breaking news...i was wrong.

apparently i misled you about the provenance of the necklace a la nessie. my dad gave it to my mom, not my grandfather. oops. this may not be a big deal to you, but i am now left to question the accuracy of all my childhood memories.

i and love and you.

it's been too long, friends. this morning when i was driving to work i was listening to the radio, and one of my favorite new songs came on. here it is, courtesy of youtube:



as i was thinking about it, i realized one of the reasons i like this so much is maybe, er..probably, because the brothers' voices sound so much like a certain adam duritz, who once claimed all of my affections. as in, i had enough counting crows tshirts to wear a different one every day of the week and DID. and i spent copious amounts of hard-earned baby-sitting cash on back issues of rolling stone magazine even if it was only for a mere mention of my beloved dreadlocked lead singer. and i once got the donuts on my braces in red, blue, black, and gray because adam duritz sang "i will paint my picture, paint myself in blue and red and black and gray." well, i think that'll do it.

inherited no. 7

i've been feeling really guilty about my lack of posting on this bloggie. i realize i only have approximately five readers, but i still wish i could maintain a more consistent schedule. i mean, there's only so many ridiculous photos of animals people want to see. today won't be much of a break in terms of the animals, except for that this one is possibly an imaginary animal. yes, i'm talking about you, nessie. here she is memorialized in egg press's 'you're unbelievable' card. do i own it? yes, yes, i do, and so should you.
the loch ness monster has long been a source of fascination to the easily captivated stewart family. my grandfather on the stewart side was an ardent genealogist and traveled extensively in scotland researching the family name and bringing back various kinds of memorabilia. among the more notable items was this ensemble that i once donned for halloween. please note the hat to head ratio and the pervasiveness of plaid in this photo.


but, beyond extremely scratchy wool blend kilts and scarves, he also brought back this super snazzy nessie necklace for my mom. at some point in recent years, i may have hijacked this necklace from my mother's jewelry collection. i don't feel too badly about it because i have seen m.d. wear a necklace maybe three times ever. no, i am not exaggerating.


isn't she so cute? i love that the metal is worn and smooth and dulled down. just look at her little nose! she makes me so happy.

mystery fruit

bonjour, friends. i've been meaning to post this bizarro fruit/berry/mystery flora for like ever. so there are these petite little trees around my apartment, and they bear these strange pinky red prickle ball fruits. i think they're kind of amazing, and weird. (this may go on record as the most pointless post ever.)

an ode to flat-faced dogs, part quatre.

more soon, i promise. for now, this photo of bentley, courtesy of m.d.

you can read more about this surfing pug here. i do question the fact that he qualified in the 20 pounds and under category. hmm.

sophie as sushi

remember those last days of summer when time just floated by, and you thought you were busy but then fall attacked and you reevaluated the definition of "busy?" well, one thing that's good about fall is HALLOWEEN. not that i dress up or participate in any way, but i enjoy the idea of halloween. thankfully sara is on top of things and already found a costume for soph-a-doph, here modeled by a lovely boston terrier, who is clearly thrilled to be decked out as a japanese edible.

sushi costume from sushibooties on etsy

...

today, everything is a failure.

the dutchess & the duke

i saw the dutchess and the duke at the now defunct gravity lounge last year or sometime in the recent past. they were awesome. this isn't a real video, but i want you to hear this song, reservoir park. on myspace they describe themselves as 'campfire punk,' which is, well, just right.

back to school!

speaking of photos taken from behind, i thought you might appreciate this. i am basically posting this photo to harass my little sister, katherine. this is our back to school photo from 1991 -- i was starting fourth grade, katherine first. and as you can see, our dachshund, hope aka hopeeees, had to get in on the rear view action. check out our matching outfits. WE WERE SO COOL. you can't really see it from this angle because my HOT PINK backpack is covering it up, but i'm wearing a matching vest and perfectly round john lennon glasses. we aren't even going to talk about katherine's pants. and maybe she had a vest, too? this particular year katherine and i had two first days of school, it's a long story, but suffice to say that on my second first day of fourth grade i distinctly remember wearing an acid washed denim mini skirt with a ruffle all around the bottom. no, it wasn't ruffled, it was a denim mini WITH a ruffle. and i remember loving that thing like there was no tomorrow.

