bonfire of my vanity

layer upon layer

2012-02-12T19:56:00.000-08:00

remember what i was saying in my last post about my unsanitary love of my new heart tank top? yeah. seriously. i love this tank top and wish i'd bought five more. it is the perfect cut and print for layering.

below you see me in action, as i prevent blood from spilling as brother turns against brother. this is how i spend most of my day, actually. with that crazy smile on my face, too. i just stand around like that, holding my two wildebeests at bay.

when i got to playgroup the day i wore this i was greeted with "you look really tired!"
thanks! it's hard work perfecting the "really tired" look. i'm glad you noticed!

gratuitous butt shot. because i can.

hearts and roses

2012-02-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

saturday night! woo! i mean, snoooooore. yeah. i've got nothing to do besides read on this gray evening. i'm juggling books right now, reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the umpteenth time (i just started the Two Towers, for my fellow LotR dorks) while also reading Lakota Woman, a gift from Milla, and The Robber Bride, my favorite Margaret Atwood novel. so i guess i have a lot to do if we're talking about reading.

just in time for valentines day i have fallen in love with this new heart print tank top i got from Old Navy. i've worn it more times than is really sanitary. gross, right? but hearts are apparently a neutral and can be worn with everything. who knew? cupid, that's who.

do you guys do valentines day? i like making cards with my kid for his school friends, but other than that it's never been a holiday i gave much effort to. i will happily eat valentines day candy, however.

birthday girl

2012-02-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

so yeah, i turned 33 last wednesday night, and i managed to coerce three of my girlfriends and my little sister to go out dancing with me. we were all up way past our bedtimes, but we had a lot of fun. that's what i wore, and i ripped it off another girlfriend of mine who posted a picture of herself on her facebook wearing pretty much this exact outfit. i liked it so much i stole it. hey, it was my birthday and i wants it, my precious. i even got to do my makeup, which always makes me happy. i really have fun applying makeup, but just never really have the time to do it on the everyday.

we drank, we made fun of people and we ate south east asian style bagels. my sister and i were the last two left standing by the end of the night and we took advantage of the empty streets near where we had parked to be total jackasses for the camera. good times.

it was really fun but i filled my needing to go out and party quota for the next 6 months or so.
i'm such a homebody now that i am an old lady,

hearts

2012-02-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

you can't see it, but this tanktop has tiny little red hearts all over it. and i love them. this outfit is really damn cute. and it's a shame because you see, i never actually wore it anywhere.

last friday i woke up with the plan to take my kids to our local community playgroup, as we often do on fridays. i managed to get my kids and myself dressed with only medium level chaos and only a very light sweat was broken during the wrestling match that is getting my two year old fully dressed.

i took these pictures and was ready to walk out the door when my older kid said, "mom, i just want to stay home." since it was pouring rain and playgroup is certainly not my idea of a rousing good time, i was easily convinced. and easily slipped back into my yoga pants and tee shirt.

so this outfit never saw the light of day. rather, it never saw the overhead flourescent lights of the town's rec center. a tragedy really.

the happiest dress on earth

2012-02-05T23:47:00.000-08:00

i'm feeling pretty down right now, so what better time to share these pictures from a few weeks ago when i wore what a friend of mine christened "The Happiest Dress on Earth". it truly is a happy dress. and i was a happy lady when i wore it because i can finally wear belts! while i haven't fully weaned by 2.5 year old, we are past the days when the milk bar was open 24/7. i can wear clothes that don't require easy access to my boobs. i have been missing belts so much, envious of all the cute belts i see on my favorite blog girls.
my day has come! i can belt again!

i love embroidery. i love it visually and i love it in a tactile way as well. i love to run my fingers over the thread and read the designs like braille, imagining the person who created it. mexican embroidered dresses and blouses are,
like my beloved 70's sweaters, something i never have enough of.

back to the whining, though. i'm feeling pretty shitty these days. lots of things are piling up on my little family and we are doing our best to keep on keeping on. i feel like this one Blind Melon song i love, Mouthful of Cavities, where the Shannon Hoon sings, "i haven't seen you smile in a little while". i have been a veritable Eeyore lately, it's true.

but see? i already feel happier after looking at this dress for a few minutes.
maybe i will wear it again tomorrow and see if it will shake these blues off.

if you somehow have missed the boat and never listened to Blind Melon, you need to remedy that shit. their album Nico is still one of my top 5 albums and the only album i have rebought not once, but twice after losing it. it's that good. if you've only heard that one song they were famous for with the Bee Girl, you're missing out. they were a great band.

speaking of the Bee Girl song, this version from Nico is seriously awesome.

sick of it

2012-02-03T14:40:00.000-08:00

i'm sick. i could feel it coming on my birthday but instead of resting i chose to go out all night and now i am paying the piper. i was a bad girl and smoked a cigarette, too, which is making i that much work. coughs, headaches and sore throats were the gifts i received. bleh. luckily my mom is here and has been out with my kids most of the day while lie her whining and watching Arrested Development.

since i ain't got shit to say, i'll share this really great blog post from one of my very favorite blogs, Native Appropriations.After reading this article about one native man's experience dealing with stereotypical native misrepresentation for just one week, Adrienne was inspired:

"So, this week, I want you to document every instance of Indian stereotyping you come across. Include the things you would normally dismiss as "not a big deal"--The girl wearing a shirt with a stereotypical Indian design, the use of terms like "sitting Indian style", or "Let's have a powwow about this", the man wearing a Redskins jersey on the bus, the newspaper article that characterizes Indians as extinct, a bumper sticker, an old western on TV, etc."

a lot of this stuff goes unnoticed by people with White Privilege. stop this week and take notice. little things like "sitting indian style", "indian giver",movies like Peter Pan. stereotypes about Native "spirituality". bullshit headbands with feathers on etsy that's sold under the title "native hair band with Turkey Medicine" (no i didn't make that up). stuff like Drew Barrymore wearing a headress.
stuff like calling baby showers "Blessingways". stuff like that.stuff that's easy to go unnoticed because it doesn't necessarily affect you in a way that is really in your face. see what you can find if you look around. it's pretty amazing how pervasive and "acceptable" this form of racism is. and racism it is, despite it appearing benign or "not that big of a deal". every little thing like that adds up. and it hurts people and perpetuates stereotypes.

birthday girl

2012-02-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

whew. being 33 makes me tired. last night i dragged my girlfriends and my sister out at the wee hours to go to the weekly dancehall reggae party. one by one they dropped like flies, until my sister and i were left, sweating our butts off and fending off the Creepy Guy That Always Dances Behind You With Out You Knowing It. after getting our groove on, my sis and i got south asian bagels at the donut shop next door and then ran around the streets taking ridiculous pictures and laughing like idiots. it was a very good birthday indeed.

this is something i wore a few weeks ago on a very cold day.
this sweater is the warmest and cuddliest one i own and this striped skirt is my new favorite article of clothing.
have a good weekend!
my mom is coming to visit, so we're excited.

beach

2012-01-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

some shots of "our" beach from a recent visit with friends. some old highschool cronies of mine, who happened to marry eachother, were in town with their son and we showed them the sights. it was a really amazing day, warm and no wind. the kids ran wild and immediately sat in puddles and low tide areas, getting thoroughly soaked and muddy as could be. we wandered up and down the beach till little people started whining for "fooooooooooooood, mama" and then it was time to go.
here are some of my favorite pictures of the day:

tomorrow is my 33 birthday!

dandelion wine

2012-01-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

i wore this exactly one billion years ago. i've been really lazy about blogging lately. my kids are keeping me busy and the baby's naps are shorter. much less time to play on the computer. the sun came out after a week of intense rain and we've been outside as much as possible before we get trapped inside again. lots of walks and bike rides and visits to the park. speaking of which, my kids just went with their dad to the park so i'm going to sign off here and relax rather than flail around trying to make up something cool to say.

vintage shirt, thrifted
sunglasses,hoodie and skirt, target
leggings, old navy
boots, minnetonka

teenage wasteland

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

okay, so last week i discovered Joseph Szabo, a photographer whose subject is most often teenagers.

i found these pictures really fascinating and i wanted to share. enjoy!

emo kids

2012-01-26T22:31:00.000-08:00

this is actually what i wore today. i don't know that i have ever posted an outfit on the day i actually wore it. i was just editing these pictures and the top one made me laugh so hard i had to share it now. my son and i are so emo in that picture. like, what is my problem? why so serious, pal? why the long face? meanwhile, my son ponders the meaning of life and why his mom has to take so damn long taking pictures of herself before we can actually go to the park. emo kids. the lonely rocking horse adds an artsy 'sad clown' feel to it all.
i cheer up a bit in this next picture, though only slightly.

my son, however, does not break character, and maintains his eeyore stance. all we need are some really bad comb over bangs and ill fitting skinny jeans and we're good to go.

twins

2012-01-25T14:50:00.000-08:00

right now i am hovering by a window, listening to the sounds of my older kid playing outside with the neighbor kids. this is the first time he's played outside of our yard with out me, and i'm being That Mom. the baby was still napping when his friend asked him out to play, and their grandmother is standing outside watching them because the youngest of the two brothers is only 2. so really, no big deal. i'm right here with my windows open and the grandma, who is not crazycakes, is right there. and yet i am still like, omg! my baby! is riding bikes in the street. real bikes! with helmets! and he has friends who ask him out to play. to quote Gepetto, he's a Real Boy! sniffle. my little twin, my shadow, is a Real Boy. i'm definitely having some sort of midlife crisis type thing right now, having a lot of What Does It All Mean moments these days, and my oldest baby growing up so fast is definitely part of it.

i heard that one song today, the Sunscreen song? cried like a little baby. if i wasn't so certain i am not pregnant i'd be worried i was pregnant. tell me you remember this song.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97

                       If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen                        would be 
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved                        by 
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more                        reliable 
than my own meandering 
experience…I will dispense this advice now. 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind;                        you will not 
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they                        have faded. 
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos                        of yourself and 
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility                        lay before 
you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re                        not as fat as you 
imagine. 

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that                        worrying is as 
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing                        
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be                        things that 
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside                        you at 4pm 
on some idle Tuesday. 

Do one thing everyday that scares you 

Sing 

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts,                        don’t put up with 
people who are reckless with yours. 

Floss 

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re                        ahead, sometimes 
you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end,                        it’s only with 
yourself. 

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;                        if you 
succeed in doing this, tell me how. 

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.                      

Stretch 

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you                        want to do with your 
life…the most interesting people I know didn’t                        know at 22 what they 
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting                        40 year 
olds I know still don’t. 

Get plenty of calcium. 

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re                        gone. 

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll                        have children,maybe 
you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll                        dance the funky 
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever                        you do, don’t 
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either                        – your 
choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy                        your body, 
use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it,                        or what other people 
think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll                        ever 
own.. 

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your                        own living room. 

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.                      

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel                        ugly. 

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll                        be gone for 
good. 

