Memorial Day Recap

There is something euphoric about waking up on Monday not to the sound of your alarm clock, but instead to the drum of a peaceful highway, the chirping and chattering of birds and squirrels, and the smell of coffee brewed slowly, instead of in a haste of trying to get ready for work.

So naturally, I'm a HUGE fan of any holiday that falls on a Monday.

Aside from the fact that Memorial Day reminds us to take a minute in gratitude and remembrance, it also conveniently gives us a three day weekend to spend doing all the things our brave military men and women fought to keep free for us.

Things like getting drunk with your parents, playing ladder ball in the backyard, stuffing your face with watermelon, laughing with your brother, taking a long bike ride, setting shit on fire, drinking cheap gas station icees, planting something to care for and watch grow, and being grateful for every simple thing.

Have a look.

Hope you guys had an amazing weekend. I did.

xo.

oh, and obviously these are my personal pictures. So don't be a dick and take them without permission. 

Nine Lives

So I've been wearing make-up since I was like, 15 or something. As such, I'm pretty adept at applying my own. I'd never charge for my services or anything, but I can handle contour and bronzer with the best of 'em.

So when I went into Sephora the other day and dropped over $20 (including tax) on what Elle, InStyle, and my make-up savvy friends have called the greatest, most awesomest, totally worth the money eyeliner, I was fairly confident in my ability to use it. Liquid liner can't be all that different than a satin pencil, right?

Um, wrong. I got home, took all my make-up off, and began to apply what I thought was a sexy, day-time cat-eye liner look. However, when I opened both my eyes, it looked like an actual cat applied it for me. With it's paws. And no thumbs.

And all I wanted was to look something like this:

I cannot, for the life of me, figure this shit out. Maybe my hand's not steady enough, maybe I'm finally developing arthritis. I don't know. All I know is that the line is never straight and this has everything to do with operator error and nothing to do with product. When that shit says "Stay All Day," they aren't kidding. I was stuck with a strange, uneven eye squiggle all freakin' day long.

Do you guys have any tips on how to apply liquid liner with grace and not with the dexterity of a blind toddler trying to use scissors for the first time?

It'd be much appreciated :)

Hope you guys have a fantastic weekend. It's officially the start of Summer!

xo.

Novel Accessories from Kate Spade

So a few days ago, I was deleting all the stupid shit from checking my email, and in my fury of deletion, nearly missed one from the lovely people at Kate Spade.

Now I don't ever, ever open emails like these - not from Banana Republic or The Loft or Michael's or Mattress Direct - even though, as my grandmother warns me, there could be coupons in there. Turns out, I'm just not a huge online shopper and I'd rather just be at the store. Plus, I've never actually purchased anything from Kate Spade. It's not really my aesthetic.

But when these beauties appeared in my inbox, I found myself obsessively staring at my screen, trying to figure out how I was going to justify spending $325 on a bag that can barely hold Chapstick and a tampon, instead of buying groceries for the month.

     

 

How charming are these?? Ugh. I'd invent plans just to constitute my carrying them. They've apparently been around for awhile, but they're new to me. A little black dress or your basic dark skinny jeans and heels are begging for this kind of quirky accessory.

BONUS: They were also featured on my friend Taylor's adorable little blog, The Paper Dahls, so take a look over there too.

Hope you all had a fantastic Mother's Day! Happy Monday.

xo.

A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer

Ugh.

Hang in there with me dears. This post won't be punctuated by cute, appropriate little pictures between the paragraphs.

Despite my best efforts, today's been one of those days where I cannot stop questioning like, everything about the life path that I've chosen for myself.

Guys, it's not like I'm aspiring to be an accountant, or a nurse, or a teacher or dentist anything, although each of these is an admirable goal to strive for - except dentistry.

No. Instead, I have decided to dedicate my life to being a writer. Now, this hasn't been an overnight thing. All my life, it's the ONLY thing that has ignited me. Lit me up like a trailer park at Christmas time. It's been ingrained into my cells since I could put words together.