now we're sort of grown up and katherine has an mfa from pratt. she has stellar printmaking skills and does crazy cool installations. you can see her most recent work, index of you and me, on her site. she also once attempted to elude the police WHILE DRIVING when she was fourteen. she's awesome. obviously.

nostalgia fits me like a glove.

my mother does not remember this, and so it is mine to tell. the details have faded, and maybe they are wrong. but she does not remember, so i will remember for both of us. a balmy night with only the faintest touch of chill. there must have been some sort of discussion to give rise to our actions, talk of meteor showers or falling stars. i remember it being dark and feeling like we were embarking on a secret adventure. (there are so many things that are ours alone.) we gathered a few kitchen towels, walked down the concrete steps that are home to so many of my memories, and we perched ourselves on the hood of my father’s truck. we smoothed the towels out flat between our reclining bodies. she told me we needed them in case we caught a falling star. the utter impossibility is immediately clear. not only does one not catch falling stars, but one certainly does not attempt to do so with threadbare kitchen towels. we waited and watched, in much the same way that i remember urgently pressing my nose to the bedroom window on christmas eve, when it was time to sleep, eagerly and desperately seeking out any hint of a glowing red orb in the night sky. i am thankful for these falsehoods. no falling stars were caught, but i do not remember the evening as a failed mission. what i remember is stretching out on the hood of a car, under the starry sky, with my mother at my side. i remember believing.

inherited no. 6

i told myself i had to stay in tonight to work on my ghirlandaio chapter and/or preparation for my class that meets monday. but the thing is, uva just switched to this new student registration system that has things all sorts of wackadoodle, and right now it only looks like two people are enrolled in my class. maybe more people will show up monday, but if not, the class will be canceled, and that makes preparation seem extremely unappealing. so now blogging has become a form of procrastination. that and trawling the internets for new music. to ease the nagging guilt i thought i would at least post an inheritance that's marginally related to what i'm supposed to be doing. you remember muriel, right, she of the watch and pastels and sesame street chitchats?


in honor of the closing days of summer, here's a favorite snapshot of grandmother. muriel kept an entire album of photographs taken from behind, it was her favorite kind, so it seems fitting that among the masses of photos i've collected, there's this one of her.


this tiny book is what i want to show you, friends. its pages are cracked and yellowed and it smells like the inside of old wooden drawers. also, it originally cost 60 cents. can you say awesome? i was only subconciously aware of this book's existence until a few years ago when one of my professors was listing off a short bibliography of general books on drawing i might consult. this was before i had irrevocably signed my life away to the study of these fragile pieces of paper, but when he mentioned this little text, it suddenly came into focus in my mind. oh, yes, i thought, i know that one, my grandmother owned it. and then, when i opened it, and it fell immediately to the page pictured below, well, something clicked.


on the page opposite the opening lines of text was the drawing that had pushed me over the edge into a full-fledged and unabashed love of the drawing hand. this is the one that, more than once, has single-handedly caused salty drops of water to spill over onto my cheeks. and that's all fine and dandy, la ti da, but then, to think that my grandmother must have stared at the same drawing, to think that she knew a piece of me before i knew it myself, before it could be known at all, well, that's just sort of mindblowing for me.

bug, duck, and worm.

generally speaking, i am not a fan of rats. and so that i don't seem prejudiced, i want you to know that i have a lot of personal experience with rats. they're just...creepy, and have long, hairless tails. in theory, they could be cute, in much the same way chipmunks or squirrels or other small-ish rodents can be cute, but to be honest, i'd prefer a possum over a rat any day. my personal experience with possums is much more endearing, mainly because i used to care for one that would ride on my shoulder and hang upside down from my finger. but, earlier today, i was reminded of a few rats, namely duck, worm, and the late bug, who redeem the entire species. evidence below.