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your                        past and the 
people most likely to stick with you in the future. 

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious                        few you 
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography                        and 
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the                        people you 
knew when you were young. 

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you                        hard; live 
in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you                        soft. 

Travel. 

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians                        will 
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll                        fantasize 
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians                        were 
noble and children respected their elders. 

Respect your elders. 

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you                        have a trust fund, 
maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when                        either one 
might run out. 

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time                        you're 40, it will 
look 85. 

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those                        who 
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it                        is a way of 
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting                        over the 
ugly parts and recycling it for more than 
it’s worth. 

But trust me on the sunscreen…

wolf gang

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

i just achieved greatness. i got both my boys to sleep at the same time, no drama, no fuss. my house is clean. my coffee for tomorrow is made. i have achieved greatness. my partner started school this week so after a long break he is back to the long days at school and i am solo here at home with the kids, often until bedtime. two against one can be pretty rough when it comes to bedtime, which is why i am so very pleased with myself for this easy bedtime. getting the timing right is an actual science when it comes to this sort of thing. anyone who has been responsible for putting two very young children to bed alone knows what i am talking about. it's a science. we parents study this science intensely these first years. we test hypothesis and fail, remembering the ones that worked, fine tuning the process until you finally get it right. which is, of course, when your kids get older and have another growth spurt and that old routine that you spent so long working on? yeah. that doesn't work anymore. and it's on to the next great experiment. until one day they finally, or so i am told, go to sleep on their own. by then you are already crazy so it doesn't really matter.

shirts, thrifted
skirt, target
leggings, old navy
boots, lane bryant

70's love

2012-01-22T18:50:00.000-08:00

little green

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

something i wore out to do some errand or another.

these pictures below are from christmas. we woke up to this amazing sunrise.

truly one of the most gorgeous i've ever seen

during the christmas holiday my father in law came and pruned our trees for us, and the boys created a fort from the branches. it's still standing! pretty weird, considering what a wrecking ball my two year old is. the boy is on a mission of destruction at all times.
but he must have a soft spot for the fort.

happy friday!

same dress, different day

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

i've worn this before, but never as a dress. it's a little too short on it's own, so i added a skirt underneath to make up the difference. but enough about the dress. i've had the day from hell, starting with my dog ripping up garbage bag in the kitchens at 4 in the morning ad ending with me dropping my new laptop and breaking it. somewhere in the middle of all that i also had my cell phone turned off because i spaced out on paying the bill. i feel like i've been run over by a truck. after i broke my computer and couldn't call anyone because i forgot to pay the phone bill i cried like i haven't cried since i was 15 years old. i've got a bottle of wine and i'm sending N. out for emergency chocolate and i'm going to hide under a blanket and hope i can make it through the rest of the day.

100% thrifted/etsy'd

tomboy

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

100% thrifted except jacket

what i wore on a recent early morning walk with my sister and the kids. i love putting really girly pieces with menswear, it's one of my favorite looks to put together. i'm a tomboy at heart, it's only in these last 10 years or so that i have slowly began to embrace frillyness (is that a word?).

it's an unbelievably gray and rainy day, and my baby boy and i are snuggled in on the couch while i have my coffee and he has his cartoons. i just finished working out and i feel awesome. i discovered Zumba recently. it is the greatest thing sinced sliced bread, in my opinion. if you are looking to start a work out routine or switch up your old routine, i recommend it. it's very musically based, so you feel like you are actually dancing and not just doing reps. it incorporates my favorite dance styles, bellydance, latin dance and hip hop into a work out that flows from song to song and makes me feel like i am in a music video. i have so much fun while i am doing it that i often find myself laughing with sheer joy. i'm not even being sarcastic. that does not happen often when i work out. so yeah, anyway. zumba. it's the shit.

beach boys (slight return)

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

with the warm(er) weather we've been having lately, the kids and i have gone to the beach more often these last few weeks. we still have to bundle up quite a bit to feel comfortable, but man is it gorgeous. some pictures from a trip we took after finishing a successful dental check up for my oldest kid:

dig, dig, dig. like two little puppies.

rock climbing was a big one that day. little man is finally coordinated enough to scramble up some of the bigger rocks like his brother.

i'm really having issues with how big my kids are getting. i need to file a complaint. these kids are too big.

and yes, they are in matching hoodies. how disgustingly cute is that?

the baby has been really into saying "I DID IT! TA-DA!" when he completes something he is doing. making it to the top of this little rock was no exception.

when i was exactly 786 months pregnant with his little brother, my oldest climbed this rock one day while we were at the beach. he was only two and half at the time, so about the same age as the baby is now, and of course was not big on listening to his mama. i couldn't get him to come down for like, 45 minutes, and i couldn't get my huge belly up the rock to get him. i was so.freaking.mad. it's funny now, though. especially seeing how big he is now, and how not scary it is for me to see him on the rock now that he that big.

i'm a very, very lucky lady to have two such delightful children. they drive me batty sometimes but it's really fun having my little entourage to hang out with all the time. i'll be lonely when they are teenagers and never want to go places with me anymore.

oh and here's me. wild hair!

welcome to monday

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

dress, ross

sweater, thrifted

tights, target

shoes, gifted from sister

let me school you

2012-01-14T08:07:00.000-08:00

i am in such a grumpy mood. i woke up last night in the middle of the night and couldn't stop thinking about this obnoxious chick at my kid's playgroup. i've known her for a while because her wife and i were pregnant at the same time with our oldest kids and had swim class together, but i don't know her well. anyway, we were sitting by the little plastic slide watching our kids climb up and down and she struck up a school conversation. you know, the "is your kid going to kindy next year? which school? blah blah blah fucking BLAH". i answered that he would be attending the public spanish immersion elementary school that's across the street from my house. and so it begins. "yes, we are looking at our options for Bratleigh (let's just call her kid Bratleigh, okay?) he's a really hands on learner and i just don't think he'll benefit from just being talked at the way they do in public school."

why is this such a common opinion? it's not true. my parents were public school teachers. my sister is student teaching right now. i went to public school. public schools have their issues, don't get me wrong, but they are not factories where slack jawed zombie children are "talked at" for 8 hours a day.

also? hi! remember me? i just told you my kid is going to public school, ya pompous twit. now i know that your super sparkly speshul snowflake child is just too fancy for the elementary school but could you be a little less fucking RUDE and maybe pretend that you actually are aware of basic politeness and manners? maybe wait till you get home to gloat over how Bratleigh just can't be "talked at"? this happens A LOT. and it fucking sucks. especially because i am really supportive of pretty much all school options (except waldorf. i hate waldorf and i do not support anything that is based in the racist, xenophobic, crazytown views of Rudolph Steiner but i've run my mouth enough about why so i'll just not go there today).

i have friends who homeschool, friends who do montessori, friends who do charter, blah blah fucking BLAH. and i support those options because i think that options are the spice of life and that it would suck if we didn't have options. i assume that people know their kids well enough to know which option is the best for them and their family, and besides Waldorf shit talk i never have been anything but supportive towards these various educational choices. but damn, son. if i hear one more fucking person insult me by telling me they wouldn't send their bloody cat to public school because it's just such a subpar option or that Bratleigh can't be "talked at" or that public schools are THE DEVILS HANDMAIDEN SENT TO SUCK THE SPARKLES FROM OUR CHILDRENS EYES i will lose my shit. i will lose it all over the place. someone is gonna get hurt.

i loved loved loved loved public school. loved it. i loved every minute (okay, not every, but seriously, almost every minute of school) i loved learning. i loved being "talked at" and i loved all the awesome shit we did. yeah. we did awesome shit. in the SOUL SUCKING PUBLIC SCHOOL. truth, y'all.

i'm aware that things are different now. guess what people? they aren't that different. the kids in public school do crafts. they play outside. they read books. they do group learning. they get *GASP* talked at. they do a lot of different shit. my sister was an aide at the elementary school my son will be going to last year, before she started her credential program, and she was full of stories about all the cool shit the kids do. none of which was being "talked at".

so, here's a though, pompous twit from playgroup and others like her, who think that it's just fine to be insulting, condescending and rude about your "superior" (read: different) choices for your kids school. shut the fuck up. you are "talking at" me. public school is an option that is worthy of consideration, just like homeschooling, montessori, charter schools and whatever else. get over your damn self. have some awareness of what you say, because i am not going to bite my damn tongue next time someone says something that stupid and rude to me and basically insults not only me but my child. for reals, yo.

of sweaters and walks

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

my new sweater from Lost Boys and Lovers (Sadie is on vacation, so her store is closed right now). i am such a sucker for these 70's sweaters. i collect them. i can't say no to them. if i see one, it must be mine. this one was especially nice in it's colors and how soft it was. sometimes they can be really itchy. i wore this on new years day for some bloody mary's with lori.

the pictures below are from a walk my sister, the kids and i took recently.
it was one of those sunny, cold, crisp winter days.

piercing blue sky where the Mad River meets the ocean.

please take note of my youngest boy's new sweater jacket, hand crocheted by a friend of ours.

we stopped at the park for some swinging and tree climbing.

i subjected my poor sister to endless photographs of her in the tree. she took it well.

had to get a shot of her fancy new boots. she had some buyer's remorse, but i think she's gotten over it now. i think they are awesome and she's lucky they aren't my size or i would swipe them.

beautiful boy

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

today is the day my first born son came into the world. he's been around the sun five times, which is blowing my mind. yesterday i spent the whole day looking through pictures from his first two years and it was such a bittersweet process, remembering my little baby as seeing all the pictures of him growing up.

my life was forever altered by meeting that little guy. we are having cupcakes at his school today and a special dinner for him tonight and his birthday party is this saturday. i can't believe i'm the mom of a five year old. below is his very first picture, when i finally got to see him after being in recovery from surgery for three hours. i saw his face and fell in love. for the next two weeks all i said to anyone was "isn't he beautiful? isn't he perfect?"

well, isn't he?

freaks and geeks

2012-01-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

this show came out when i was busy working and going to college, so i missed it. i heard how great it was but i just never had a chance to see it, so i decided to finally give it a whirl now. i love it! despite being set in 1980, it's so completely like my highschool days that it's kinda creepy. the girls dress exactly how my friends and i dressed down to the hair parted down the middle. the 70's had a big resurgence during my highschool days (i graduated in 1997) so we wore a lot vintage shit from the early 80's and late 70's. nobody called it vintage back then, it was just thrift store crap that no one else would be caught dead wearing. the puffy jackets, the army jackets, the bell bottoms and lurex striped chevron shirts, the plaids and the band shirts...omg, it was like a flashback. even the characters remind me of my friends. in highschool i was a tomboy and usually hung out with a big group of douchebag guys. we hung out in a spot in the school nicknamed "Hell" because it was the smoking section. we were totally the "freaks", then known as stoners or alternative or whatever the buzz word was then. i had several friends who were dead ringers for Busy Philip's character Kim Kelly, down to the bleached blond, all one length hair and the bitchy, almost terrifying personas. so yeah. i love it. i'm about halfway through. any fans?

i mean, really. i wore that exact outfit. the guys dressed like that.

we'd wear old tennis shoes like this, and beat up jeans from the 70's. i would kill for my highschool wardrobe right now.

kim kelly's look is really the most like that of the girls at my highschool. my best friend and i had a jacket like that which, among other key items of clothing, we shared in a very seriously regarded custody agreement. and that blond hair. just about every girl i hung out with had bleached blond stick straight hair, parted down the middle, all one length. that was THE hairstyle to have.

totally nostalgic for highschool right now. maybe i'll get some photographic evidence out and do a post on my highschool style.

summer duress

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

on the deck at my friend Lori's house a few weeks ago when i wore this little blue summer dress i thrifted. i am in love with this dress, i've worn it a few times since then. luckily our january has been blissfully mild and i've been able to enjoy less layers.

closer look at the print. and the wrinkles. on the shirt, not me.

spent the day with the kids on the beach, visiting with some old friends of mine from highschool who just happened to be in town. now i'm tired, and it's that lazy part of the afternoon when the kids are quiet or napping. i'm going to go take advantage of the quiet.