But I might as well be 6 years old telling my mom I want to be a princess or ninja when I grow up. Most people smile and nod and placate me with pleasantries when they ask me what I want to do. But then, inevitably, they say, "No, like, what do you to do, like for a living?" Ninety percent of the time I just smile and laugh and internally applaud myself for not being ignorant and short-sighted.

But today, for whatever reason, it sank in. It started with the fucking financial aid office at school telling me that unless the IRS processes and releases my tax transcripts (which can take 11 friggin weeks) by July 29, I will be forced to drop all my classes for Fall semester. This incident mutated into the following thought process:

Writing career = college degree + fancy shmancy internships + great connections garnered from said internships = fulfillment = living up to my divine responsibility to serve the masses with my profound and progressive mastery of the English language.

Somehow my entire writing life became hinged to attending classes in the Fall. Without them, I'd no doubt find myself to be 60, sitting wrapped in a tattered blanket, clutching the teeny handful of clips I'd managed to get published in my meager life, rocking back and forth mumbling lines from Sex and the City. I'm also severely drunk in this mental scenario. And also living somewhere like Mississippi. Dear readers, Mississippi fucking sucks. I don't want to end up there. No offense to any Mississippians who have found their way to my blog.

So, really long story less long, I've spent all day questioning why I want to commit my whole life to something I may never touch. What if all those people are right and all I do with my degree is become a bookkeeper at a mattress factory? What if all those people who scoffed at my degree choice would finally get to laugh their asses off and between gasps for air, point and say "I told you so?"

Maybe I should just give it up now and get a business degree. Or better yet, drop out and start applying with Sealy or SleepNumber.

All this negativity drove me to a bath tonight. I tried to sit down and write to center myself, but the thoughts kept coming and nothing felt good. I practically spoke out loud to the universe, begging to be validated in this very scary and uncertain choice I'd made for myself. It was just...bad. I needed a quiet, dark room that smelled like lavender and epsom salt, window open with the hum of the distant highway, to try and calm down and get my shit together.

I brought a book with me - A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer - to try and focus on something else. The book isn't new; it came out several years ago. But I found it for a dollar at a kickass Atlanta thrift store and bought it. It's a collection of writings from the likes of Dave Eggars, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Edward Albee to name a few, whose purpose it is to bring attention to violence against women and girls.

I opened it up and began reading, and like a light from beyond, read this introduction:

Words. Words. This book is indeed about words. Speaking the unspoken. Speaking the spoken in a new and viable way, speaking the pain, speaking the hunger. Speaking. Speaking about violence against women not because it is the only issue, but because it is an issue that that lives smack in the middle of the world and is still not spoken, not seen, not given weight or significance. So that words crack open numbness and denial and disassociation and distance and deception. Speaking so that we are in community, in conscience, in concern. 

Speaking about violence against women because in 2006, young Amish girls are gunned down in their school just because they are girls; women are trafficked like meat sold from poor neighborhoods to men in rich neighborhoods; women are raped in Darfur on their way to get wood from the fire or grass for their donkeys. In 2006, women are burned and mutilated and stoned and dismissed and undone and refused and silenced...Speaking about violence against women because of your mother, your sister, your aunt, your daughter, your girlfriend, your best friend, your wife. Speaking about violence against women because the story of women is the story of life itself. In speaking about it, you cannot avoid speaking about racism and domination, poverty and patriarchy, empire building, war, sexuality, desire, imagination...Speaking about violence, telling the stories, because in the telling, we legitimize women's experience...

We need writers in these terrible times of deception and manipulation and sound bites and half-investigated truths...We don't have many real leaders, we don't have many politicians we can trust. But we can trust writers. Rather than selling us something, they are exploring something; rather than dominating us, they are opening us; rather than winning or having a position, they are inviting us to ask questions. 

