I realize I spend a lot of time in my car. I Zen-out when I’m driving. I guess some people would say that’s dangerous. But when I’m alone in my car, my stereo up loud, a small ray of sun warming my arms, a cool breeze from the AC, I’m happy. Give me a long road and a spring day and I’ll ride around until sunset. I live in my car more than my house. I think it comes from having to live out of garbage bags for roughly two years—I never fully like to settle down. I’m constantly moving.
My car is like the womb. Inside, I am content, I am in control and I am self-sustaining. I wish I could just drive around all day without wasting gas, because my mind loosens and breathes when I’m in my car. The angel my grandmother gave me right before she died hangs from the rearview mirror, protecting me on my journeys, and I am liberated.
I can’t even handle change in my car, that is how attached I am. When someone moves my CD case or plants their stuff on the backseat or touches the stereo while they’re on the phone, I get twitchy. I hate when people put things on the dash instead of holding whatever it is in their laps; it makes me feel like hyperventilating. My space in my car can’t be violated. It breaks the flow of the universe that rushes through my chest and down my arms, into the steering wheel, down to the engine where it ignites, propelling me onward.
I like going places. Alone. If I enjoy spending time in my car with someone it is because they recognize my need for solitude and succumb to my wishes while we’re driving. Once I took a trip out into the country, because I didn’t feel like stopping. I drove and drove, looped and turned, found myself in a small town, enjoyed a cigarette while leaning on my hood and basking in the anonymity, and then left around sunset, my GPS, Janice, more than willing to help me find my way home. God knows why, she’s usually a b*&$#, which is why I like to find my own way around.
Once my dad and I were driving to Long Beach for a wedding and got lost, so we stopped and asked for directions. We were told, “You can’t get there from here.” My father and I laughed for about twenty minutes over that. Because you’re never hopeless. You can always get where you need to go—you just have to start moving. Lost is relative. It’s only if you stop that you isolate yourself, cut yourself off from the infinite current of this pulsing, moving life.
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OF THE DAY will be taking a vacation! see you in march!
enjoy the quiet! ;)
<3
i love people that aren’t afraid of silence.
silence in conversation… silence in music…
a beat… a moment where there’s nothing but breath…
and then… nothing… not a breath… not a drop… not a tear…
i love people that aren’t afraid of silence.
that aren’t afraid to sit and smile…
that aren’t afraid to meet my gaze and hold it… suspended…
unafraid of what i’m thinking… or feeling… or going to do next…
just floating with me… matched… equals in a moment of silence…
i love people that aren’t afraid of silence…
silence speaks more than words ever could.
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Okay, so I wanted to wait until I was done with this project to share it, but my studio is doing such amazing things and I just needed to share! This is our final semester in a 5-year architecture program and the theme of our studio is craft. The value of craft, the craft process, etc. We are still in the dark as to what our final project will be, but right now we are working a mini project to kick of the semester.
Basically, we are all doing jackets.
The same jacket - a Mao jacket to be precise.
All the same size, made from the same pattern.
We were allowed to use any TWO materials, but we are NOT allowed ANY fabric.
Everything we have to make has to come from us.
We can't sew on a machine but you could hand stitch.
If you want to use cloth, you have to start with string and weave it yourself.
We were basically asked to explore a very uniform jacket/pattern and look at how the detailing and materiality and craft of it can make so many unique things. In creating our own materials we needed to address how it moves, how the joints work, how everything stays together.
For my project, I ended up deciding to use rubber erasers.
I start by cutting up the erasers into two or three pieces - basically separating the rings from the pointed tips.
Then i glue them one-by-one into the pattern pieces that I need.
So far I have one of the front pieces done - wish me luck!
Other awesome jackets being made include:
rope held together with copper wire
woven rubber bands
melted salt!
and q-tips.
There are 12 of us in all, and eventually we will have a review/exhibit of all 12 jackets.