How to be a Nature Detective

2012-01-07T08:57:00.000-08:00

time for another one of my favorite vingate children's books. this is one i picked up for my son at a thrift store last year. i loved the simple illustrations and the focus on foot prints, which my kids are totally into. and who could resist this first page:

great scott!

2012-01-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

dude, this movie is going to make me want to chop my hair off. i love the look they gave Daisy.

i only read The Great Gatsby for the first time this past year. are you a Gatsby fan?

and another thing

2012-01-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

wow, i got quite a response on yesterday's post! mary, of the amazing blog Terrallectualism, asked me a really good question in her comment, and i thought i'd answer it more fully here. she asked me how i had gotten to the place i am now, a place of being pretty comfortable with my body and a place of feeling pretty positive about my body. well, it was a long, hard road, i'll tell you. and it's not like i don't have my moments of despair, so i'd have to say i'm not actually "there" so much as it's a constant process,
one i have to actively nurture in orde for it not to wilt and die.

the first big landmark on my road trip to a positive body image was of course, belly dancing. i started belly dancing when i was 22 years old, and it pretty much changed my life. through learning this dance form i gained confidence in myself, for one because i was amazed at how much my body was capable of it i really applied myself, and for another because there were so many beautiful women who were dancing and not a one of them looked the same. some of the most amazing belly dancers i've seen have been women who don't fit in with society's little box of What Is Beautiful. but Mary knows that, because Mary's a belly dancer, too, and one of the amazing belly dancers i am thinking of was in the dance company Mary was in. so Mary is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's move on already. but belly dancing was the catalyst for me.

the next was becoming a belly dance teacher. as i taught more and more people, i noticed that what they looked like had jack shit to do with what they were capable of doing. the women who looked stereotypically "fit" were often unable to do a push up. a woman society might label fat were often some of my strongest students in terms of strength and endurance. basically i saw that there was almost no correlation between body appearance and actual health. or, rather, that what someone looked like was not a real indicator of whether they were truly fit. our society focuses on the outward appearance too much in terms of whether someone is healthy. which is why i think the BMI is a load. genetics, baby. genetics. the women who looked "fit" generally looked fit because they were genetically predisposed to looking that way. teaching really gave me a visual on how unrealistic we are in terms of what we consider healthy.

the next thing was pregnancy. my first pregnancy was rough. i gained 80 lbs. i had a life threatening pregnancy induced illness and i had the birth from hell which ended in a c-section. my body went through hell, but she made it out and i'm not sure what happened but i just couldn't be mad at her anymore. don't get me wrong, the first time i saw myself naked after i gave birth was a little freaky. i had a lot of extra skin and major stretch marks and i looked incredibly unlike myself, but i still just couldn't work up the old "ew, i am so faaaaaat". my poor little body had been through so much, she needed someone to tell her it was okay that she didn't look perfect. so i did. during the next few years i encountered the writing of Kate Harding from Shapely Prose and other body acceptance advocates like Joy Nash, and they inspired me immensely and gave me further evidence that my observations as a dance teacher were correct. i was busy being a mom, and i had a baby who loved my body with out judgment. he loved my fat belly because it was soft to lay on. he loved my stretched out old boobs because they were soft and gave him food. best of all, my body MADE him. i mean, really. how could i be mad at her after that. she grew a human being.
she deserved a parade, not a berating.

he most recent "a-ha!" moment of my journey came two years ago when i had a successful VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) with my second pregnancy. that was the most empowering, amazing, healing moment of my life. my body, yet again, showed me what she was made of, and i was blown away by how strong and powerful she was when she endured the pains of labor and the intensity of pushing a human being out of a small opening. i was high for about three weeks after i gave birth, just high on life. there was no way that i would ever say anything mean about this body ever again. she is so much more than what she looks like. she has so much more to do than worry about being skinny. i still wake up sometimes and feel the little tendrils of "you are fat, you are ugly, you are disgusting" starting to weave themselves around my brain, but i am able now to just roll my eyes and move on. i've got shit to do that is way more fun than sit around feeling bad about myself. it's a concious choice and it's one i have to work on. i'm not in a constant state of self-love. but just like i work at my relationships with other people, i am working on my relationship with myself, body and soul.

so yeah. that's all folks!

goddamn it, people

2012-01-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

weird. did anyone lose posts yesterday? i had a post scheduled for today and it's just gone. poof. weird.
anyway, maybe it will suddenly post itself out of the blue? if not, here is this post. this is a dress that is too small for me so i have to wear it with a skirt underneath. this happens a lot. my boobs make everything really short on me because they stick out so far.

speaking of bodies, it's time for me to vent. get some popcorn and sit back. or just ignore me and look at my dress. either way, here i go. with the New Years Resolution posts on blogs comes the inevitable body bashing. it seriously wounds me to my very soul to see so many incredibly beautiful women (all of whom are ironically stick skinny) saying mean things about their body in terms of weight. it really does. it doesn't just affect you when you talk shit about how fat you are or how disgusting your body is. other people are watching. little girls are watching. little girls who will grow up and be mean to their bodies if that's what they are surrounded by. and not just little girls. i'm watching. and when someone who is incredibly thin says that they are fat and gross, and i'm standing here, i'm like "ooookay then. i guess that means in your universe i am a whale and should be crying into my bon bons". i am not talking about people who want to get fit, or get healthy, or build endurance, or work out more. i'm talking about the "this year i will not be fat" kind of resolution. for one, fat is clearly an arbitrary description if someone who weighs 120 lbs thinks they are fat. for two, dude. DUDE. would you say that about someone else (if so, you are an asshole, please leave my blog) if you wouldn't, then why on earth would you say it about yourself? that sucks.

i am just sick to death of the fatphobia and the fat=unhealthy and the skinny=healthy and i am so sick of seeing women berate themselves for being women. whose bodies change and grow and flow through time and don't look like they did when they were 20 or before they had kids or whatever. goddamn it, it's okay for your body to look different. i don't know. i just can't take hearing people be mean to their bodies like that. i can't take it at all. it seriously makes my heart feel achy. my achy breaky heart, guys. i'm sick of the focus on FAT. i am 100% behind EVERYONE, fat, skinny and in between, eating healthier and being more active. fuck, one of my resolutions is to continue working out every day like i have been since July. but can we just STOP with the fat bashing. can we STOP with the mistreatment of our current body because we have some fantasy of what we are supposed to look like. you look like what you look like. accept it. love it. embrace it. or don't. be miserable and mean to yourself and unsatsified with the wonderful physical being that you are. i mean, i get it, i really do. i've been there. and during the years of my life when i looked like this:

guess what? i didn't feel happy or healthy or magically sparkly perfect just because the muscles in my stomach were toned and i weighed practically nothing. i felt fat and worthless and gross and like i needed to be skinnier. i wasted the time in my life when i actually looked like what society tells me i should look like feeling fat and gross. and i ain't doing it anymore. i refuse to look back at a picture of me today in ten years and want to bitch slap myself for not appreciating the incredible gift of the unique body i have as it is. that doesn't mean i sit around all day eating cheetos and wearing dirty sweatpants, just because being skinny isn't at the top of my most important things in the world list. i exercise every day. i eat healthy foods. as Joy Nash says in her brilliant Fat Rant Video (WATCH THIS NOW): if you eat healthy and are active and you are still not thin,your life is not over bodies come in all shapes and sizes. life changes these shapes and sizes. what you look like is not important. and as someone who feels better about my body and myself now (with all my stretchmarks and loose skin from babies) then i did then, with my abs of steel and my little waist, i can tell you that what you weigh ain't never going to make you feel better unless you get better on the inside first.
you owe it to yourself to be kind to your body. and you kinda owe it to every other woman and girl child to help create a more positive place in the world for beauty in all it's shapes and sizes. -end rant

100% thrifted except leggings from target and jacket, gift from my mother in law

more of my body acceptance rants here.

the summer had inhaled and held it's breath too long

2012-01-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

The winter looked the same,
As if it had never gone,
And through an open window,
Where no curtain hung,
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
-marty balin (jefferson airplane)

did you make it? did you survive the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012? i thought i'd start out the year's blogging with another photo essay of an early morning walk my baby boy and i took down the trail by our house. it was cold and wet, and the waves were HUGE that day. so huge i almost couldn't bring myself to go for the walk because i kept having visions of giant waves sweeping me and my kid away. i've never seen them quite that big and ominous before.

and i wore this:

my new coat i received as a gift from my mother in law. it's soft like a sweatshirt. i really love it.

shirt and leggings, old navy
skirt, forever 21
jacket, gift from my mother in law
boots,thrifted

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!

okay 2012, you are going to be bloody awesome, am i right?

this year i actually have resolutions, which i NEVER have.

Resolutions for 2012:

learn the guitar. i've had my guitar since i was 16, and i taught myself Here Comes the Sun by ear and then never played it again. this year my musical genius of a sister will teach me guitar and i will learn it, by george harrison!
keep crocheting! my friend lori taught me a bit of crocheting recently. i will continue to learn more from her and i will practice and make stuff! i will!
keep exercising! since July i have maintained a consistent exercise schedule and i want to keep that up for the rest of my life. but we'll start with this year first.

okay 2012, let's get it on!

Retrospective

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

the year is coming to a close, and i honestly am blown away by how fast it has gone. i decided to do one of those retrospective posts where i post one outfit from each month of the past year. it was fun going back over my posts. my kids have grown so much! my hair has grown so slow! i have worn boots so many days of the year. i give you a Year in Outfits:

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

rather than posting a picture you have already seen from december, here is a new one, with my brand new to me Lost Boys and Lover's vintage cardigan.

