Creativity - Hilarity

I forgot to post this photo. This is when I tried to take a picture of one of my rings, but I didn't want my face in it. So I put a black coat over my head, held out the ring and waited for the photo --"beep." I am a talented photojournalist. I look like the grim reaper trying to give you a ring of eternal life.

Creativity

Wire with copper inside will turn your fingers green. I've spent over $200 figuring this out. When I was in between jobs, I pushed my anxiety into creating these rings. I started out with cheap wire from walmart and cheap fake pearls that looked beautiful. Then I moved to the hub and found a local outrageously expensive bead store. Soon I was buying Chinese Jade beads, solid sterling silver wire, a vintage ring mandrel, and countless other seed pearls and swarovski beads. I made these rings, non stop, until metal shards slipped under my finger nails, until my eyes were crossed from trying to find the tiny hole to thread a wire through.

I've given away nearly 50 of these rings. I have charged for maybe two of them. Yes, I know I could sell every one of them, I know I could mark up the price and make dinner parties awkward when I bring out my goods, and mention I have petty cash to make change.

Of course, I never quite figured out how to photograph them well either. These photos were taken with my i-sight camera and obviously, don't provide a very good glimpse of what I make.


I gave another one away today to a work friend who has been through a breakup, a job change, and may currently be falling in love with her own version of Mr. Big.

More to come, but apparently the gold and silver prices are way up, along with gas, meaning that a yard of sterling silver wire that won't turn your finger green will probably set me back about $23.

The Drive

The drive. It takes about an hour and ten minutes.... on the most perfect driving day you can find. But typically, when the boyfriend and I are making the trip from the hub to the hill, it's on a Friday, before a holiday weekend, at 5:30 p.m. I play all the songs on my Itunes, sing every commercial jingle I know, eat some snacks I brought for us. And at that point, we're about 54 miles away from the hill.

With Monchichi in the back seat, rubbing his nose on the windows, patiently waiting for the green hills that will soon fill his view, M. and I often struggle to maintain sanity, clarity and care for one another during these trips. I become convinced that if he does not press the brakes harder, we are certainly going to slam right into the back of the breaking car in front of us. I grip the seat or throw my hands up to the ceiling. He sighs, and typically says "do you want to drive?" Then he, albeit safely, careens in between the city drivers who are just as anxious to get to an open space.

Tonight we're waiting out the traffic, and heading out to the country later than usual. But just you wait, when I return from being a country mouse - I'll have some tales to tell.

Sweet Treats

Canto 6 Bakery - my love for croissants, flaky pastry, and tuna melts (even though they dont have them here ) is the reason I am practicing a bit of self loathing for lack of gym visits and tight waist bands.

Low Rise Jeans

Oh, low rise jeans, you make me feel less woman. Your opposite intention, I imagine. Women across America, squeeze, jump, jiggle into you only to button you lower than what the game of Operation taught us was our waist. On thinner girls, jutting hipbones protrude above your denim lines, as if small mountain tops that peak in waifish confidence. Most of us though, find new body parts when we try you on. Skin and fat, as if fleeing from your very fibers, flop outward, sideways, upwards. Constantly women are making choices based on your demands. "Oh, I'll take that side," a girl offers at a restaurant to ensure her backside is exposed only to the wall and not the likely to be offended patrons. Tops of buttocks take their shape outside your unforgiving parameters, bringing the tops of thong underwear along for their clothing vacation. Young girls expose too much in you. You beg them to parade their sexuality too young, their hips unripe for such exposure. Older women pity themselves even more squeezed in your style. They're temporarily unrecognizable from 20somethings as they too grap you by your belt straps and yank upward, trying to gain just one more inch of coverage. But it's no use. Our methods of concealing our bodies are rendered useless when we've hopelessly devoted ourselves to you. You ask too much. Our hips just don't move that way. We are not Giselle. It's time for a break-up. We want to be grabbed by the waist, twisted around, made to feel lovely, gorgeous, slim and if need be, concealed. Yet you break us down every time. We want to fall in love again. This time, it won't be with you.