We need each and every writer, each and every artist, to tell the truth the way he or she sees, the way it comes through her or him...

I thank you, the reader for taking this journey.

-Eve Ensler

The time is took for me to read that was all it took to re-center myself. THAT is why I will do this. It's why I don't mind the waiting or the nannying I have to do to pay the bills. We are all stories. And those stories matter. Writers make us all immortal. And I'm so, so lucky to be gifted with the opportunity to do it for the rest of my life. 

Even if I have to make that opportunity for myself, everyday. 

xo. 

P.S. Don't worry, I'll never become a dentist. I'd sooner die.

Vampires, Vagabonds, and Voodoo

So after not nearly enough time, my mom and I have made it back from the land of no open container laws, and I must say - it was one of the cooler experiences of my life.

New Orleans is a place that sticks to your soul the same way jambalaya sticks to your ribs. And the food is a perfectly good indicator of the people. Warm, robust, loud, and so, so good.

The best part for me though was watching my mom, who hasn't even been to downtown Atlanta in 10 years, see a city that was so alive and full of spirit. It's a place that is awake and just...proud - of who they are and where they've been. There are streets, buildings, entire blocks, still in recovery from Katrina, and while the rest of us have managed to effortlessly forget, these people stare at it every single day. They don't turn away or try and cover it. It's as a part of the landscape as the lazy trees Mardi Gras beads. The air there is thick with resilience and good ol' fashioned gumption, the likes of which I desperately hope I brought home with me.

Everywhere we went, the people were so welcoming and helpful, offering bright hellos and 'come on ins.' And it was humbling to be at such a vivid cross-section of this country - black, white, gay, rich, clothed, half-naked - everyone is always welcome. It doesn't hurt that there are "cocktail-to-go" bars all over the place either, eager to serve up hurricanes in plastic cups to take with you as you wander around trying to see as much as you possibly can.

As far as the Jazz Festival itself, it was absolutely worth the trip down there. Despite the acres of knee-deep sand and mud, despite the crazy man offering my mom and I mushrooms (we regretfully declined), despite 50,000 people and no elbow room - despite all this there was music. Amazing jazz music, amazing bluegrass. There was Fleetwood Mac and singing Landslide with Stevie Nicks and my mom and almost crying because she looked so, so happy. I'd never trade being there for anything.

That's the thing about New Orleans. Whether you want it to or not, it wakes you up. It summons buried parts of yourself that you nearly let die. It taught me new things about my mom and about myself. It forced me to feel comfortable in my own skin. Their strength spills over.

But what can you expect from a people and a place that have such a strong, tight sense of community that not even a natural disaster can quell it? They offer no apologies for their scars and they welcome you in with all of yours, never a question asked.

It's a place where you can come as you are and leave better than you were, if you allow yourself to be opened up to new and crazy and amazing things. It's rich with magic and hospitality and even the streets sing.

If you ever find yourself with a chance to visit, do it. Eat the beignets, drink too much, soak up the jazz. Let it seep into you then bring it back home.

You'll be glad you did.

xo.

Blowing Off Cobwebs and Getting Ready to Go

Holy cow, the crickets were getting pretty loud over here. I wish I had some awesome excuse, but really, all I've been doing is packing and studying and taking tests and writing papers and dealing with plumbers and having no hot water.

Needless to say, my blogging inspiration had been kind of depleted.

I did want to check in though and remind everyone, because every single one of you definitely probably forgot and totally wants to know, I LEAVE FOR NEW ORLEANS IN LIKE, 36 HOURS. To see Fleetwood Mac, and Willie Nelson, and the Black Keys, and Gary Clarke, Jr and about a bajillion other amazing musicians. And, since it's May 1 (holy shit, it's May?), I can say that Bonnaroo is next month. Whoop whoop.

I'm so fucking excited. You can tell by my gratuitous use of expletives.

I'm so excited in fact, that I decided to take a break from studying and writing a paper on the forced assimilation of Native Americans to bring you guys some Summer music festival inspiration.