December:

Happy New Year, guys! be safe tonight, you crazy kids who are going out to party!
and all you lushes, take note:
Tipsy Tow is now offered by AAA: You don't have to be a AAA member from 6pm-6am on New Year's Eve/Day they will take your drunk self and your car home for FREE. Save this number: 1-800-222-4357. This is offered nationwide! be safe.

aura

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

whoa dude, i can see my aura.
holy shit guys, it's the end of the year. this year has flown by so fast my head is spinning. these last few weeks i have had my head in the books, as is the norm for me in these gray months. i've been devouring books at breakneck speed and i have a stack waiting for their turn to be read. i just finished a biography on Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Richard and Mimi Farina (Joan's little sister) and a biography on Sylvia Plath, which i discussed in yesterday's post. have you been reading lately? anything good?

below, i photograph my true goober nature:

shirt and jeans, target
kimono thingy, thrifted
shoes, chaco's
earrings, some random vendor at a festival

double feature

2011-12-29T14:37:00.000-08:00

it's one of those days, those wickedly wet days in the pacific northwest. everything smells like ripe earth and it's not so much raining as it's just wet. moisture suspends in the air. the water doesn't fall or evaporate it just hangs in midair, expanding in your lungs until you start to feel like your skin is spongy and about to sprout tiny mushroom caps. the windows fog up and you no longer hear the rain, you only hear the absence of it. i'm knee deep in books still, just finishing Sylvia Plath's biography and perusing Ariel now because of it. i first read Ariel when i was 14 and i flat out didn't get it. i put the book on my shelf and i never sold it, despite my complete lack of interest in it. cut to 16 years later. pregnant with my second child, i am holed up in our spare bedroom at night due to night weaning my first baby. alone in the impossible to heat ice box, i rediscover the slim copy of Ariel on my shelf. travelling with me to college and from apartment to house, the book i had no interest in bided it's time till that one night. this time i was 30 and a mother. i didn't start at the beginning, i opened to a random page and read Lady Lazarus, my eyes widening as each line raced by.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

wow, right? it finishes with the fireworks:

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

well, this was something, i thought to myself, and went back to the beginning of the book, starting with Morning Song.

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

did becoming a mother make me get it? or being older than the 14 year old girl who first tried to read Ariel after enjoying The Bell Jar so much? i read more, falling off my chair for Daddy,
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
---------
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

it was about then that i decided i didn't want to read anymore. it was too real, too close to home. being 30, being pregnant, wondering if i'd ever be a creative person again, being worried about whether i would get post partum depression again after having this baby and reading these poems, written by a woman in the throes of a manic creative burst (written, as Plath describes herself, "that still blue, almost eternal hour before the baby's cry") before her ultimate fall into despair was too much. so i put it away again. until today. after finishing Bitter Fame, a biography of Plath written in the 90's by Anne Stevenson, i had more insight than ever before on Sylvia's process in writing Ariel. the Plath in Stevenson's biography is not the feminist martyr so many people view Plath to be. with careful attention to detail, Stevenson depicts Plath and her husband, the poet Ted Hughes to be real people, neither one a "goody or a baddy" as Stevenson says once in the prologue. i found that refreshing, and felt much more connected to Sylvia's writing after this. truly a gifted girl, she was.

on a cold february morning in 1963, sylvia plath made her two sleeping children plates of bread and butter and glasses of milk and left them on the tables beside their cribs. she opened the window to their bedroom, and then taped the door shut, placing towels at the crack under the door. she then returned to her kitchen, placed her head on a towel in her oven and turned the gas on, thus ending her life. the tenderness of her making her children food before she killed herself has always moved me in a way that's hard to explain. even in that darkest and most painful hour, she thought to feed her children and make them safe.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror

to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind's hand.

-Morning Song

little bo peep

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

has lost her sheep

and doesn't know where to find them

leave them alone and they'll come home

wagging their tails behind them

sweet little number i wore earlier this month when i went christmas shopping for the kids. i think i'm going to let the hem down a bit, seeing the pictures makes me feel like it's too short, even more my liking.

dress, belt and sweater, thrifted
leggings and boots, old navy
necklace c/0 flaming hag folkwear
purse, gift from my mother in law

bride

2011-12-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

whew. christmas is over. hopefully everyone had a nice holiday season, whatever you celebrate (or don't celebrate). we did! but now i am tired and i have that sad "it's all over now, baby blue" feeling.
i found this amazing shirt at a consignment store i sell my clothes at. i was really excited because i had seen something sort of like it in the insanely priced Free People catalog that came to my house for some weird reason, and there was no way i ever could have afforded it at the price those crazy people were selling it at. what is it with Free People? are the clothes made with golden thread woven by Rumplestiltskin? and why is the name of their company FREE people? it should be "That Shit Ain't Free, People".
but i digress.

it's made of the most deliciously creamy cotton in this perfect off white color, and the crochet trimming makes my heart swell.
i want to marry this shirt.

plus it was free!!! FREE, PEOPLE! well, not free exactly, but no money passed hands when i purchased it.
i love the hankerchief cut on the bottom.

100% thrifted except sandals, gift from my sister and purse, gift from Milla

HO! HO! HO!

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

casuals

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

some outfits from earlier this month. simple, casual and comfortable.
this beanie is a gift i got from my good friend Lori a few years ago. i always complain how i have a ginormous head, so she made me my very own ginormous hat. hopefully soon i can make my own ginormous hats, because yesterday she gave me my first crocheting lesson. it was so fun and relaxing (after we drank enough beer for me to not get frustrated).

cords, thrifted
plaid shirt, target
beanie handmade by lori
sunglasses, forever 21
sandals, chaco's

i wore this next outfit to my son's preschool's Fall Family Night, which was a fun little get together at the school, where the kids showed us all their cute little dances and games and then ate ten pounds of gingerbread each and then all dissolved into hysterical tears at the same exact time as their parents dragged them away. it was awesome.

skirt, local organic clothing boutique
shirt and earrings, forever 21
red skirt scrunched up to look like a tank top, target
shoes, chaco's

winter of love

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

happy solstice! i love the word solstice, it's one of my very favorite words. as most of you know, the winter solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's polar hemisphere is farthest away from the Sun, creating the shortest day of the year and the first day of winter. basically it's the darkest hour before the dawn for us people affected by the It Gets Dark Too Early sads.

this was another dress that Missa sent me that i took the scissors too.
because i'm skanky and i like my skirts short. don't judge.

still going with that sixties influence, got my faux fur collar sweater and my boots to add to the decadent hippie look. i love this purse. i got it for five bucks at a consignment shop. i only wish i could make it grow, because it's really hard for me to minimize my stuff into that teeny little container. maybe if i water it? grow damn you! grow!

the baby likes to sneak up on me and steal the show. you can see him here with random garbage and a stick. that's usually what he has in his hands. he is so not into toys. this morning he played happily for two hours with a can of beef broth and a huge package of toilet paper. yeah.

and if you hadn't noticed, i cut my bangs. very pleased with the results. so? any solstice plans? do you celebrate it? we don't do much besides say "hey! neat! it's solstice!" and try to hang out outside a lot, but i was thinking of making some sort of winter soup to celebrate.

dress gifted from Missa
sweater, target
purse, thrifted
leggings, old navy
boots, lane bryant

the fall polka

2011-12-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

wow, fall is almost gone. four more days till solstice! these pictures are from a very early morning walk my sister and i took a few weeks ago.

with colder weather comes quieter activities, lots of reading and drawing and snuggling under blankets here. we californians are really whiny about the slightest chill.

big brother "reading" to the baby brother. he's really starting to pick up words.
it's exciting to watch him learn to read.

and he's become quite the artist. he designs all sorts of fantastic imaginary animals as well as tries to create replicas of real animals. the boy loves animals more than anything.

this sunflower was grown at his preschool and we finally brought it home. the baby kept hugging it and high fiving it all day.

and i wore this:

100% thrifted except leggings from old navy and shoes from target

40's Street Fashion

2011-12-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

quick break from 60's madness to dive back in time to the 40's. i stumbled upon these rare street fashion shots of regular folks and had to share. these first three pictures were all taken at the corner of Hollywood and Vine in 1944.

(source)
i'm guessing this one was taken at Coney Island, year unknown.

(source)

is this man below not the most beautiful man you've ever seen? good lord. no idea where this was taken or what year, but i have stared at him all day because of his mesmerizing beauty.

(source)

this last photo was taken in Brooklyn, 1948. love the shiny dress and the flower. amazing.

(source)

unfaithfull

2011-12-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

somehow i sorta skipped over marianne faithfull during my obsession with all things 60's back when i was a teenager. maybe because i was thoroughly a Beatles chick and she was a Stones gal? no idea, but either way, i'm full on loving her right now, freckles, bangs, surprisingly deep voice and all. going over her photographs, i see clearly now that it's her that all these new wave 60's bangs vintage peter pan collar dress wearing chicks are taking their inspiration from, starting with Zooey Deschanel.

jonesing

2011-12-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

i have 3 things to say about these pictures of Miss Mitchell, taken at her Laurel Canyon house in 1970.

1. why am i not Joni Mitchell circa 1970?

2.why don't have i have that dress?

3. why don't i have a sweet ass house in Laurel Canyon?

anyone? bueller? bueller? crosby? stills? nash? and young?

my dad and mom had this album and i used to stare at the cover and trip out on the picture when i was a little kid. it was the very first joni album i ever listened to.this week i have discovered that i can make playlists of my very own on youtube (don't laugh, i'm always exactly thirty years late to every technological advance) and so i made myself a big fat joni mitchell playlist and have been listening to it every day. my very favorite Joni song is Conversation, also from the above album. but then there is also Carey. and California. and Little Green. and This Flight Tonight all from the Blue Album (full album linked, you are welcome!!!) and of course, who doesn't love Both Sides Now. okay, basically there is no bad Joni Mitchell song. that's what we've learned here.

last question. why am i not at this party?

slick

2011-12-15T06:00:00.001-08:00

i saw this picture of The Great Society, the first band Grace Slick sang in, and wanted to climb into the picture and then climb into grace slick's outfit. and not in a creepy "let me get under that skirt " *wiggles eyebrows like groucho* way. i've always felt a kindred spirit feeling towards Grace Slick because she is loud and obnoxious and uses the eff word a lot. i saw this picture and my heart pitter-pattered. i love her outfit. and her hair. and the colors. i'm dying ovah here. so i tried my very best to recreate it. definitely got the loud obnoxious uses the eff word part down, because it was this day that i happened to be behind a real class act at Subway, who was abusing the poor girl who had no choice but to make the douchebag a sandwich. something came over me, my inner Grace Slick maybe? or more likely, the YEARS AND YEARS of being the waitress who was forced to "yes, sir, i'm sorry sir, let me fix that sir" to some bastard who was going to leave me some bullshit fifty cent tip anyway came boiling to the service and something SNAPPED and i went into a trance and began speaking in tongues. one thing led to another and the asshole fled the scene with his tail between his legs and i ended up with a free soda from my new best friends at Subway. loud and obnoxious (with eff words definitely tossed in during my trance state) for the win. thank you, thank you! i'm here all week. and don't forget to tip your waitstaff. if you know what's good for you. *cracks knuckles*. it felt so good to finally tell off someone who was being a dick to a waitress/food service person, i joked to N. that i was going to become a restaurant vigilante, and start saving waitresses from the clutches of That Guy. waitresses and former waitresses, you know who i am talking about. but enough on that.
back to me channeling grace slick in that picture.