duck and worm

jessica florence photographs her rats and posts them on her flickr page and blog. they are the most adorable and snuggly rats ever, and jessica takes amazing photos of them. go visit her sites and check out the others. you will die from cuteness, i swear.

bug

worm

oh, and...

the last post reminded me of this, which is AWESOME. you just have to make it through the french at the beginning. there are pugs, people, dancing pugs.

inherited no. 5

it's that time of year that time itself seems to speed up. i have a feeling these last months of 2009 are going to pass me by quickly and all the sudden it will be 2010, which i hear we're supposed to call "twenty-ten." i've only just gotten used to prefacing years with "two thousand..."

having always been overly conscious of the passing of time, the way years keep flying by is somewhat disconcerting. (and yes, i know, it's only going to get worse.) i'm pretty sure i almost annoyed m.d. to death by making the following kind of statement A LOT: "this is the last monday i am going to brush my teeth at home before i go to camp for a month." or, much later, "this may be the last breath my father is ever going to take." it doesn't matter what it is, i have always been obsessed with being aware of time, of firsts and lasts, of where i am in it all. i want to feel it between my fingers, and i want to remember it all. luckily i have a few things that help me out with this.


this small clock is more substantial than it looks, cast entirely in metal and still ticking away, despite having been patented in 1894. originally my great-grandmother's, the paint has worn away in places and the color on the details has faded. it's just the way i like it.


i'm wearing this little watch as i type. it was my grandmother's, and i remember finding it many years after she died when my mom and i were going through a suitcase of things we had taken with us while cleaning out her house. it was mixed in with cufflinks and clip-on earrings and tie clips and costume jewelry. when i saw it i fell in love with how delicate it is, the tiny stones framing the watchface, the fact that it has to be wound everyday and never needs a battery. the crystal was all scratched up, so m.d. had it replaced for me, and it's been in my watch wardrobe ever since. i think of grandmother every time i look down, only to realize that too much time has passed.


the last of my inherited timepieces is the least functional of the three but perhaps the most beloved. my father never wore a watch, maybe because it would have made his work more dangerous (he'd already gotten his arm caught in a machine once). or maybe because pocket watches are exponentially cooler. and in case you haven't noticed, my father was, um, kind of really cool. so he always had his pocket watch, hanging heavy and worn in his jeans pocket. my mom gave me the last one he had not too long ago, and i had forgotten its weight, its smooth, cool metal casing. needless to say, i love this thing, but i REALLY cannot figure out what on earth is happening in the narrative on the front. the back is a swirly art nouveau floral pattern, but then, flip it over, and there is what appears to be a native american male, mounted on a horse, and next to him is a woman, also atop a horse, wearing a voluminous dress and sporting a headdress? a tiara? a veil? two dogs run in the foreground. so maybe it's a man and his bride, sort of new world business? clearly ethically questionable, yes. okay, but then why are there medieval looking castles in the background? i'm telling you, there are some serious anachronisms going on here. if you've got any ideas, please let me know.


i suppose if he were here, i would ask my dad what is going on with this watch. although, of course, if he were here, it would probably still be resting warmly and comfortably in the pocket of his jeans, and i wouldn't be holding on to time quite so tightly.

listening to: lightning dust. buy it. immediately.

a quick jaunt

tomorrow morning i leave bright and early for new york, off to the gift show for what is sure to be an exhausting few days. back soon. bacioni.

inherited no. 4

here i am, back for more. tonight i'm thinking about an inheritance that arrived in my possession via my mom aka mommerdoodle, often referred to here in the shorthand as m.d. she's the mommer to the doodle. i'm really trying to keep "gifts" out of this inherited series, but when i received this norton electric company telephone, patented in 1923(ish), it felt more like an inheritance than a gift. i knew it was mine for safekeeping.


