Things of Happiness.

Today my boyfriend is going to take me gallivanting around Saratoga. We don't usually last terribly long since it's usually too cold or too hot, but the weather promises to be close to 50 today, so I am hopeful.

I've noticed, as I'm sure most people have, that I tend to add things in batches on flickr- that is, things I'm obsessed with at the moment. Things that make me happy! As that seems to be the namesake of this little blog-get, I've decided I ought to start posting some of these things.

Right now, I give you kittens & swans. Two things I've been obsessed with since my teeny-days. I got my first kittens when I was seven, as a gift for my First Communion. My mother had prepared me weeks before by telling me she had a dream about two kittens and wanted to make a story out of it, and we should come up with some names for them. Most of the ones we came up with were form old movies. In the end, I named them Romeo & Juliet (although I tried to name them Fluffy and something equally frivolous--mom wasn't having that!) and loved them more than anything! Sadly, they've both passed on and it was very difficult, but then Baby, the cat in the post below, showed up while dad was drilling holes in concrete and has been here every since. We tried naming her something dignified, but nothing stuck, so she's whatever term of endearment we choose at the moment. In any case, I've been obsessed with cats and kittens forever.


1. I'm Too Cute, 2. what the fork?, 3. Cat Series #4, 4. It's a big world out there, 5. uta, 6. tw10.jpg


I have not had such a lovely romance with swans. I was bitten by one once, and was sort of scarred for life, but not really. I like the idea of them, the word cygnet, the image they cut on water, and Swan Lake. I used to call it Swan Pond when I was little because I thought it sounded better. I was obsessed. I had this Swan Lake anime I watched all the time, and I had a long chapter-book version with gorgeous illustrations that I couldn't read but loved.


1. swan lake1, 2. Untitled, 3. Swan in Fog, 4. Trumpeter Swan Rescue, 5. Lintilla Swans, Mistley, 6. Swans Out For A Stroll



Billy Elliot (I love this movie more than just about anything! Sort of.)

Satisfactory Travel.

Happy Easter! I've just returned home from a weekend in Philadelphia, one of my favorite cities, and have had a glorious time. Regrettably, I did not buy all the clothes and strange accoutrement I adored since I am low on cash these weeks, but was able to scrounge up for a few choice bits (and food! Food is the most important, sometimes).


We went to an old haunt, the Reading Terminal, to eat Mexican food and gaze longingly at flowers:




(I am really impressed with how these photos came out, as I have no LCD or viewfinder on my camera.)

My lovely aunt procured this delicious raspberry scarf for me:



Later, I hung out with my cousins. It was Christopher's confirmation this weekend, and so we spent our free time doing as many ridiculous things as possible.


including some sort of dancing. I purchased that rather popular H&M dress, along with a pair of flats at Gap that ours did not have in my size. Annie is wearing an adorable dress from J. Crew, which sadly did not get showcased in all it's glory due to the chill weather.


A cake! I've posted other cakes before, one covered in bees, and I think I will make a habit of it. This is supposed to be a lamb but I think it looks like a dog. It was decapitated in a somewhat hilarious manner, as you see.

Ernest was an expert at expounding excuses. And meow.

Hello! I have been depressingly absent (not that I have false notions about how valuable my contribution to teh internets is, but you know). My only excuse is that it has been a week of very high highs and low lows, thanks to midterms and impromptu familial things.

I also haven't been dressing myself lately (I have someone else do it for me), or rather, for myself but instead trying to work my way through rainy weather and humongous piles of mud (who knew there was so much dirt on campus!) and finding that tricky balance between dressing to keep warm and not overheating. Today especially I do not feel myself. I am wearing jeans, and because I stepped in a pile of mud (on the GROUND, as my father specifies) I had to run over to Target and buy some new socks. Which are lovely socks, but I still don't feel right.

The real reason for posting however, is my cat shirt. I bought this tank top at H&M when it first opened here, I was probably about 15 or so, and it was far too big so mom took up the straps so my juvenile bosom didn't feel violated.



But I never wore it much because I felt too weird. I've always loved it though, and these days it looks a bit like my cat:



Not to mention I spotted a few lovelies around street style sites sporting cat shirts. It seemed it was time to break it out. On the downside, I find that the shirt slides down and the eyes sit right in the middle of my boobs, which can be somewhat disconcerting. I may have to adjust it a bit again, but for now I am reduced to constant pull-up adjustments and wearing my cat shirt proudly. It's like I'm proclaiming my freakish cat-lady love for cats to the world.

Unhappiness (we should ban it.)

I am miffed.

I was all set with an outfit last night (nothing terribly fancy but I have a pair of tights that are so bright I hardly ever wear them for fear of shocking myself into a coma, but I wanted to wear them with a new dress today and a pair of equally shocking yellow flats) and was unjustly thwarted this morning by a disgusting mixture of rain and snow (the meteorological version of phlegm).