i started by backcombing my hair a bit to get the understated beehive. i'm lucky that my hair does stuff like that with out much effort. i used garnier fructise reshapeable putty in very, very small amounts, started at the bottom of my hair and working up. when i did the beehive, i just combed my hair back when it was wet and added a bit more putty to the crown of my head and then backcombed a tiny bit, right at the roots.

i didn't have a sweet cordorouy jacket like grace, but i made do with a sweater in similar fall colors.
i threw on my Milla-made leather leaf to add to the fall color scheme.

the san francisco bands of the 60's hold a dear place in my heart. my dad started going to San Francisco State in 1966, and was there during the Summer of Love and for the Human Be-In and all the Fillmore and Winterland shows of the era, so bands like Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and more were always on high rotation during my childhood. lately i've been missing SF, it's been YEARS since i have set foot there. my kid asked me "what's a skyscraper?" recently, and i realized how different our childhoods are. i grew up in a suburb about thirty minutes from San Francisco, and i spent so much time there as a kid. we'd hit all the museums and the Lawrence Hall of Science, all the book stores and coffee shops, the Japanese Tea Gardens, or just walk around Haight or Telegraph and people watch. when my eccentric Aunt Jerre lived there we'd go visit her and she'd give me weirdly fantastic costume jewelry, boxes of beads and jewelry making materials and porcelain children with sad faces that were also music box's, playing the saddest songs. she'd use sign language to tell me "I LOVE YOU" before we would go home. my kid has never been to a city. any city. he doesn't even know what a skyscraper is. he'll never meet my eccentric Aunt Jerre and get depressing porcelain music boxes. weird.

skirt, forever 21
shirt, old navy
vintage sweater and purse, thrifted
boots, lane bryant
hair clip made by Milla

fun facts i learned about Grace Slick while doing my google-fu. she is the first person who ever said "motherfucker" on television. and she turned SEVENTY this year. omg. wow.
happy birthday motherfucker!
below, my favorite sixties San Francisco band, The Quicksilver Messenger Service.

and this is my favorite Airplane song. i used to listen to this album over and over and over when i was a kid. to be honest, i'm not really a fan of Grace's powerhouse songs, i prefer the dudes singing the sweet love songs. this one is very sweet.

across the universe

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

you thought we were done talking about India and the Beatles and the Maharishi? yeah, well we aren't. well, actually, we sort of are, because i haven't got really anything to say, but i loved these pictures so very much i had to share them with you. hare krishna!

i'm sorry, but the maharishi is looking freaking creepy as hell. and in desperate need of a deep, deep shampoo.

wintering with the maharishi

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

this outfit made me feel like i should be india-bound with the beatles, circa 1968. except i guess it wouldn't be so ever-loving freezing if i was in india. my mom recently joined a cult (hi mom!) and is going to india with them for 11 days later this month. before you get offended mom, look up the definition of the word cult. you'll see that yours fits the bill. bring me back something pretty, dear prudence!

i, on the other hand, have zero interest in going to india. i'm kinda lame like that when it comes to world travel. i like to read about it and look at pictures, but i am a homebody and prefer to stay in my nice, safe, warm cave and not get any weird traveling stomach virus thing.

this dress was a muumuu-type thing that the lovely Missa sent me earlier this year. i hacked off the bottom and made it a very miniscule mini. the shorter the better! i'd forgotten it completely and never worn it once. because it's so sheer and thin it disguised itself in my closet and i passed over it for months and months, not even seeing it. i was so excited when i was cleaning out my closet and discovered it.

in the picture above i started to fall over for some obscure reason. but i stayed commited to the picture until it clicked. tyra would be proud. totally still in the running to become america's next top model. yesssss!

i had to change later that day because dude, it was seriously freezing and those mocs are not waterproof.

we got a new swing set handed down to us by some friends, and the kids are pretty head over heels about it. that, and the huge pile of leaves to jump around in, have made our yard a fun filled place this fall.

dress, gift from Milla
sweater and jacket, thrifted
leggings and boots, old navy
mocs, minnetonka

i think paul just kicked john out of my fave beatle status by his obvious "this is all sort of just bullshit, right?" faces during these videos, especially while he splashes water from the river ganges on himself. although, from what i remember of my Obsessed With All Things Beatles days of yore, it was Ringo who was the most "you gotta be fucking kidding me" from the get go about being in India and eating rice all day. love ya, Ringo!

and in full sixties color

it's all 60's all the time right now on my tumblr, so if you can't get enough, go check out the pictures i've been amassing for inspiration.

oh boyd!

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

totally digging on old pictures of Pattie Boyd, model, actress,ex-wife of george harrison and eric clapton. go to my tumblr for more, i've been collecting her pictures there for hair and outfit inspiration. although by the time you click that i might be well onto other things, i'm sort of on a tumblr bender right now. she sort of reminds me of the lovely Cel from Spider Silk Stockings.

Reel Injun

2011-12-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

i finally watched the documentary, Reel Injun, directed by Cree director Neil Diamond (no, really) the other day and it was amazing! full of anger, humor, and interviews with John Trudell, Russel Means, Adam Beach, Grahame Greene, Jim Jarmusch, Clint Eastwood, Sacheen Littlefeather, Charlie Hill, Jesse Wente, Chris Eyre and more, it was an incredible journey through Hollywood's portrayal and treatment of native people in films.

“Chuck Connors as Geronimo! That’s like Adam Sandler as Malcolm X!”-charlie hill

“I remember once we were on a set, the director said ‘I want a real native, upfront. I want to see the real thing.’ We couldn’t find one!”-clint eastwood

the film is broken into several parts.first, The Noble Injun, discussing the romanaticized brave and stoic indian who is in touch with the land.

“That is a genocide that occured and the [American] culture wanted to perpetrate the idea that [the natives] these people are now mythologic, you know, they don’t even really exist, they’re like dinosaurs.”-jim jarmusch

The Savage Injun, focusing on John Ford's westerns depiction of the native as a violent maurauder, which led the way for the "cowboy and indian" games popular in the 1950's, and cemented the acceptance of racial discrimination against native people.

“When you’re kids and you’re trying to play Cowboys and Indians, and if you’re an Indian kid – well, doesn’t that mean you’re going to lose all the time?”

-jessie wente

and finally The Groovy Injun, the free-spirited, headband wearing, hippie indian.

side-note: fantastic explanation of where the whole headband thing comes from. they needed it to keep the wigs on the white guys playing indians. this was adopted by hippies who were trying to be like indians. oh hippies. don't ever change.

“[In the 60s] People asked me, what are you, are you a hippie? And I said no, I’m an Indian, what’s a hippie?”

-sacheen littlefeather

the film uses fantastic clips from movies with native characters from the silent era to the current era (which is such a wonderful section, when they go through some of the more recent movies, made by indians and performed by indian actors), interspersed with interviews and the directors road trip from his home on a northern reservation all the way down to hollywood.

“We’ll never be able to change the fantasy of who and what Indians are. That fantasy will always be there, we will always be on the cover of novels saying ‘Cheyenne Warrior’!”-adam beach

the film is brilliantly done, i highly recommend it, i laughed, i shook my head in shame and i shed a few tears. i don't want to get to in depth and ruin it, but please check it out. it's on netflix streaming right now so you can go watch it RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT. i think it may also be on youtube in segments if you don't have netflix.

“We’re not Indians and we’re not Native Americans. We’re older than both concepts. We’re the people, we’re the human beings.” -john trudell

the wings of the dove

2011-12-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

stills from the 1997 film, The Wings of the Dove. gorgeous. and a great film.

helena bonham carter was made to play roles from this era.

fall while walking

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

the catholic church down the road from my house has the sweetest little Mary that i like to stop by and say hello to every now and then. we aren't religious, but because i have so much Mary iconography around my house, my son totally recognized her. "hey! it's mary! she's famous, mom. like paul bunyon and santa claus." pretty much, dude. pretty much. he knows that Mary is mama's friend, who she likes to mutter under her breath to when things get stressful. mary is my homegirl. i've mentioned it a bajillion times but in case you are new here, i was raised catholic, went to catholic school, got all my sacraments, the whole 9 yards. my grandmother was a novice carmalite nun back in the old country (the acorean islands) but she left her order to marry my grandpa. he was a good looking guy, i don't blame her. i was raised pretty much part time by my grandma when i was a kid, and Mary was very special to her. she would say her rosary every day while weeping. you know how we catholics like it. nice and guilty. despite my no longer being anything but a cultural catholic (you can never escape. no matter what, man, it's too deeply ingrained) i can't help but still be drawn to Mary. i collect pictures and statues of her. i talk to her sometimes. i say Hail Mary's like they are going out of style when i am having a panic attack. to me, she isn't jesus's mom. she's the face i like to put on my own feminine strength. she's the mother goddess. she's the female principle. did i mention i'm an atheist? yeah, i am a really, really bad atheist. i tell you, you can never shake that catholic stuff off. anywho...i love Mary. and i'm glad my son recognizes her and knows her by name.
even if he thinks she is like Paul Bunyon.

some other spots on our walk include this gorgeous field, that is sadly being made into houses. bye field. i'll miss seeing all the wildlife that hung out in you.

red, red leaves. mmmmm i love fall.

red, red scarves. mmmmm. i really love fall.

oh, so quiet

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

i wore this for a few weeks ago when i was out running errands all by my lonesome. i love the ruffles on this skirt. it makes me think of those ruffly butt panties. which of course would be totally inappropriate for me. so this is how i compromise. ruffle butt skirt.

shirt, skirt and boots, target
sweater, thrifted
leggings, old navy
sunglasses, forever 21
earrings c/o flaming hag folkwear
purse, gift from my mother in law

it was a gorgeous day and i took some pictures of humboldt bay, which was as still as could be, oh so quiet, not a ripple or a wave in sight, just a mirror.

it's such a trip when the bay is at low tide (which it is not in these pictures) because you can see how shallow it really is, almost the whole way across.

i also had the pleasure of sharing the road with these fun guys. i have no clue where they were going or what they were doing, but it sure looked like fun.

the long walk home

2011-12-07T06:00:00.001-08:00

last sunday, while my older son and his dad were happily playing together, i took my youngest and we headed down to the trail by our house for some adventuring. it was a gorgeous day, and it was especially nice to just go for a walk with my little one. he moves slowly, which is so different than how i normally move through life. if i can manage to slow my own pace i see the world from a much different perspective. you get lower to the ground. you move slower. you see the details. in college, where i majored in Religious Studies, i had a Buddhism teacher who always talked about finding teachers where you least expect it. usually he meant people who were being huge assholes, but he said that he would say to himself "thank you precious teacher". well, my baby isn't a huge asshole (just a little one, and only sometimes, usually when he is tired and hungry) but i did think to myself "thank you precious teacher" during this walk.