Everyone is doing something so different and unique and I'm so excited to see all the finished jackets in February! to be an "Of The Day" contributor, contact me ** HERE **
hope you're enjoying your weekend :) to be an "Of The Day" contributor, contact me ** HERE **
ok i admit it. i am a TOTAL sucker for cool vintage/antique furniture.
ESPECIALLY gorgeous/used/faded/peeling/loved vanity desks & dressers.
i am DRAWN to them in the universe. i can tell you where at least 11 are within a 20 mile radius of my home.
i. just. LOVE. them.
look at these gorgeous old pieces... Vintage
... now look at how designers are updating this look with clean and sophisticated lines...
i am CRAZY about these looks... i like some of them better than the originals!!!
(don't tell the antiques... we don't want to make them feel old...)
Modern
so it's my mission this year to take my old, awesome vintage pieces, and bring them into 2012.
i have purchased some metallic paint, some shiny glass door knobs and a few little mirrors,
and i am going to update the HECK out of my dressers.
look out cool, here i come <3
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So I thought for my second post, since I haven't really done too many projects in school yet (since the semester just started), I would show you all my new apartment! I've recently moved out of my old apartment with my two other roommates and made my own home in a cute little bachelor pad right in the middle of Ottawa's downtown!
It's very little, but I've used everything that I've learned up to date as to make use of every little square inch seeing as there was no room for error.
Jeremy'sApartmentTour  This would be my entrance.
Seeing as I don't have an actual closet (the thing on the left is really just doors to a thin shelf unit thing) and this space was long and thin, I thought it could have double purpose. My closet, as well as my entrance. It was long and thin, but I had enough room to put my dresser (which also ends up serving as my console), a mirror, and a bookshelf (which I use for my shoes and folded clothes). It's tight, but in that little space, I can get changed, put my coat on, and head on out!
| | This is what you see once you head through the entrance and around the corner on the left.
This is the biggest space in the apartment, and where I do almost all my living. It serves as, my living room, my office (where I do all my homework), and my bedroom.
But undoubtedly, the coolest thing in here has to be the loft bed! It gives all that extra space for moving around and organising my stuff. I also feel like my cat up there.
I now understand her better. Being up so high is just so much more comfortable, and serves for such better sleeping at night!
*click photos to enlarge |
 In the same area of the apartment...
this is just the view from on top of my bed.
Notice the opening on the right from the entrance.
Also don't mind my sister who helped me set the place up.
ALSO! I'd like to point out my awesome mantle piece.
AND my fridge in the middle of the old fireplace opening.
Who else in this world has something that cute and quirky?!
My Kitchen! Little, but perfect for me! I tend not to do a whole lot of cooking, so who needs counter space!?
I've got everything I need, a stove, a sink (just a tad too small though) and some cupboards!
The floor is a really cool retro little black and white tile and it continues into the bathroom also which is right next door.
| | And finally, the B-room.
Not sure if you can really understand the flow of the bathroom in these pictures, but just know that it's absolutely tiny.
But not too tiny for me!
The only thing that I'm not a big fan of in this space, is that the window is VERY poorly insulated.. therefore, as cold as it is outside... basically the same thing in my washroom.
Doesn't always feel to good on the tooshie!
|
That's pretty much the jist of it!
For some this place might be way to small, but for me, a single student who spends WAY too much time doing homework, it is perfectly ideal! I love this place and can't wait to spend some quality time in here as my own independent and responsible adult. :)
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Today I was watching What Not to Wear (a show Kevin and I are a little addicted to, to be honest) and doing what I normally do when watching it—thinking about my style and how different it is from what it used to be. My best friend Jamie and I have been attached at the hip since the 3rd grade. I’m not going to lie, she’s always been the more fashionable one. There was a long time when I didn’t care if I walked outside in bright orange sweatpants and a t-shirt. Those times Jamie fondly refers to as the Dark Ages.
So when I finally triggered the Tad-Bit-Feminine toggle in my personality halfway through high school, it’s no surprise that I was a little lost in the dark. Like, stark naked, no flashlight, half blind and deaf, totally inebriated kind of lost. Jamie was obviously the person to turn to for such a problem, since she’d been putting together her own outfits practically in the womb. The problem that arose, however, was one of style clashes.
