1) This week I'm participating in Blog It Forward, a "blogger mashup" hosted by the lovely and talented Victoria at sfgirlbybay. My assigned day is Friday, Feb 12, so keep an eye out for a post about things that inspire me. Seems simple enough, and should be fun.
2) I've been a busy girl and have lots of new jewelry to photograph for the shop. I'm also working on a custom order for a buyer, which I'm very excited about.
3) Dave is practicing his glass + fire skills using the "cracking off" technique to make us some cool drinking glasses and flower vases. This seems quite promising! I'll show the finished products later.
4) I'm keeping somewhat quiet about it, because I don't want to jump the gun, but we are veeeeeeery close to buying a house. Still some loose ends and details to wrap up. But to say that I'm excited would be an understatement. The margins of my work notebooks hold the truth concerning what's really been on my mind lately. If all goes well, you can be sure I'll have a lot more to say about that.
I don’t write about music much these days, but it’s an integral part of my life and I’d go mad without it (in fact, I really have been going mad without a piano to play for the past few years). And every once in awhile, an artist comes a long that gives me spine-tingling shivers, and I want to shout about it from the rooftops. I also want to hold it all in and protect it for my own. There’s a fierce pride that comes with treasuring the obscure (not that this is quite obscure any more). And so, if you haven't already heard...
A. A. Bondy. He has been on my radar for a couple years now, and the pulse of the radar only continues to grow stronger. When it comes to music, I'm normally I’m the type of listener who pays closer attention to the rhythm and instrumental parts of a song than to the lyrics. But my listening habits completely shifted when I first heard the song American Hearts.
Something about his presence made me listen harder than I ever had, to anyone, in a very long time. And then, in 2008, I heard him open for Bon Iver at Neumos in Seattle and my heart just about split open. I stood up front with my palms on the gritty stage and my eyes closed, feeling the vibration of the harmonica and the stomp of his boot in Vice Rag. He was vibrant and energetic, a little ragged around the edges -- and underneath you could tell he was just a guy with a guitar and more talent that could ever be measured by human standards. I had the thrill of watching him play again at the Tractor Tavern a couple weekends ago, and the energy level at the show was completely different. He was slower, more measured and relaxed, but still so passionate it gave me chills.
My current favorite song is I Can See The Pines Are Dancing. And to show just how obsessively my mind works, here’s a sketchbook page of my attempts at deciphering the lyrics. Kudos to Dave for figuring out “echo.” I played the song hundreds of times trying to figure it out. I'm still missing bits, and none of the lyrics I could find match up consistently with each other, so until I get a chance to ask the man himself it shall remain a mystery. I’ll end with Slow Parade (don't lose patience with the intro - it picks up gloriously around 1:30). It's a song that pulls and pulses and shuffles and lazily spins like a slow dance in a high school gym, and when it all stops you look around and realize that you haven’t moved a single inch.
If you’re craving more, HearYa (link above) has a lovely collection of live sessions and reviews, and the fuel/friends blog has a nice writeup. And remember to support the artist and buy the real thing from iTunes or Fat Possum Records.
Yesterday was spent in L.A. for work. After the work part, we explored a bit and had a couple hours of fun before heading back to Seattle. I'm always amazed that I can fly from Washington to southern California and back all in one day (even though it's not very fun). Also equally amazing is the amount of technology available to you while flying Virgin America. You can watch satellite TV. You can play video games. You can catch a movie or listen to a decent selection of music. You can order a meal right from your seat. You can hop on the wifi and browse the Internet. Except for on our flight home, the wifi was down and the dude next to me grumbled about how he didn't get a partial refund on his plane ticket "like last time." Dude. You can watch TV, play video games, order snacks, and catch a movie, ON A FREAKING PLANE, yet you're upset that you can't surf the web? Are you serious? At one point the satellite TV fizzled out and the show I was watching disappeared, and I even caught myself thinking, "Aw damn this sucks! I want my MTV!" And then I was reminded of the clip below, and how honestly, everything really is AWESOME and nobody is happy. And I banished that thought and did crosswords on my iphone instead. He he. Seriously, our society has issues.
I'm guilty guilty guilty of technological ingratitude. But at least I wasn't looking for a discount like Captain Snuggle Pants next to me, who was cooing at and tickling his girlfriend the entire ride home. He even pinched her nose a couple times. I suppose a lack of wifi prompted him to get closer to his lady and have some real human interaction instead. Barf.
1. find my niche. or become a really really excellent renaissance woman. 2. keep up the yoga. it feels so good. 3. take more photos with the diana camera and lens set that my wonderful husband got me. 4. figure out what to do with this blog. (gut feeling: more words, like I used to, years ago.) 5. enter my artwork in another show (or two, or three, or ten) of some kind. 6. keep doodling. obsessively. 7. find a good solid house. 8. be ok with uncertainty. 9. decompress my warped sense of distance. it used to be no problem to drive 20 minutes or more to get to the city when I lived in wisconsin. now it seems arduous. what happened? why is space and time so strange here? 10. finish reupholstering the ottoman that has fallen apart since my last attempt.
The list of ways to help Haiti is growing. I can't believe the success of the texting to help Haiti campaign, and there are so many other ways to help. But one of the coolest ways to donate, I think, is by supporting an etsy shop that has pledged to donate all of a portion of their proceeds to charity to aid Haitians. Victoria at sfgirlbybay has a lovely list of etsy shops and craft sources that are donating sales or hosting fundraisers. Or you can just do what I did and search the term "Haiti" on Etsy and see what comes up. It's really wonderful to see how folks are coming together in creative ways to help.
I'm going to jump on the bandwagon, and will donate 100% of sales from all items in my shop (minus shipping) in the month of January to Haiti relief (exact charity yet to be determined...suggestions are welcome.)
I was scrolling through my RSS reader at lunchtime and immediately noticed something was off. Why was my name appearing as a title for someone else's blog post? Ah. Well, that would be because Paola at mirror mirror was sweet enough to write about my photography today on her blog. What a lovely surprise! I wasn't losing my mind after all. I'm seriously tickled. I've been following mirror mirror since attending a meetup at Velocity here in Seattle. Paola was there with two other awesome local bloggers -- Mary from Shelterrific and Megan from Not Martha -- to share her take on design blogging with a room full of like-minded folks. 'Twas a good time, and I've been a follower ever since. Networking is an amazing thing...
So recently Paola talked about the Couch to 5K podcast program designed to get you off your rumpus and running a 5K in a mere few months. I felt mildly inspired. It sounded simple and organized and not overly strenuous for a total running idiot. I downloaded it, and tried it out that night. 90 seconds of walking followed by 60 seconds of running/jogging/shuffling/whatever you can manage. I only made it through two running cycles and had to walk the rest of it out. That's TWO MINUTES TOTAL, people. There could not be a worse athlete. My legs felt like logs.
But that just means that instead of three months, it takes me six months. Or twelve months. Or whatever. But my logic is that doing SOMETHING is better than doing NOTHING. And I don't care so much about running at all -- walking suits me just fine -- but having the goal helps. And it was actually kind of sort of fun. Trust me, it has taken well over a year to get into this mindset, and it's far more complicated than anything I'd care to get into here. But now I'm taking yoga and trying to get out of the house more (which is immensely hard in the dark, rainy Seattle winter). I don't call it exercise, but rather maintenance (and a little repair). I've just got this one life, and one body, and I had best take care of it.
1) This week I'm participating in Blog It Forward, a "blogger mashup" hosted by the lovely and talented Victoria at sfgirlbybay. My assigned day is Friday, Feb 12, so keep an eye out for a post about things that inspire me. Seems simple enough, and should be fun.
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