i love this shit. no clue what it is, but it's super creepy and eerie. i love it.

homeward bound

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

the trip home from our thanksgiving break was sunny, but icy cold.

i'm not sure why california gets this reputation of not having seasons, or fall colors. the hills were alive with the sound of fall colors, i'm telling you. the vineyards were all bright yellow or deep red.

i love you, california. you have my heart.

and i wore this:

jeans, levi's.com
shirt and sweater, thrifted
hat, handmade by lori
boots, target

found art

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

there is a strange little house a few blocks from my in laws home, where a mad scientist, a tinkerer, an artist whose medium is forgotten things, lives and builds strange scultptures made from discarded objects. the whole street is adorned with his work, almost every house has a sculpture to call it's own, and they are pretty sweet. while my sister was at my in laws during the thanksgiving break, we loaded up the baby in the neighbor's radio flyer and took a stroll to check out all the pieces that lined the streets.

some of my favorites:

i wore this:

vintage wrangler shirt and sweater, thrifted
skirt and boots, target
leggings, old navy

meanwhile,the bangs/no bangs dilemma rages on.

consumed

2011-12-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

thought i'd share some of my latest consumering whoring. my thrift scores, as of late, have
been pretty amazing. above, a sweet little wall hanging i discovered at hospice.

i'm going to sew that doily on a shirt.

i love weird old glass bottles.

random ephemera.

i got this for N. because he loses everything. St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things.
maybe he can help us keep track of N.'s goddamn keys and wallet.

omg, this hideously ugly thing makes my day. the colors are so brilliant. and it's got the date of it's creation on it's back.
Christmas, 1977. by Aunt Lois.

thanks Aunt Lois!

this was the best score of all. the raggedy brother and sister team has been dear to me since way back.

tales from a red canoe: fragments

2011-12-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

my mom is leaning over me, tucking me in, while my friend Punkin's mom, Maude, is on the other side of the bed, tucking her in. it's dark, but my house is full of voices. i am tired in the way only a child can be tired, my body is limp and allows my mom to fold it up under the blankets with out a struggle. i'm happy my friend is sleeping next to me, it makes me feel safe. i'm afraid of the dark, and monsters. many nights i lay in bed, paralyzed in fear with a scream choked in my throat, watching the dark shadows shift in my bedroom. there is a bedroom directly across the hall from my bedroom, and i can see if from where i lay in my bed, a gaping black eye in the darkness, watching me sleep. having Punkin beside me, her kitten limbs tangled with mine, gives me a feeling of calmness. i see our moms fade back into the living room with the other adults, the door eases to a tiny slit of light, and i fall asleep. when i wake up, it's morning, and Punkin is gone. the bed, on the side she had slept, is smooth and untouched, as if she had never been there at all.

thanksgiving

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

on thanksgiving i spent much of the day hanging out in my in laws beautiful yard and down by the little creek that runs behind their house. everything was a mess, but the most beautiful kind of mess. leaves were plastered to wood in collages. branches held armfuls of the leaves that never made it to the ground. the whole yard was awash with the dead foliage swept away by the storm and it was wet and smelled like dirt.
it was awesome.

my parents, my sister and her boyfriend all joined us for dinner, and my sister did some sweet fashion blogger poses for me. work it! work it!

the "standing here alone laughing like a maniac pose".

the "hey i just thought i'd squat down here and casually glance in your direction" pose.

my dog lila.

and i wore this:

shirt and dress, target
sweater, thrifted
leggings, old navy
earrings, tribalbazaar.com

mommy's little helper

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

so there was this day a few weeks ago. it was a day. at this point i can't remember what even made it such a day sort of day, although i think my adorable children may have had something to do with it. all i do remember is that i needed a drink after it was all said and done, and i happily scampered off to the kitchen to make myself a gin and tonic. except...no tonic. just gin and limes. this would not do at all. something had to be done, and a resourceful woman never admits defeat. i pondered this troubling series of unfortunate events while perusing my refrigerators contents. besides milk all we had by way of liquid were capri suns. you know, those little plastic pouches of sugar laden juice with tiny straws as sharp as any prison shank? we had a whole box of those. something could probably be done with capri sun and gin, i considered. yes, why not. i set to work on my strange brew, fairly certain it would end in me tasting the final product, wrinkling my nose and dumping it out. but with two entire limes squeezed into it, it was darn right tolerable! i give you the Capri-Sun of a Bitch, a cocktail created by the desperation of a mother who just managed to tase her two children to sleep only to discover she was out of mixer for her booze.

(the ingredients!the capri-sun is all wrinkled because i threw it away and then decided, after i was nice and buzzed, that this was worth sharing with you.
that's right. i dug it out of the garbage. Sex in the City cosmopolatin this is not. don't judge me.)

The Capri-Sun of a Bitch

**1 pouch of capri sun, preferably icey cold**
(i used the cool strawberry one. it was cool.)
**gin of your choice**
(i'm pretty heavy handed on the booze, so how many parts gin you use varies to what a lush you are)
**two whole limes squeezed in**
(this is necessary or else it will taste like absolute shit. trust me, i just kept squeezing limes until i could stomach it)

pour over ice and stir. or just sort of halfheartedly shake it around as you collapse on the couch and wonder why you thought having two kids was ever a good idea. *wink*

hopefully no one ever actually has to make this. enjoy!

oh, that lonely northern country i call home

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

let's talk about the pacific northwest, okay? that's where i live, and i love it from the bottom of my slightly damp and possibly moldy heart. everything here is slightly damp, and the PNWer's nose is always suspiciously sniffing out the possibility of mold.
i tell you it's a damp and moldy place here.
it rains all the time. it's overcast many days of the year. it gets dark really early in winter, and it never really has a proper summer. it's a lonely country, too. you enter into an endless sea of redwood trees, a maze of moss and rotting wood and spongy forest floor and you drive and drive for hours before you reach any real proof of civilization. when you find it, it's just a few small towns lumped together, held hostage between the wild and turbulent pacific ocean and the stark emptiness of the endless forest that sprawls east towards Redding, north towards Portland and south towards San Francisco. when i first moved here i had a hard time. the first two winters were pretty brutal. i felt that loneliness and i felt it hard. the endless rain, the darkness, the foreign smell of constant wet were all a little hard for someone who grew up in dry, sunny, drought ridden california. you aren't just lonely because you just moved here and you don't know anyone yet, you are lonely because it's just a lonely place, far, far away and set in the heart of so much untouched land. the very earth itself here is lonely. the trees and beaches are lonely. it took me a while to realize that this loneliness was not the feel sorry for yourself, woe is me i need a hug lonely. it was the gritty, I'm Going Out West lonely. the fearless, adventurous kind of lonely. growing up near san francisco, i never felt that loneliness. i might have been lonely, but i could get lost in the crowds of people and the parades of cars, the never ending suburban sprawl that promised i was not alone. coming up north i was aware of the quiet stretch of hundreds of miles filled with trees. trees and random, strange little towns, or maybe not even towns, just some houses thrown up near a creek together, covered in moss and surrounded by junkyard scraps, where you couldn't figure how people worked for a living there, out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. it's a lonely country. i felt like i was slipping behind a curtain, disappearing from the world, whenever i would return north from school holidays. after a few years i acclimated to my new surroundings. something shifted at some point, and i became a local, i accustomed myself to the rain and darkness. i felt safe in the isolation of the moat of redwood trees that surround our little town rather than like a princess trapped in my tower. i have accepted the constant fear of mold. i no longer look towards the mountains of endless trees that surround my town and feel their ominous emptiness and solitude,
i now feel they are the walls of my happy, wet and probably slightly moldy bubble.
i'm a girl from the north country now, and i don't think i could ever live down south again.
but i do like a good road trip. a few pictures of my lonely country from our thanksgiving trip:

if you are interested in the Pacific Northwest and are looking for a good fiction read, i recommend David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars and Our Lady of the Forest. both are set in the PNW, the first on the fictional San Piedros Island in the Puget Sound, and the latter in the forests of Washington and a dying lumber town nearby. Guterson really captures the PNW in these books, the descriptions are beautiful, you can really almost smell that PNW smell. i reread Our Lady of the Forest this weekend, after reading Snow Falling on Cedars for the first time last week, and they are impeccably constructed stories.

lumberjack

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

oh hey, look! plaid! are you guys sick of it yet? hopefully not because there is still even more to come. i can't get enough. i found this jacket/flannel thing in my closet. i have no idea where it came from. i thought it was my sister's ex boyfriends, from when they used to live in this house, but she says it's not. so the mystery continues. i have no idea where it's from, but i like it!

living up here in the PNW, you get a lot of lumberjack references. the college's mascot is a lumberjack. we have lumberjack olympics here, where people log roll and throw axes and saw things.

clearly this lumberjack thing is because, well, we live in a massive rain forest that has been logged for a while. the history up here is tightly woven with the story of the men who logged this forest, and their families. the logging industry has changed a lot in the last 50 years, and many small towns are dying economically, or have already died, due to these changes.

when i was a teenager i was a blind tree hugger. logging was BAD. ALWAYS. i've managed to take my head out of my ass long enough to see that things are not always black and white, and my opinion has changed considerably in that regard. i'm still a tree hugger. i'm just not blind. also, i've lived here long enough that i'm pretty much local now, not a wet behind the ears college kid. many of my friends work for Pacific Lumber as foresters, mycologists and biologists. i've learned a lot about ethical forestry and how it can be done. i no longer think that people who sit in trees are awesome. in fact, after seeing all the garbage and human excrement they leave in the forest after their trip in the trees is all done, i think they are kind of assholes. forest management is a good thing. if done thoughtfully and correctly, it benefits the forest. yes, some trees get cut down, but have you any idea what goes on before they get cut down? there is no crazy zealous person who hates trees cackling as they hack them down willy nilly. the amount of research and surveying that goes on before land is logged is pretty huge. people like my partner and my friends go out and survey the sites for plants and animals that require protection. they keep track of the trees age, size and health. it's a lot different than what some people would have you think. and it provides jobs. which we need so desperately up here in the PNW.

it's happened. i'm officially a hippie-redneck. it's what happens when you live up here long enough. i used to hate logging and hunting and all sorts of other things i have realized are not what i thought they were. i used to think hunting was terrible! and hunters hated nature and animals. then i lived here long enough to meet some people who hunted. and saw that that they loved nature, and were a hell of a lot more respectful to it than the people swinging around from trees with names like Monkeymoonshine, who literally leave their poop and candy wrappers all over the forest they claim to be defending. i realized that hunting licenses paid for the upkeep of parks. i used to think hunting was mean, and then i got a clue about overpopulation. have you ever seen what happens when there are too many deer? it's bad. real bad. plus, i've lived here long enough to enjoy the spoils of hunting season. venison chili, man. that's all i gotta say.
what is my point here? i have no idea. i guess that, as always, things are not black and white. and that people who think they are (on both sides) are usually pretty sucky and not very smart.
oh, and that i like plaid. i'm pretty sure that was my original point.