Because the clothes Jamie liked?
I didn’t like them so much. Like at all.
Ok, maybe not at all. But I quickly realized I was not an Abercrombie or American Eagle girl. My compromise with her became Hollister, mostly because there were things that were a little more fashionable (in my mind) and cheap for me, and things that bordered Jamie’s style for her. However, this was when I hit my second road block in the already pitch black path to pretty.
All my best friends—and I do mean all of them—were a size 3 or under in high school. Most of them are actually still that size. When I was growing up with them there wasn’t much of a discrepancy with my own size. But of course, we all know that uber bitch Puberty likes to screw up any situation she can get her hands into. Suddenly, I was a size 7 to 9 in the sea of my triple 0 best friends. Let me just tell y’all now: places like Hollister or American Eagle? Yeah, they don’t cater that much to sizes like that. Oh the sizes are there sure, but the way the clothing is shaped and tailored is really for women and men who have that body. You know, that body that they plaster all over their shopping bags. I don’t need to remind you of it, I’m sure our eyes have all been mauled by the half-naked sailor with the tousled hair enough.
Anyway, the point is the rules that applied to all of my friends just didn’t apply to me anymore. I began to become totally discouraged. According to everything I’d learned and seen, this was the standard that I needed to meet if I wanted to feel beautiful like all my friends were. This was, thankfully, around the time that I watched my first episode of What Not to Wear.
I was absolutely floored. These people, these totally real looking and down to earth men and women looked exactly like me. Exactly. And at the end of every episode, they were beautiful. They were flawlessly, remarkably, totally hot. And they didn’t lose weight, or wear girdles to shape their bodies (yes, I admit this. Give me a break, my mother made me do it), or conform to brands. It was all about how the clothes FIT them.
This was when I realized that my own, personal style—that eye I had for different, quirky, colorful, slightly odd fashion—was not only in the realm of possible, but was actually encouraged. All I needed to do was make sure that the things I wanted to wear fit me in the appropriate ways. In ways that accentuated my body, not the body of half of America. In ways that were only for me.
That epiphany quite literally changed my life. Of course, I went through many different phases of fashion in terms of my interest in certain styles. But ultimately, What Not to Wear handed me the knowledge that I use day to day, constantly, whenever I put clothes on. Now, I still don’t see anything wrong with wearing sweats and a t-shirt when you want to. But that’s the thing—it’s when you want to, when you want to feel comfortable, or when you want to feel beautiful, cute, sexy, oddball, professional, or anything in between. There are clothes out there that will FIT you in ways that work for YOU, and you alone, and that will be your canvas for all the above adjectives.
THAT’S how fashion is supposed to work.
So that’s pretty much the thoughts that run through my brain whenever I watch What Not to Wear. It’s even better now that I have Kevin, who not only enjoys the show as much as I do (he actually loved it even before we met, and we jokingly refer to it as one of the proofs of how our personalities match), but finds me completely beautiful just as I am, and anything else I drape over me is just icing on the cake.
Think of clothes as an extension of yourself. Once you realize they are supposed to accentuate YOUR best qualities, you’ll start liking that reflection in the mirror a lot more. And it doesn’t take diets or weight training or sleight-of-hand tricks. All it takes is embracing the beautiful things about yourself, rather than focusing on the ones you don’t like.
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... and so i did. to be an "Of The Day" contributor, contact me ** HERE **
((Hi Shelly! This is a "creative writing." It's another nonfiction one, this time from my point of view =P I dunno if you want to introduce it so the readers know, or just launch it without explanation; it doesn't matter to me =]))
Creative Writing We were never actually a couple. I think that’s important to say. It was one of those fleeting, but cutting, flings that shape who we are with too sharp of a blade. I remember our first “date” (he actually did call them that, even though he never considered us more than friends, or so he says). He took me to Micelli’s off Hollywood. Actually it was less of a date and more payback. I’ll have to backtrack for a minute to explain that.