So instead I tossed on some all black, since I was in a foul-mouthed foul mood, a little bit of sequins and a scarf only to discover that hours later the sun is out and all is well with the weather.

Ghastly.

To console myself, I am going to have breakfast for lunch and see if I can drag my wonderfully indulgent boyfriend to the thrift store and the used bookstore before I am condemned to boredom via the working world.

Looks I Envy:

Anna Karina

The days are just packed.

I'm in a bit of a slump again at the moment. Spring break approaches, and it will be welcome indeed!

However the ever-slightly-so-better weather (something about the up and down of that phrase is appealing to me, as awkward as it is) has made me more apt to be in the world, and I've been frequenting thrift shops. The big Salvation Army proved mostly disappointing, so I've been frequenting my favorite thrift-haunt that is just around the corner. They are much better organized and the prices are so much better! This morning I got a sweater, two slips, and a nightgown for 2.50$. Garage, estate, and rummage sale season should be starting soon, and I have never felt more in the mood for it!

Have two things that I like today:

iv.

(from a letter by Vincent Van Gogh)

I think that I still have it
in my heart someday
to paint a bookshop
with the front yellow and pink,
in the evening, and the black
passerby like a light
in the midst of darkness.

Gothic Novel.

(This picture looked wonderfully clear on my laptop at home, but now that I am using a campus computer it is not so. Bummer.)

This morning nothing was working quite right. It started pouring rain, so it was a day of sneakers instead of flats, and it is one of those days where I can't seem to get myself into the swing of dressing. I went with my stand-by striped shirt under a dress with black tights to avoid having to think too much about anything at all. I feel like Lydia from Beetlejuice. It's the black lace and the stripes do it, the latter especially since anything stripey like that gets tagged 'Tim Burton' in my brain.




She is wearing a spider as a pin on her blazer. I love that!

This was all compounded by a surreal event this morning that made me feel like I should be in some strange indie film about a weird girl (then again, don't most of us feel like that?). Armed with my umbrella I stood in the center of my driveway, frozen in place and making that apropo :O face, at the 20 or 30 crows that were screaming and assembling themselves across the grassy knoll in the middle of my street. On the ground, two struggling crows flailed and rolled. It was raining, and my inner, supressed, macabre poet noted that it looked like two wet umbrellas fighting.

It was very strange. I stood there for a few moments, trying to work it out before opening the door again and calling dad, who came out with his umbrella (which looks like the one the penguin uses in Batman Returns only as far as I know dad doesn't use it to shoot people)and he stood with me for a few minutes also watching the scene. At this point the wet birds were lying in a lump on the ground and dad and I were sure one of them was dead. Every few seconds it would move pathetically. Dad walked over across the street, I deposited my bags in my car and followed suit, which I am sure looked strange since we bobbed along with out umbrellas in a two-person line before stopping before the crows.

Who immedietly took off in a frightening display worthy of The Birds. It turns out the two crows were fighting, holding on to the other waiting for one to give up. It was really strange, and I was late for class. Somehow I thought it all fit with my outfit, and for now it fits nicely into my drawer of stories-with-no-point, and I'm sure it can be all kinds of symbolic and stuff (I am a dork for symbolism) but mostly I think it was just weird and picturesque.

We also have a shoe at work that looks like this:



sculpture from Beetlejuice, or at least I keep thinking that whenever I look at it, but it's not on the website yet so I cannot show you that it is, in fact, the same thing. I will take a picture of it at work later. The resemblence is remarkable.

Edit: Proof.


Sulliban at Nine West

Uncanny, I tell you.

New Dresses.

Last night I drove myself over to Target to peek at the new GO International line, Jovovich-Hawk, and was deeply miserable when it was not there. I moped around in the PJs section where I exercised great self-control and did not buy some neat little cotton nightgowns with eyelet and buttons. Today I headed over there again, and thankfully, the collection was on display.

Honestly, my Target didn't have much but since there about 6 other ones in my general area I figure I can check the other ones out over the next few weeks. I was interested in this one from the press photos and website, and it fit really well. As far as dresses go I haven't been thrilled with the Target collections in the past, but this one fit like a dream. Sadly, it also made me look like I was wearing a 5-year-old's party dress (not in a good way). If it's still there after all is said and done and it's on sale I'll pick it up but for 40$ I let it sit.

I did leave with this lace monstrosity that I hated on the website but loved in person. It's like what Morticia Addams wears on summer vacation. It's sweet but sort of macabre, which I kind of love, and while I'm not totally sold on it I figured I'd do my usual and snag it now and return it later if I'm not feeling it.

Most of the rest of the stuff I passed over. I really would love to get my grubby little hands on this creamy thing but with my luck my Target won't get it.

In the end though, nothing feels quite as nice as a new dress (or, I suppose, any other clothing purchase. I suppose the true phrase is nothing feels quite the same) whether it's bought new or thrift, or hand-me-down or borrowed or anything. I keep thinking I ought to stop buying dresses and skirts and wear some pants, but, I don't want to!