jeans, thrifted
shirt, alloy
plaid shirt, found
boots, target
clear sunglasses, forever 21

geek squad

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

i have returned! i decided to take the holiday off and just turn of my computer and phone and not look back. it was very nice. i need to do that more. but it's over now and i'm plugged back in. it's funny to me what a computer geek i am now. a mere five or six years ago i was one of those people who would wrinkle their nose in disgust at the mention of the dread computer. i only used mine for school work and the occasional promoting of my dance classes on an old social networking site called Tribe. the idea of spending actual time on a computer, for fun, baffled me. the concept of 'chatting' online with strangers baffled me more. and here i am today, fully addicted to the net and 100% in love with it's use as a social networking device. ah, how things change. nothing like being locked up with babies and no grown folks to talk to to get you to change your tune. my in laws are very negative about computers and cell phones and anything besides a messenger hawk being used for communication, which i think is pretty silly, but hey, they are like, 70 years old, so we'll forgive them their old curmudgeony ways. i'm sure people were very cranky about the invention of the wheel and the printing press as well.

did everyone have a good holiday, if you celebrate it? we did! we ate our body weight in turkey and pumpkin pie and lay around like beached whales for a few days. it was pretty epic. now we are home again and i've got my christmas music blaring (yes, i am that annoying person) and i'm itching to get my tree and put up my decorations. i love christmas!

shirts, thrifted
skirt, sweetskins
leggings, old navy
socks, sockdreams.com
boots, target
clear sunglasses, forever 21

my bangs are growing out. dilemma!!!!!!!!!!! do i cut or grow??? this question plagues me. thoughts?

uh....that's fucking creepy

2011-11-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

don't think i didn't notice you, two new followers who have female body parts as your avatars and who list your interests as "hot asian women". for one, ain't no hot asian women here and for two, ew. fucking gross. seriously considering going private right about now. i mean, hey, i know the 'net isn't private and i'm quite sure you two lovely gentlemen are the only two pervs perusing my site, but dude.

so, non-disgusting followers, how do you deal with creepster followers or the fact that the web is indeed not a private place? because i need to go take a Crying Game shower right about now, i feel so yucky about this.

it's a damn shame. paul mccartney is not amused.

thanks for nothing!

2011-11-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

yup! you guessed it! debbie downer here for your annual thanksgiving post. i'm actually totally lazy and i'm just copying and pasting my post from last year and adding some new links and information to it.

happy thanksgiving everyone! i am that annoying person that won't let you enjoy your turkey and football because i want to talk about the perpetuation of stereotypes and false information regarding native people's in america and thanksgiving. i know, i know, you just want me to let you eat your turkey in piece.
i just want to share a few links regarding native people's in general as well as on about deconstructing the myth of thanksgiving. it's important that we teach our children better than we were taught. please take a minute to check out the information. i promise it is worth it.

Deconstructing the Myth of Thanksgiving :this link provides an excellent breakdown of the common myths about the first thanksgiving that we were taught in school and that is still being taught to many children.

Oyate, which is the website that the above link is taken from, is an AMAZING resource for books and education. here are there recommended children's books about Thanksgiving.
here is their resource on how to tell if the books you are reading to your children are negatively stereotyping native people or contain hurtful content, for example:

1) In ABC books, is “E” for “Eskimo” or “I” for Indian Present?

2) In Counting books, are “Indians” counted?

3) Are Children shown as “playing Indian”?

4) Are animals dressed as “Indians”?

5) Do “Indians” have ridiculous names, like “Indian Two Feet,” or “Little Chief”?

and

1) Are Native peoples portrayed as savages, or primitive craftspeople, or simple tribal people, now extinct? OR Are Native peoples shown as human beings, members of highly defined and complex societies?

2) Are Native societies oversimplified and generalized? Are Native people all one color, one style? OR Are Native societies presented as separate from each other, with each culture, language, religion, dress, unique?

3) Is the art a mishmash of “generic Indian” designs? OR Is attention paid to accurate, appropriate design and color: are clothes, dress, houses drawn with careful attention to detail?

click the link for more. and click here for more tools to evaluate books about native peoples. Oyate is a wealth of information. i highly recommend it. how we teach our children is so important.
please be thoughtful of how you teach them about the Native People who lived AND ARE STILL LIVING here today.

another wonderful resource is teaching respect for native peoples :
an excellent list of things to remember, including:

* Do present Native peoples as appropriate role models with whom a Native child can identify.
* Don't single out Native children, ask them to describe their families' traditions, or their people's cultures.
* Don't assume that you have no Native children in your class.
* Don't do or say anything that would embarrass a Native child.
* Do look for books and materials written and illustrated by Native people.
* Don't use ABC books that have "I is for Indian" or "E is for Eskimo."
* Don't use counting books that count "Indians."
* Don't use story books that show non-Native children "playing Indian."
* Don't use picture books by non-Native authors that show animals dressed as "Indians."
* Don't use story books with characters like "Indian Two Feet" or "Little Chief."
* Do avoid arts and crafts and activities that trivialize Native dress, dance, or ceremony.
* Don't use books that show Native people as savages, primitive craftspeople, or simple tribal people, now extinct.
* Don't have children dress us as "Indians," with paper-bag "costumes" or paper-feather "headdresses."
* Don't sing "Ten Little Indians."
* Don't let children do "war whoops."
* Don't let children play with artifacts borrowed from a library or museum.
* Don't have them make "Indian crafts" unless you know authentic methods and have authentic materials.
* Do make sure you know the history of Native peoples, past and present, before you attempt to teach it.
* Do present Native peoples as separate from each other, with unique cultures, languages, spiritual beliefs, and dress.
* Don't teach "Indians" only at Thanksgiving.
* Do teach Native history as a regular part of American history.
* Do use materials which put history in perspective.
* Don't use materials which manipulate words like "victory," "conquest," or "massacre" to distort history.
* Don't use materials which present as heroes only those Native people who aided Europeans.
* Do use materials which present Native heroes who fought to defend their own people.
* Do discuss the relationship between Native peoples and the colonists and what went wrong with it.
* Don't speak as though "the Indians" were here only for the benefit of the colonists.
* Don't make charts about "gifts the Indians gave us."
* Don't use materials that stress the superiority of European ways, and the inevitability of European conquest.
* Do use materials which show respect for, and understanding of, the sophistication and complexities of Native societies.
* Do use materials which show the continuity of Native societies, with traditional values and spiritual beliefs connected to the present.
* Don't refer to Native spirituality as "superstition."
* Don't make up Indian "legends" or "ceremonies."
* Don't encourage children to do "Indian" dances.
* Do use respectful language in teaching about Native peoples.
* Don't use insulting terms such as "brave," "squaw," "papoose," "Indian givers," "wild Indians," "blanket Indians," or "wagon burners."
* Do portray Native societies as coexisting with nature in a delicate balance.
* Don't portray Native peoples as "the first ecologists."
* Do use primary source material — speeches, songs, poems, writings that show the linguistic skill of peoples who come from an oral tradition.
* Don't use books in which "Indian" characters speak in either "early jawbreaker" or in the oratorical style of the "noble savage."
* Do use materials which show Native women, Elders, and children as integral and important to Native societies.
* Don't use books which portray Native women and Elders as subservient to warriors.
* Do talk about the lives of Native peoples in the present.
* Do read and discuss good poetry, suitable for young people, by contemporary Native writers.
* Do invite Native community members to the classroom.
* Do offer them an honorarium. Treat them as teachers, not as entertainers.
* Don't assume that every Native person knows everything there is to know about every Native nation.

and, since this is a style blog, here is a fantastic breakdown on why wearing headdresses and dressing up to "play indian" is completely unacceptable.

and lest you be one of those people who are all "but that was sooo long ago! get with the now! native people are not mistreated and oppressed any more! stop making me feel guilty!!!" just take a peek at this article from NPR about the treatment of the native people in South Dakota by the South Dakota government. the native people of america are still suffering from the effects of cultural genocide. they are still being mistreated and they are still suffering from racism and ignorance.

annnnnnd scene! enjoy your turkey day.

fringe benefits

2011-11-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

last week, during picture taking time, both my kiddos got into the act. well, mostly my oldest, the ham.

wonder where he gets it from?

so yeah, i made this shirt all fringey. pretty sweet, huh? there is no special How-To on this. take your scissors and hack. and voila, and old tee shirt has some new life. i had to control myself from doing it to all my old tee shirts, it was so easy and i liked the result so much.

shirt, thrifted and hacked to shreds by moi
dress, Ross
sweater and jeans, thrifted
hat, kmart
earrings, tribal bazaar.com

the belly dancer in me loves some good fringe.
so, plans for thanksgiving? we're doing the big family dinner at my in laws, and my folks and my sister and her boyfriend will be joining us. i'm so excited because i love foooooooooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and my in laws know how to make some extra especially good food.

owl that and a long walk

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

jeans, thrifted
shirt, alloy.com
scarf c/o flaming hag folkwear
sunglasses ?

my sister and i took the kids for a walk a week or so ago, and my big boy rode his bike the whole way! about 2 miles! what a champ.

we walked from our house to the coastal trail that runs up and down the beaches. it's a gorgeous walk.

it was such a gorgeous day, and the trail was packed with other walkers and bikers.

looking at these pictures makes me miss that warmer weather. it's cold!!!! and wet! no one is frollicking in t-shirts outside these days.

sense and sensibility

2011-11-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

it's a jane austen weekend up in here. thursday evening i was blessedly alone for four whole hours while N. took both boys over to our friend Jessup's house for dinner. four blessed, quiet hours. i watched the final episode of the The Tudors and then decided to watch another Austen film adaptation. i am reading Pride and Prejudice, so i didn't want to watch that, so Sense and Sensibility it was. i was really surprised how much i liked this movie. it was really, really good. and the costumes were seriously amazing. i really want a straw hat now. but one that is especially shaped for my strange hair-do i will wear while at my picnic.

i give you more regency fashion for your enjoyment:

that hat! the one right there that kate winslet is wearing? WANT!!!!!

also, i want a sheep herd.

like i said, i was really surprised how much i enjoyed this movie. it made me laugh out loud, which i was not expecting at all. Hugh Laurie was the understated star, to me. he played a man who was completely irritated by his very annoying wife and he did it in such a way that was not distasteful or hateful to women, which i think is tricky. he maintained a kindly demeanor towards his wife, while making it very clear that his character was horribly irritated by her. his little exasperated sighs and brief facial expressions seriously murdered me with laughter. he was brilliant.

best of all, it's on netflix streaming!!!!!!! god bless ye interenet gods, for allowing me to have so many things at my fingertips.