I had invited a lot of my friends with me to see a good friend of mine play in his band on Hollywood at the Old Knitting Factory. Everyone bailed on me at the last minute except for Zachary. So we went walking together, and ten minutes later we realized we had no idea where we were going. You would think it would be simple, it’s just one street right? You keep walking until you see it, end of story. But Zachary for some reason decided that we were going the wrong way and we should turn around and head back toward Vine. Needless to say, if we had kept walking the other way for another block or two, we would have gotten there. We arrived at the gig thirty minutes late, didn’t get to have dinner like we had planned, and subsequently didn’t get home until well after midnight. To make up for his poor compass skills, he told me he would take me out to a very nice restaurant. I laughed at him, falling into bed, already half asleep.
He had been serious, it turned out. That Friday he showed up at my door asking me if I was ready. I don’t remember what I wore, which is surprising, but we were both dressed a little more spiffy than normal. Micelli’s was fantastic—I’m a sucker for authentic pasta and pianists in the same room. The guy behind the keys that night actually played a song for us, randomly; he pointed us out, nodded his head as if saying, “Here’s looking at you, kids,” and then started “Tea for Two.” Zachary and I laughed and blushed, and left stuffed with amazing chocolate cake and happiness.
This was right after I went through an emotional and depressing relationship, one that I won’t delve into here, and I think Zachary had secretly planned the evening to try and make me feel better. On the walk home I shivered, always a little colder than everyone else, especially at night, and he instantly shucked his sweater and insisted I put it on. When I refused, he trapped me and shoved it over my head anyway, pulling my arms through like I was a little girl. Then we stumbled the rest of the way home, his arm around my shoulders and his grin a beacon of warmth and frivolity.
After that night, I realized something was happening between Zachary and me, and I wasn’t the only one. My roommate, Beth, raised her eyebrows at me from across the room whenever he came over, and we developed a secret hand language to communicate our thoughts about him while he was present, so he couldn’t overhear. But that first date at Micelli’s was nothing like our second, official, outing.
A lot of my friends liked to get together at a local gay club a few blocks away from our apartments. One Wednesday I decided to tag along, and Zachary, who was with me when I got the call, asked me about it, and then asked if he could join. I had to smother my laughter and my impulse joke that threatened to crack off of my tongue (Zachary is one of those straight guys that just, for some reason, attracts gay attention even though he’s totally apathetic to his own sex), and told him sure.
I’ve got to say, nights at the gay club will forever be imprinted in my mind as sweaty, loud, seizure-inducing, and absolutely exhilarating fun. With a name like Tiger Heat, it had a reputation to live up to, and boy did it ever live up to it. I can’t count how many times I handed out made up names and numbers to strangers, but I also can’t count how many times I came home, exhausted from dancing and face aching from all the grinning. It was Zachary’s first night there when we went on our second date. Unfortunately, I completely forgot my wallet, and Zachary ended up having to pay my cover charge: this was the launch of the overarching excuse behind all of our dates—either I was paying him back for something, or he was paying me back for my pay back. I should have known that relationships based on what you owe the other person never pan out well, but at the time I was simply thrilled with the attention, revived by the attraction, and totally dumbstruck with the love.
I DO remember what I was wearing for this date, because I’d specifically picked it out. You don’t go to a gay club in jeans and a nice blouse. You go in stilettoes and an overly tight dress, preferably with sequins somewhere. So I was dressed in one of my more fancier dresses, I think I’d worn it for my best friend’s aunt’s wedding in high school, and Zachary and put on some dark wash jeans and a button down, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. We marched in, my other friends as well, like we were on Party of Five.
“Dear God, how are we supposed to talk in here?” Zachary yelled in my ear when we crossed the lobby and through the long, dark hallway, and broke into the gaping, screaming mass of the dance floor.
“We aren’t supposed to talk.” I responded, lips brushing his ear as I leaned in. “We’re supposed to dance.”
And so we danced.