by the way, before we move on to the specifics of this acquisition, i should mention that this phone was made in canada. to be honest, i wasn't aware anything but lifesavers were made in canada. (and this knowledge i owe to m.d.) who knew?

moving on.

this phone passed into my hands because my mother TALKS TO EVERY SINGLE PERSON SHE ENCOUNTERS...EVER. i often berate her for this behavior, but in all actuality, i wouldn't have her any other way. and, you know, i wouldn't have this amazing phone. the phone started out in the hands of a mr. jefferson, proprietor of a fish market in fairhope, alabama. i don't recall the details of how m.d. came to know mr. jefferson, but i know that he endeared himself to her by feeding and befriending the local feral cats and regaling her with stories of gambling in mississippi. just so you know, mr. jefferson is old, as in, when i met him several years ago, he showed me that he was a card-carrying veteran of world war II. the man fought in the battle of the bulge, people, and i am not joking. mr. jefferson had used this phone at his fish market for god knows how many years, and on the first day i met him and despite offers from others to pay good money for this weathered rotary dial antiquity, he handed me this treasure. and i don't believe it's because i was exceedingly charming or particularly interesting; it was solely because i am my mother's daughter. it's an object, a thing, a material possession no one needs, but there was something so moving about this transfer of goods. i have it, here, with me, as a reminder of an unlikely friendship between a slightly ornery old man and my overly friendly mother. it's a reminder of the good they saw in each other, and the good that i see in them.

i only met mr. jefferson the once, but i think of him whenever i pick up the heavy receiver of his phone. (and in case you're wondering, it still works after being adapted with a modern cord. the only problem is it sounds like a fire alarm on acid and increases risk of heart attack.) more importantly, whenever i see the phone, i hope that one day, i will be more like m.d. and not be afraid to walk up to a stranger and say hello. thank you, m.d., for talking to EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU ENCOUNTER...EVER.

m.d. with a fish in her hand
bet you didn't think you'd see this on the internets, huh, m.d.?

can i go back to bed?

i wish i were writing something more exciting, but right now i'm feeling rather uncharitable toward the world at large. i'm exhausted from my travels and working 14 hour days, and i would feel better about that if i could imagine this frenzied pace might slow a bit. but i'm discouraged by how much i have to do in the next few weeks, preparing for a class i'll be teaching every monday evening from 7:00 to 10:00, writing a syllabus for my spring course, working on my ghirlandaio chapter, heading back to new york for the gift show, and don't forget regular work as well...i'm just a bit overwhelmed and frustrated and annoyed. i was looking at all the things i might write about this morning, and i just couldn't work up enough enthusiasm to do them justice. i'll wait for a better day.

mi dispiace.

hello friends. contrary to what my recent lack of posting suggests, i have not dropped off the face of the planet. i'm just working. a lot. and i just spent 36 hours in new york buying at the accessories circuit. can i just say the orla kiely booth was unbelievable? her dress forms were made of her own fabric. le sigh. i'll hopefully get back to business soon. xoxo.

an ode to flat-faced dogs, part trois.

okay, so i've basically already forced everyone who reads this blog to watch this video, but since i watch it approximately three times per day, i thought it would be worth preserving here. i found it via cute overload.

book love.

as you may be aware, i am practically incapable of cooking. it's not like i want to be that way, it's just that i am too tightly wound to get all free-spirited in the kitchen. i don't like making mistakes or do-overs. plus i live alone, and that does not bode well for any baked goods that might issue from my kitchen. well, it bodes well for the baked goods but not for my hips. still, i love a good cookbook. and by good i mean it must be lavishly illustrated and devoid of detailed instructions for deboning some piece of meat. tessa kiros's apples for jam may be my favorite cookbook OF ALL TIME. i cannot wait for her newest book, venezia, to come out in september.

who could resist those red shoes on the cover? and yes, m.d., you'll notice a surprisingly pleasant combination of pink and red. this cookbook is a combination of recipes and memories, and it is organized by color, which is pretty much the snazziest thing ever.
here are some more snapshots of its interior.