emma

2011-11-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

i've never read any of Jane Austen's books, although i'm considering doing so now that i just finished reading all my Philippa Gregory period pieces. i'm still hungry for period pieces, and i've always meant to check out Miss Austen's books. seems like a good time to do so.the other night i watched the 1996 film, Emma, on Netflix. i'll be honest, i hate hate hate hate pompous, pretentious gwenyth paltrow and always have. she irks me like no other and it's only gotten worse now that she has kids and eats only raw foods and never shuts the fuck up about all her wisdom on those two things, all while affecting a fake english accent. but this movie was ok. she did a good job being a completely annoying and insufferable busybodied twit who is all up in everyone's business. what i especially love is the fashion of Jane Austen's era. regency fashion, google tells me it is called. it's so elegant and yet comfortable looking. i'd wear that shit. and i love the hairstyles, with ribbons and sprays of baby's breath. i am alarmed by breeches, as always, but i'll get over it.

some of my favorite looks from the film:

anybody read Jane Austen? like or dislike? recommendations on which books i should start with?

anybody else hate gwyneth paltrow and want her to choke on a raw food item?

hair

2011-11-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

my hair is at this awkward length right now. it's longer than it's been in a while, not quite long enough to hang right. so up it's been lately.

side buns are my new favorite thing. it's messy and simple and for the length i'm at, it works really well.

i just grab my hair, pull it low to one side and haphazardly wrap my hair tie around it till it stays put. then i sort of pull at it to make it poofier. i leave a lot of hair down in the front, because i have weird layers that make really hard to pull it all back.

i'm looking so forward to having long hair again. maybe by spring it will be officially long.

happy friday!

risky business

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

so N. went out of town for the week. he's giving a presentation at a convention in Sacramento, so he took off a few days ago and won't be back till today. an hour after he hits the road out of town, i go to pick up my older son from preschool and he starts complaining of being cold and tired. since he's usually pretty whiny, i just chalked it up to the regular old four year old blues. after we got home, he started to play his computer games, which he is allowed to play during his brother's nap. within a few minutes he told me he was done because he was tired. well, that pinged my radar. this boy loves his computer games and lives for that hour a day. i felt his forehead and sure enough it was hot to the touch. dammit.

this totally blows for numerous reasons. one, it sucks when your kids are sick. period. two, it really sucks when you have sick kids and no one else around to help take care of them (and you, when you inevitably get sick). three, i was totally unprepared for sickness. i had no children's motrin, no ginger ale, no popsicles, no movies. a supply run was in order, but my kid was now laying lethargically on the couch, pink cheeked and doing that sad little panting that kids do when they have fevers. shit. see reason number two. i had no one to go to the store while i stayed with my sick kid. i was about to start bundling him up to drag him out to get medicine when my neighbor came to my rescue and sat with him while the baby and i quickly went out to gather the goods for the next few days.we had a rough night, with a scary moment when he woke up shaking so hard that for a minute i was certain he was having a febrile seizure from a too high temperature, but turns out he had just had to pee so bad he was trying to do the pee pee dance in a half sleep while laying down, but we arose from the ashes of the night from hell like phoenix ready for a new day. or whatever. sigh. i'm very tired and i've had two kids glommed onto me for days. must. extract. children. from. body. right now i have my older child sprawled out on my legs, while the baby is bouncing around on my lap nursing. and i am typing. god damn am i good at multitasking.

(the baby decided to throw a tantrum on the ground right as the picture was taken. pretty awesome, right?)

when parenting hands you lemons, you make lemonade. and then you pour a bottle of vodka in that lemonade and hide in the bathroom while the kids watch scooby doo and drink it. very, very quietly, so no one will hear the ice clinking and notice they aren't suction cupped to your body. speaking of parenting funnies, have you guys read the fantastic blog Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures? it's by far my favorite parenting blog. the author is hilarious and self-deprecating in my favorite way, and she has two sons the same ages as mine, so it's especially funny to me. plus she avoids that new mom panicky Must Follow the Checklist of "Natural" (whatever that means) Parenting Rules or Perish in the Flames of Mommy Guilt thing. no offense, new moms. i did it too. we all did it, i think. then your kid gets older and older and you eat some humble pie and realize that parenting isn't about following the rules of attachment parenting or mainstream parenting or any "brand" of parenting. it's about doing the best you can. our kids are so unique and we are so unique as parents, it's silly to try to adhere to any one parenting philosophy. or so i've finally come to see after 5 years of doing this. "Crappy Parenting" really captures that survival mode with great humor. some of my favorite posts have been, Taking the Kids to the Park, Real or Not (the Magic of Childhood), Going Viral, the Puking Kind and What it's Like to Not Sleep at Night. i pretty much love every single post she does, but these four made me laugh so hard i almost peed myself. parenting is hard. better to laugh at ourselves while we fumble through this experience.

vintage shirt, gift from Milla
tie-dye tank and sandals, target
leggings, old navy

red lips

2011-11-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

oh baby, i could go for one of those right now. that's a drink from a girl's night out last weekend. i can't remember what it was called, but it was vodka and it had fresh basil in it and chipotle salt on the rim. it was amazeballs. lori and i went out for fancy drinks during her town's Arts Alive. once a month the down town area stays open late and local artists display their art at various coffee shops and book stores. it's pretty fun. i don't really care about the art, i'll be honest, but i like booze! i wore my favorite red lipstick in honor of wintery weather.
i feel weird wearing it in summer. is that strange?

i hate flash. it makes you look like a vampire. and not even a sparkly one.

red, red lips. the lipstick is MAC's russian red. it's amazing. it smells delicious. and it stays put.
which is clutch for red lips.

and my stupid rain coat, as usual ruining my whole outfit. hrmph.

dress and sweater, thrifted
leggings, old navy
boots, lane bryant
hat, kmart
earrings, tribalbazaar.com
purse, gift from my mother in law
vintage feather hair clip, handmade by my mom's friend in the 70's

book nook and body con (and plaid)

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

been working on making my kids book nook more accessible and inviting. we brought our rocking chair back into the rotation after it being out in garage for the past year. babies and gliders do not mix very well.

this is just a little corner in our kitchen. i wanted to make it another little hang out spot for the kids to get cozy and have access to all their books. they seem to be enjoying it. our house isn't that big, so i've been working on ways to make use of all the space.

really, not much is cuter than a baby "reading".

his brother wandered over to see what he was up to and got involved in a book of his own. yes! they sat and read quietly and independently for a good hour while i puttered around the kitchen getting it straightened up for the following day.
the baby even pulled the blanket down to get snuggly.

recently i wore this:

body con dresses, how i adore thee.

and what's this? plaid? i'm shocked! shocked, i say!

i'm changing the title of this blog to Bonfire of my Plaidity. i think it's more fitting.

boots and body con dress, target (super sale!! only 3 dollars!)
vintage pearl button-up, thrifted
leggings, old navy
necklace c/o flaming hag folkwear
sunglasses, i have no idea

the hunt

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

spoils from a recent mushroom hunt.

N. made a delicious cream of mushroom and potato soup with them. it was ridiculously good. i'd post the recipe but he just sort of...made it up out of the air, which amazes me. i can cook, but i have no creativy as a chef. he just waltzes around the kitchen making up soup recipes.
the chantrelles are my favorite.

in a similar understated and earthy color scheme, i wore this:

i totally have uniboob in these pictures, because i'm wearing a nursing tanktop that is basically a glorfied sports bra attached to some fabric. having big boobs sucks most of the time, i'm going to be honest. in order to wear a comfortable support system, i sometimes end up with uniboob. such is life.

shirt, alloy.com
dress worn underneath, sweetskins.com
cords, thrifted
sandals and necklace, target
earrings, some random etsy store that took so insanely long to ship the damn things i don't feel like linking them so there neener neener neener
clear lens sunglasses, forever 21
purse, gift from my mother in law

****PSA: please take great care when hunting for mushrooms. my partner is in graduate school studying mycology, so he is very aware of what mushrooms are safe and edible. it's important to use caution when harvesting and eating wild mushroom*****

baby was a black sheep

2011-11-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

i was fifteen years old and in paris with my french class the first time i saw patti smith. the picture above is the cover of her album Easter, and i saw it from across the Virgin Record store and was immediately drawn to it. i'd heard of her before, and i'd of course heard that one song of hers that made it to radio, Because the Night, but i'd never seen her. something about that picture totally enthralled me. her underarm hair, her who gives a fuck about being pretty look, her dirty tank top. i was into it. i purchased the CD and put it in my walkman when i returned to our hotel. i was fifteen, angsty and just getting started on my whole Damn the Man thing, and those first notes told me that i'd found someone special in Patti Smith. looking out my window that overlooked the Paris streets, choking on one of my first cigarettes, i listened intently to her deep voice. when the CD came to her spoken word, Babelouge, my mind was officially blown.

Babelouge, Patti Smith:

I haven't fucked much with the past, but I've fucked plenty with the future. Over the skin of silk are scars from the splinters of stations and walls I've caressed. A stage is like each bolt of wood, like a log of Helen, is my pleasure. I would measure the success of a night by the way by the way by the amount of piss and seed I could exude over the columns that nestled the P.A. Some nights I'd surprise everybody by skipping off with a skirt of green net sewed over with flat metallic circles which dazzled and flashed. The lights were violet and white. I had an ornamental veil, but I couldn't bear to use it. When my hair was cropped, I craved covering, but now my hair itself is a veil, and the scalp inside is a scalp of a crazy and sleepy Comanche lies beneath this netting of the skin. I wake up. I am lying peacefully I am lying peacefully and my knees are open to the sun. I desire him, and he is absolutely ready to seize me. In heart I am a Moslem; in heart I am an American; in heart I am Moslem, in heart I'm an American artist, and I have no guilt. I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin. The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce. We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore. He spared the child and spoiled the rod.

I have not sold myself to God.

that last line burned my mind like a brand. at fifteen i was struggling with the catholic faith i had been raised in. i was questioning everything i had been taught, arguing the sexist, homophobic dogma of my childhood. i was full of anger and rage over so many things and this album, this monologue and the song that followed, Rock and Roll Nigger (embedded at the bottom of this post) reached right into my very soul and encompassed all those feelings and spoke them for me. i found so much power in that statement:
I have not sold myself to god, i have not sold myself to god, i have not sold myself to god.

i replayed and replayed this monologue until i memorized it and muttered it, prayer-like, while i caressed my walkman like a rosary. i can honestly say that Patti Smith changed my life that day.

bardot

2011-11-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Bridget Bardot. 'nuff said.

skinny minnie

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

like, omg! am i wearing plaid AGAIN?
yes. yes, i am.

i found these black skinny levi's in a consignment shop a few weeks ago. i love them because they are SO TIGHT. it's like i painted them on.

in other news, i can balance very small pumpkins on my head. be jealous.

did i mention how excited i am about plaid?

no, really. i'm really, really excited about plaid.

100% thrifted