So yeah. Tomorrow, I'm turning in a final paper, finalizing outfits, loading up the car, and come 5am Friday, I'll be headed to Louisiana to officially start my summer.

It's a beautiful thing, folks.

Happy May Day.

xo.

By the way, none of these images belong to me and I claim no rights to them.

Above the Fold - Some Afterthoughts on the Aftershock of the Boston Marathon Bombings

Originally published April 20, 2013

The world felt a little different this morning when I woke up than it did yesterday, than it has all week, really.

According to news reports, the big bad wolf, "Suspect No. 2" in the Boston Marathon bombings has been taken into custody, his FBI Wanted poster updated to read 'Captured.' And the world is perceived as safe once again.

But there's been something about this whole process, something about the constant, relentless stream of confused, convoluted news coverage, that doesn't make me feel as comforted as I think Dzhokar Tsarnaev's capture was supposed to.

I started gorging on news updates yesterday morning, when I turned on NPR in my car and was informed that the better part of the entire Metropolitan area of Boston was engaged in a military state-like lockdown, with civilians being removed from or locked inside their homes until law enforcement instructed them to come out. People reported the streets of Watertown as "choked" with law enforcement personnel, marching like robots with SWAT guns up and down residential streets, determined to catch the one that got away.

Now, to begin, I was as shocked and appalled and sickened by what happened last Monday as everyone. The deaths and injuries suffered at the hands of fanatical violence was nothing short of horrifying - that there are people everywhere, even here, seemingly dedicated to harming innocent people and creating an air of chaos and fear. So catching and discovering who was responsible for this, if only to ask them why, was something I was waiting on alongside the people of Boston and the rest of this country.

But at what cost do we seek justice, and for that matter, information? From the beginning of the entire ordeal, local and national news outlets began scrambling for something, anything, to share with the general public to appease their appetite for answers. But because of this voracious hunger for blame, for a reason, the likes of the media were constantly back-peddling, correcting wrong information, recalling "persons of interests," and whiting out impetuous calls for public aid in finding the horrible, criminal, evil person that did this.

That is what has troubled me about the entire ordeal AFTER the original, awful ordeal. We are all so eager, and anxious and SCARED, that we're ready to criminalize and crucify the first person that we can match to a face on a security video. Not to mention that, in cases like these and in times like these, quality journalism is often sacrificed to the immediacy of information that comes from Twitter and Facebook and YouTube - regardless of quality. And that expansive digital exposure is conducive to nothing except, from what I've seen, a resurgence in lovely terms like, "towel head," and ignorantly, "kill that sand nigger." Practicing Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. I refuse to believe, despite what I'm being fed, that generalizing an entire group of people as fanatical, violent, and terroristic can promote any type of peace or progress.

That's not denying that social media outlets can be helpful, and sometimes even crucial, in sharing information.

But if all this information that we're being fed is fear-mongering, plagued with reactionary, retaliatory information that breeds uncertainty and anxiety, then what progress are we actually making. And at what cost? Atlanta is a long way from Boston, but I felt the fear from all those people locked in their homes, a bustling metropolis forced to become a ghost-town, trickle down the coast and make its way all the way here to me. How much has actually been done, and who has really won, if the cost of all this was the shutting down of daily life, for hours and hours; a country of people now wondering, "has terrorism finally come home?" and a 19 year old kid, in a heavily guarded hospital room, with a hole in his throat so severe that there's a good opportunity that we may never hear him say anything for himself.

I'm grateful that we may have some answers now, and I hope that we do. But this entire awful situation has me not only slightly disappointed in our aggressive need to gobble up whatever shoddy information we can get, but also in the future role that accurate news reporting will play in our lives. Because it takes a lot more effort these days to sift through it all and find non-biased, even-keeled facts.

These are very uneasy times. I hope that in our attempts to make sense of it, we aren't jumping to fear-based conclusions and instead focusing on discovering, in time, everything we can to avoid things like this happening again.

xo.