each chapter starts with a list of recipes for that color and a photo or two. here's brown with a photo of the family dog and a few doodles by tessa's children.

and then each chapter has a memory for that color. and here you see a chocolate loaf. a LOAF OF CHOCOLATE, people.

i love this photo combination. that's raspberry ripple ice cream from the stripes chapter. (and the vertical stripes in the photo are courtesy of my blinds.)

um, yeah. i don't think i need to say anything here.

there are little passages of handwritten text throughout the book, and i love tessa's script. they're often paired with the children's illustrations. the kids are given credit on the title page with this endearing notation "illustrations by the mice." i love it, almost as much as i love these little horses.

what it comes down to is that i want to show you all the photographs and illustrations and recipes in this book, but that's not exactly feasible. so please go buy it so we can gush over it endlessly. thanks, and you never know, maybe i'll get all crazy in the kitchen as a result of tessa kiros's cookbook genius.

inherited no. 3

grandmother, katherine, and me
(i'm the one wearing the sweatband, yes, i said sweatband.)

my grandmother was probably my first best friend. hers was the second phone number i learned, after my own, and i loved to call her and discuss the merits of sesame street. besides spoiling me completely rotten, what i remember most about my grandmother was long conversations about whatever suited our fancy. when i spent the night my grandaddy was relegated to the guest bedroom, and she and i would stay up late trading words in the dark, in the same house that my father had nearly burned down as a teenager. (he wasn't kidding about coming home shooting and yelling.) my grandmother died in 1994, when i was twelve, and the loss seems somehow magnified with each passing year. how i would love to dial 236-6182 and hear her voice on the other end! i want to have the luxury of knowing her as a person, not just as my grandmother. i have a few things that help me out in this department, and one of my favorites is this, her box of rembrandt pastels, which i never knew existed until after her death. (and i am thankful to m.d. for noticing them and bringing them home when we cleaned out her house.)


the box is wooden and stained and clearly BEAUTIFUL. there's even a little dutchman sitting in the corner holding a pastel the size of his body. why don't pastels come in such snazzy packaging these days? even more lovely than the outside, though, is the inside:


there are rows of dusty pastels, tattered wrappers and broken bits, well worn by time and use. when i was little i knew my grandmother liked to draw, but it wasn't until she was gone that i came to understand that it was more than just a hobby. she studied and read and practiced and filled notebooks with directives, and now that i'm older, now that i know how dear drawing is to my own heart, it is comforting to think that there is yet another thread of kinship stringing us together. she and i, you see, we would still be best friends. i leave you with my favorite photo of muriel, in happy days.

sweet treat

sometimes you just need to watch something that makes you feel warm and fuzzy. feist, on sesame street, with penguins, monsters, and chickens. love.

an ode to flat-faced dogs, part deux.

image from silocurb's etsy shop

oh how i wish i had snagged this little frenchie figurine from silocurb's etsy shop. i saw it, favorited it, and then it was gone. i'm not normally a fan of figurines, but this one is just too perfect. luckily, the listing indicated it was made by erphila in germany, so i am always on the lookout for another one. one day, little pup, you will be mine.

a to the z...p is for pollaiuolo!

so, we all know that i like art, and i like systems of order. that means i was thinking i might do a little alphabet-based series of my favorite artists, because that is SO original. watch out, sister wendy. as i was thinking about the artists i might choose, i started to get overwhelmed. i mean, how am i to choose between bellmer, balla, botticelli, and bernini? and that's just the first four "b" names i came up with. i am therefore trying to narrow it down a bit by choosing artists whose work has profoundly affected me in some way. like in a walk into the gallery and want to die from awesomeness kind of way. and because i don't feel like writing about any of my "a" options, i'm getting a little crazy with it and starting with "p." (does this make using the alphabet kind of pointless?)