Why?

We're completely caught up in ourselves. We're drunk with narcissism. We've become completely voyeuristic and we're defining ourselves, and understanding others, through the internet. Less by our actions, more about our typepad, font and photo. But few stay afloat, socially, without giving into these means, these seemingly inconsequential forms of "online social networks."

But, I'm ranting. The defining quality of these blogs. So, though I loathe my pedestrian tongue every time I say it, but ...If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Yet still, I wonder, how much do I divulge? I'm no Stephanie Klein, recanting countless personal, private details. Yet still, you cannot stay afloat. Even the simplest entries will come from a more deep-seeded place, though, so it's just a temporary veil if I leave out names, change places and speak in metaphor. But then, at least, it's out of me. Spun out to words.

So I'll attempt, for my sake, and for yours, whoever you are, to write honestly and diligently, every day. One sentence, two photos or page long over-analytical rants. It will start with that one random person, then the 5 close girlfriends, and with time, it will take all my guts not to tailor the content to this one or that one who reads it. We're all satisfying the urge to judge, watch, see and define anyway. I'll lend my hand.

Remember, You're Just a Country Mouse

"Remember," my father always says, "you're just a country mouse." Before any trip to Boston, New York, or certainly the trips abroad without my parents, he would remind that I was a country mouse. It was as if acknowledging that I had grown up jumping into hay in a barn, running through tall grass (before lyme disease even existed) would mean that I wouldn't jump out into a busy city street, get hit by a cab, or make conversation with bums on the street.

Even now, that I am here in the city, jumping out in front of cabs (they'll never stop for you anyway), he reminds me. Country Mouse.

Mouse Flats

No, not every post will have something to do with mice, in the country, or in the city (though they run rampant in both places!). But I could not resist a post of these shoes. Marc Jacobs mouse flats are not for everyone, and despite the efforts of my dear roommate to convince me that they are beyond ridiculous, they are on my mind all the time. Yes, I complain that I am most likely not taken too seriously due to my wardrobe and rebellious nature to often dress in Easter egg colors, or in rather unflattering silhouettes (but I love puffy sleeves!) But I am drawn to outfits that make my boyfriend laugh when I get dressed in the morning. Though at this point, I don't think there is much that could surprise him.

We all know it's no fun to get dressed for work every morning - we are at a tough age, in a tough city, nearly broke from time to time, and splurging on things we don't really need - like a Marc Jacobs mouse flat. I promise to detail my struggle with finding my own taste and style (a goal for ages) and constant updates with clothes, jewels, people and places that don't follow any rules.

An Introduction

The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

There once was a mouse who liked his country house until his cousin came for a visit.

"In the city where I live," his cousin said, "we dine on cheese and fish and bread. Each night my dinner is brought to me. I eat whatever I choose. While you, country cousin, work your paws to the bone for humble crumbs in this humble home. I'm used to finery. To each his own, I see!"

Upon hearing this, the country mouse looked again at his plain brown house. Suddenly he wasn't satisfied anymore. "Why should I hunt and scrape for food to store?" he said. "Cousin, I'm coming to the city with you!"

Off they went into the fine town house of the plump and prosperous city mouse.

"Shhh! The people are in the parlor," the city mouse said. "Let's sneak into the kitchen for some cheese and bread."

The city mouse gave his wide-eyed country cousin a grand tour of the leftover food on the table. "It's the easy life," the city mouse said, and he smiled as he bit into a piece of bread.

Just as they were both about to bite into a chunk of cheddar cheese, In came the CAT!

"Run! Run!" said the city mouse. "The cat's in the house!"

Just as the country mouse scampered for his life out of the window, he said, "Cousin, I'm going back to the country! You never told me that a CAT lives here! Thank you, but I'll take my humble crumbs in comfort over all of your finery with fear!"

There are so many versions of this story, and they all apply to what happened to me when I first moved here, and what I continue to feel. So I make the trips back and forth from the city to the country and back again, still stuck somewhere in between.