National Poem in Your Pocket Day

I won't be surprised if none of you have heard of this wonderous holiday. But after today, you'll have no excuse.

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day. The one day of the year dedicated to carrying words that you love around with you, to share or trade or keep.

There's something comforting about keeping your favorite poet's words close to you. But there's something even cooler about the idea of leaving it somewhere, in a book or on a bench, or if you're stealthy enough, in someone else's pocket for someone else to find and share and fall in love with. It's an opportunity to start a conversation, if you decide to give yours away, add something kinda beautiful to the world that wasn't there before.

Words are important. Sharing them and what they mean to you is even more important. We're made up of everything we devour - stories, words, lyrics, and even poems. And I think it's pretty rad that there's a day specifically for celebrating that.

Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day, loves :)

Monday Night Movie Review - Double Feature - Argo and Hitchcock

I actually watched these movies last night in a vain attempt to leach out as much weekend as possible. But alas, Monday inevitably comes. Even when you stay up way too late watching great movies.

Hitchcock

"Style is merely self-plagarism."

I didn't hear much about this movie before I decided to check it out. But as a Hitchcock lover (yes, even Vertigo), I felt it was my cinematic duty to watch it. And I'm so glad I did. Anthony Hopkins is almost unrecognizable as Alfred Hitchcock and he plays the role with such a perfect nuance that it never occurs to you that it's Hopkins under all that rotund make-up. And the acting is at its best when Hopkins plays up that lesser-known Hitchcock humor. 

If I'm being honest though, and I usually am, the best part of the movie was Helen Mirren as Alfred Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville. First of all, Helen Mirren is like, one of the classiest, sexiest ladies in movies. And she plays the role of wife to the renowned director with such impact that your mind is forced the divide the concept of starring role. Alma was Hitchcock's best friend, creative partner, soundboard, and most trusted confidant. Seeing their relationship, even in a semi-fictional portrayal, reminded me that such things actually still exist in the world. Her character is played to the hilt and she is never one-upped by her co-star or his namesake.

The movie is essentially the story of the making of Psycho and is based on the aptly titled book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. There are some cinematic embellishments, but the movie takes you from Psycho's conception (including a supposed bizarre obsession for Ed Gein, on whom Psycho is based, by Mr. Hitchcock) all the way to its cinematic debut and subsequent success. 

It was seriously so good. A little bit of history, a little bit of humor, and Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh. Boom. Go see it.

Argo

This is a long movie. But seriously, you don't even notice because it's so friggin good. Turns out Ben Affleck knows what the hell he's doing. 

Some of you may have already seen it in the theater, but I waited until it came out on Redbox because 

1. I'm too busy to go to the movies (not true).  

2. I'm cheap (super true). 

Anyways, the movie chronicles the true story of the CIA rescue of 6 Americans hiding in the Canadian Embassy, who escaped when Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S Embassy in Iran in the late 1970's. I obviously immediately fell in love with the set treatments and costuming, but I also absolutely loved the story. Everything built so slowly, so delicately. And its story delivered on every promise. Nail-biting. Intense. Late 1970's mustaches in full force. What more could a proud American, or anyone really, want in a movie? 

Creative liberties were obviously taken in terms of story, but I don't think it subtracted from the overall purpose of the film - which was to acknowledge one of the prouder (and those are getting fewer and fewer) moments in American and Canadian history. It highlighted a collaboration between national governments that was essentially free of ego and utterly successful. And it also made me seriously question the vastness of information we as citizens may never know.

Totally worth the time and money. And I would feel the same way even if I'd spent $12 to see it. Hey. Don't judge me. Do you know how much Nutella $12 can buy? A week's worth, at least. 

Happy Monday. 

xo. 

Update: I'd just like to mention that I'm sending nothing but love to everyone in Boston this afternoon. So, so sad. 

All images found via Google