The movement that flows between two people when they dance is electric, if you do it right. Even if you don’t think you can dance, and most people can and just won’t, you can tell when the vibe is off between the two of you, and when you slip into that perfect sync. It’s an effortless feeling, like falling. Your bodies just fit, your breath an extension of the other’s, your pulse and his beating together, to the underlying rhythm of the music.
Zachary couldn’t perform ballet to save his life. He couldn’t tap, even though he thoroughly enjoyed it. He couldn’t even do jazz, the easiest and watered down of all genres.
But on the floor, he has that thing. That unbelievable quirk that just instantly meshes with your own internal timing. On the floor, Zachary was as intoxicating as any shot of tequila.
We danced all night, literally. Our pack of friends left way before we did, and when my calf muscles finally screamed surrender it was at least two in the morning. I limped out of the door with Zachary in tow, and the minute the light of the city night, which was way brighter than the inside of the club, hit us he saw my plight and instantly told me to take my shoes off.
“Zachary, that is completely disgusting.” I winced as I continued down the sidewalk.
“If you don’t stop I will catch you and rip them off your feet,” was his reply, and I rolled my eyes, bending over to unstrap the heels. When I straightened his face had changed, the playful seriousness wiped by a hungry expression, directed straight at me. “What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Come on.” Taking the shoes from my hand, we headed down Vine. I couldn’t stifle my groan as I witnessed how dirty my feet were becoming, but he sent me an arched eyebrow and a crooked smile, saying, “Don’t be a girl. What happened to ‘I spent my whole childhood barefoot!’ Dork.”
I shoved him, and he laughed, catching my hand and entwining his fingers in mine. I looked down at our bound hands, entranced by the touch, and a smile erupted on my face. Glancing away, I got it to straighten out, and we spent the rest of the walk talking, mostly arguing, which was the way we “flirted” according to Beth.
He never let go of my hand.
In the lobby of our apartment building, we giggled at the security guard behind the desk, and he gave us a bored, suspicious look, but sent us to the elevator after checking our IDs. The elevator cab in our building was notoriously tiny—Beth and I used to joke that the occupancy maximum was 1 ½ people. And as if close proximity with Zachary after the night we’d had wasn’t enough, the minute we pressed the button for my floor, the lights went out.
I squeaked, a long time scaredy-cat when it came to darkness. “It’s ok,” Zachary muttered soothingly, and pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. My face had nowhere to go but that hollow right between his chest and shoulder, my nose skimming his neck. As chatty as we always were with each other, the elevator ride that night was completely silent.
Finally, we reached my hall, and he stopped outside my door. “I don’t wanna wake Beth,” he said softly, handing me my shoes.
I smiled, ready to unlock the door and bid Zachary a goodnight. “Sam…” He murmured, reaching a hand out. I turned back to see what he wanted, and realized he had stepped up to me. We were deep into each other’s personal space, only without the safety of disco balls and techno music. I instantly wanted to back away, but the wall was right up against my ankles.
We stood there for a minute, just staring into each other’s eyes. His were a dark, chocolate brown, always warm and inviting, and at that moment completely bottomless, like if I swayed any closer they would swallow me whole.
Impossibly, he leaned in closer, our noses touching. My eyes half closed, and his forehead grazed mine. He tilted toward me, and I raised my chin instinctively.
And then he swung away, breathing in deeply and rocking back on his heels. “Goodnight.” He said, and then turned to swagger easily down the hallway, but not before I caught the stretching of his cheeks, indicating a classic Zachary grin.
After I found my voice and made sure it wouldn’t break when I opened my mouth, I called gently, “Jackass.”
I unlocked the door to the sound of his quiet laughter.
This was the beginning of our incessantly roundabout relationship. The push and pull of our personalities. The flickering and magnetic influence that warped our rational thoughts. It wasn’t long before I realized that Zachary and I weren’t magnets, but really more like orbiting planets. We came close enough in our separate paths to feel the other’s gravitational pull, to disrupt our kinetic energy and force each other astray. We circled each other, unable to deny the underlying attraction and thriving atmospheres, but we never collided.
And neither of us were willing to become a moon for the other’s Earth.
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