p is a nice letter. you know what starts with p? pollaiuolo. yeah, sesame street, you just try and sound that one out. take that, elmo. anyway, want to see what pollaiuolo looks like?

image from wright, the pollaiuolo brothers

before i assault you with a description of how jaw-dropping this work is, i just want to say that i scanned this image out of a ten-pound tome, and it was all for YOU. on to our pal antonio, who never receives the credit he is due, poor man. p was rocking it in the late fifteenth century in florence, and to be honest, i never thought that much about him until i was studying drawings at the uffizi and this one landed on the table in front of me. i loved it from the moment i saw it, and i continue to fight for its relevance with a vehemence i never thought i'd feel for pollaiuolo. please, dear and beloved reader, please click on the image so you can at least see it larger for a moment. then come back to me so that i can tell you that each line is almost incised into the paper, sketchy but sure, executed with a rapidity rarely found in drawing of this time. the subject matter helps, it's saint john the baptist, all decked out in his animal skins, looking, um, ascetic to say the least. the stroke of the pen, the quickness of the hand mirror the intense emotional tenor of the saint -- the image almost seems to vibrate. if you could only see the density of lines in the face, if you could see the way the tiniest dashes of ink create a face that is read as rugged and worn from the elements and the passage of time. this drawing rocks my world not just because it's aesthetically pleasing, but also because it's the kind of drawing that you can feel being drawn, you can see pollaiuolo thinking on the page, the hand and the mind skirmishing a bit, a little here, a little there. to have this drawing sitting on the table in front of me, in the city of its making, with nothing but the sacred air of the uffizi to separate us, is practically a religious experience for me. for a moment my pen could be pollaiuolo's. i am home, i understand.

and now you see why i'm writing a dissertation on this whole business, because obviously i can't shut up. if i keep at it, no one is going to read this blog, even people who are obligated to read it. i am talking to you, m.d. forgive me, i just love it so, and that can't be a bad thing, right?

soundtrack: matt & kim; sophie chewing on her bone

the stewart girls

after my sister katherine was born, my mom, sister, and i were collectively known as the stewart girls. we did everything together. my mom was even crazy enough to take two children under the age of ten on extremely long road trips by herself. it's a good thing i was there to be annoyingly bossy. right now my sister is visiting my mom in alabama, and i wish i were there.

as to the above photograph, i never gave much thought to the massive map that was plastered on our living room wall when i was little, but now i think it must have been pretty awesome. luckily you are not being subjected to any visual evidence of the burnt orange crush velvet pit group on which we are sitting. also, see that quilt i'm snuggling with lovingly? yeah, that disappeared, and someone claims to have no knowledge of its fate. hmm. please note the adorableness of sleeping katherine aka katosaurus rex.

anxiously awaiting...

the posting of this print on giant robot's webshop:

(photo from boygirlparty)

i love, love, love the way susie ghahremani draws. it's a boston terrier on a bike with a cat in his basket and they are wearing SCARVES. it seriously gives me the warm fuzzies.

inherited no. 2

my father, wearing some really unfortunate pants

as i was considering what sorts of things i might include among this collection of inheritances, i realized the list was getting quite long (and grows still). which is a nice feeling, actually, to be surrounded by things that once belonged to people i love. i thought i might begin with a most meager of inheritances, a letter from my father to his parents, scrawled in little boy cursive handwriting on tissue thin tracing paper. i should also say that, somewhere along the line, i became the treasurer of all the family photos and documents. not because my mom didn't want them, but because i pretty much demanded control of any material goods that preserved our familial history. (and now they're all labeled and filed away in acid free envelopes with family trees hand drawn on the back. and no, i don't need therapy.) i can't imagine life without all of these smelly old papers and crinkled photographs. if i didn't have them, i wouldn't be able to post embarrassing photos of my father on the internets.


