!
and was and is, and yet the form, it may be sleeping
too. Those features etched in the ice of someone
loved who died, you are a sculptor dreaming of space
and speed, your hand alone could have done this.
Curiosity, the passionate hand of desire. Dead,
or sleeping? Is there speed enough? And, swooping,
you relinquish all that you have made your own,
the kingdom of your self sailing, for you must awake
and breathe your warmth in this beloved image
whether it's dead or merely disappearing,
as space is disappearing and your singularity.

-Frank O'Hara

Historical Accuracy Fail

I'm currently working on a little costuming project, creating a gown for the

Civil War Heritage Ball

I'm attending in February.

This project takes a good deal of looking around, as there are no 1850's vintage shops, and most of the costume patterns for that era are Scarlet o'Hara inspired (not especially accurate) or meant to look like ... for lack of a more fitting word... 1850's London trollop.

Now, something you have to know about me is that I'm rather particular about historical accuracy, especially in costumes... so when I ran across these atrocities in my searchings, well, you can imagine my horror.

Exhibit A: For the London Trollop

Exhibit B: For the 1980's Girl Who Doesn't Want To Remotely Resemble Civil War Style
Exhibit C: For the ahead-of-her-time Civil War girl. About 20 years ahead, actually.(personal favorite alert)
Exhibit D: For the... wait, what the heck? For the Elizabethan courtier? What? SO confused. (and yes, that is crushed velvet)



Remember, these are supposed to be Civil War era.

Sad, sad, sad.

Yes, I'll definitely be making my own.

the sudafed stopped working

Happy New Year!

As I've been sick for about 11 days, I'm emerging from a kind of funk that's not especially condusive to New Years glee... blah. But school starts in the morning, so hold on tight, people, here comes normal life!

I'll get back to posting this week, I've just not felt like it this week... or like doing much of anything, really.

To Emily, wherever this may find her... I miss you! Amsterdam is awfully selfish to keep you away all this time. That said, hunt down a couple Van Goghs for me and salute them in my name, if you please.