this letter from camp reads: "dear father and mother, i am enjoying my stay here. i bought myself [a] davy crockett t-shirt and two dragnet pistols. [ed. note: pistols?!?] monday i rode ponys [sic]. tuesday i rode [a] pony and went to a picnic. wensday [sic] i went to stone mountain and the zoo. i took pictures of stone mountain and the animals in the zoo. i am a member of the davy crockett club. because davy came to atlanta. i am also a member of the dragnet club. i will bring doug [ed. note: his older brother] something back if i can. your loving son, scott p.s. i'll be coming home shooting and yelling."

ah, just what every parent wants to hear. also please note the artfully drawn floral motif directly above this threatening postscript. i love this letter, of course in part because it's a window into my father's childhood, and who doesn't enjoy that? but it's also that my father's letters to me when i was a child are one of the few things i have left of him. i can confirm that his correspondence remained charming and spunky, even forty years after he penned this epistle to his parents.

and because it's awesome, here is my father mounting what appears to be a triceratops:

i am feeling a bit self-indulgent (i guess i should feel that way by virtue of having a blog), but feel free to rein me in if i get too indulgent. xoxo.

an ode to flat-faced dogs, part one.

you already know this about me, but i'll say it anyway: i love flat-faced dogs. boston terriers top the list, but i'm also continually charmed by frenchies, pugs, boxers, bulldogs, and any combination thereof. what do you get when you have an obsession with smooshy faces and paper goods? paper goods featuring smooshy faces, such as this painfully adorable letterpress card by sycamore street press:


here it is all framed up and ready to be hung, because i want to look at this EVERY SINGLE DAY. look at that face.

just so we're clear, there are a few reasons why i love the brachycephalic breeds. it all began with the much beloved monsieur mickerdoodle.

that's right, people, mick is here pictured sporting an anthropologie sweater.

two of my greatest loves, mister puppy and hedgie.

and then came romey-roo, the dearest of dears.

sorry, i realize the above photo probably caused you to convulse with shock. never fear, it's just milo the kilo. he has a complex about his flat face and once tried to take off my nose to level the playing field.

and then there was sophie aka soph-a-doph. forty pounds of flat-faced goodness.

sometimes she's a bit of a coy critter.

don't worry, as much as i enjoy captioning photographs of my pets with ridiculous dialogue, i will not morph into a doggyblogger. i just thought we'd get the introductions out of the way. stay tuned for additional odes. xoxo.

listening to: regina spektor, 'dance anthem of the 80s'

coeur de pirate love

i love coeur de pirate intensely. i very rarely know about what she's singing, but no matter...here she is covering 'umbrella' with julien dore. lovely, lovely.

inherited no. 1

as i was thinking about things we might discuss, i realized i would really like to document all the amazing things i've inherited over the course of my twenty-seven years. it would be nice if i could pretend that things aren't really that important, but the truth is, i LOVE my material possessions, especially ones that have a history. really, the idea of cataloging my inheritances satisfies two desires, the first being to talk about beloved objects, the other to document, document, document. my grandfather was a genealogist, and it seems that his tendency to research, organize, and preserve was most definitely passed down. so, here is my first inheritance, and one that has taken way too long to become functional.


suffice to say that i am not the best photographer in the world. (attention m.d. aka mommerdoodle, why is this so yucky? please assist.) suzannah, my employer and friend, gave me this little turquoise lamp awhile back. isn't it darling? but it didn't have a shade, and that presented a problem that ballooned into "the neverending and absolutely ingratiating quest for a lampshade with appropriate parts." finally i ordered a burlap lampshade from one of our vendors, thinking this would be perfetto. yeah, measuring first would have been good. the lampshade was way too tall for this petite little lamp, here accompanied by a crispina recycled sweater chick and kata golda turtle tea cup. i don't think of myself as someone who typically goes ninja on household projects, but i got a wild hair and started decimating the lampshade. basically, i shortened it, which entailed purchasing double fold bias tape and approximately seven different types of adhesive. it's not perfect, but its imperfections are fairly negligible, which means i can finally use this lamp! it's only been lying dormant in my closet for a year. i should go ninja more often.