via Moon to Moon, run-down houses by Kevin Bauman
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Fully aware of the delicate nature of getting personal on the internet. Have started telling myself to cut it out, so we'll see how that goes. Meantime, things carrying on, most domestic and normal, some out of the crazy. Let's see. Both cats have been let out, though I couldn't exactly let Lou free without a collar of some kind. Ornery or not, he has nice fur and someone will take him, I know it. I've met some mothers, finally, at my first ever book-club meeting where there was a lot more wine drinking than book-talking, let me tell you. That was refreshing. The weather has been beautiful most of the time, hitting 80s and 70s (through dropping yesterday, so whatever) - we've been on the porch a lot. Abbott plays in his playpen out there, talks to old popcorn boxes and his play kitchen. Andrew's been building a coffee table from some salvaged wood taken from the piles that used to be the Section 8 housing across the street from the baseball stadium. I hung two hammocks in the backyard with neighbors. We watch The West Wing every night before bed, sometimes in the weekend afternoons when the baby sleeps. Lately in dreams Sam Seaborn is my best friend and we're sort of fighting crime - that's not a joke. My Etsy shop closed for good, which was sad at first but now sort of liberating. There have been some wonderful things to enjoy in these past weeks, and some sad things to ponder on.
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A good friend of mine told me of a horrible experience she once had with a misrepresentation in a magazine article interview, which she granted to a person she trusted after being told the article wouldn't have a negative spin on it. The interview was basically about her life, where she was, what she'd done, what she had or hadn't accomplished by that time. When the article ran --in a very high-profile magazine, by the way-- it was written not by the person she spoke with, but by whomever the notes had been passed to, and her life story became spun into something most people would be ashamed of. Her quotes were taken out of context and so were details regarding her state of mind, her moving and traveling habits and reason, and how many years it took her to finish college. Basically it made her out to be a loser when she wasn't.
She told me about it the other day in her kitchen, when I'd come over to vent that I'd had a hurtful encounter with some really bitter and "anonymous" people on an internet site devoted to taking down Etsy sellers they believe to be impostors. We talked about human nature and what it is about some of us that makes us so vindictive and hurtful, or self-righteous.
The magazine's web publication ran this article that was written about her --with her full legal name-- and when it did the comments that followed completely tore her apart. They ripped into her without a thought. The anonymity that surrounds the internet comment box is an invisible cloak. People say what they want and don't care to spell-check or use correct grammer, they just hate on whoever it is they're hating on. So much so, that these comments about my friend had less and less to do with the actual content in the article, and more and more to do with whatever personal wars these people were hoping to fight and win. Wars about people who are directionless and godless, who aren't saved by Jesus Christ, who waste the taxpayers' money, who have "Peter Pan Syndrome" and refuse to grow up, who live off their parents, always sleep in and always, always rent.
I have no idea how long it took her to shake this off, or if it's even happened. The virtual hate mail hurt her. We talked about teenage kids and how fragile their psyche is, how it's no wonder they consider and commit suicide in a world where so many people don't care about people, only about how they can most effectively and anonymously (read: safely for themselves) hurt them.
Anyway, happy thoughts to you.
Thank you,
Girl, you're a goddess.
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Things are starting to feel a little better now that we have some vague ideas about what our forseeable future might look like. The apartment doesn't seem as tiny, though the warm weather has retreated, keeping us indoors. With our visit to Philly I was able to bring home a few boxes of my belongings which have been sitting in my old place for over a year. It's like Christmas. I'm still in the middle of taking pictures of the cooler stuff I'd forgotten I had, but soon I'll be plastering them all over here.
Other updates: Abbott has suddenly blossomed into a moving, thinking person, and is showing intense signs of being, ahem, very intelligent -- a pre-scholar, I've begun calling him (n'yuk n'yuk...) Andrew and I celebrated the first anniversary of our shotgun wedding last week. We ate Mexican with my dad and reminisced about how kind our judge had been. I got Andrew five yoga classes - we're determined to mobilize toward our goal of getting back into shape since the baby.
I've dyed my hair a nice, natural blonde, something I've never done before. We've ordered a jersey mannequin so I can finally start selling some clothes. I'm going to apply for a part time job this week. I'm looking for Philly apartments on Craigs List. Things are okay. We're taking it one week a time here, folks. Thanks for reading and browsing.
[via]
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Since it's the weekend, here are more things I've
found while being lazy and procrastinating
with the housework. Incidentally, Andrew
is being productive and baking cookies and
cooking soup for tonight's dinner with my dad.
Weekends are always good for loosing track of time online.
This here treasury is just another collection of awesome
things and a really great colour motif. Agree?
things and a really great colour motif. Agree?
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Haven Vintage
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This really belongs in the Visuals section, but I thought it fit this bill too,
since you could frame these incredible photographs and hang them on
your wall. They also showcase a certain way of life that I'm sure you'll
recognize throughout this page's history as well. I'm sighing deeply.
f2 Images
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Amy, am I allowed to repost this? Because it's just too awesome.
If you can't see the above video, go to Amy's page and see it. It's lovely.
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2/1/11
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from abbytrysagain.type
This (below) is something I think I could do to keep me up and focused. Andrew suggested taping images of things that keep me motivated taped to a prominent wall in our apartment, as in, like, a collage or something. I disagree only because it would be maddeningly cluttered-looking. Something like this, however, could work.
from ashleyannphotography
1/31/11
*must get better about dating posts
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"...I want to talk about beds, and what makes them: soft, cool sheets; squishy, delicious pillows; and layers to pull up from the end of the bed when it is chilly. Everything about a bed should envelop you and feel crisp and clean and gentle on the skin...
You may not know this, but our bed is in our living room.
This happened when our son was four and half months old, and in no way sleeping through the night. We were at the end of our tether. Each night was spent with a very awake baby in our arms, trying to get him to sleep, whispering angry words at one another about who was more tired. He would stay up for several hours which blurred into one span of time that seemed to both speed up (gobbling up precious sleep time) and slow down (making it unbearable,) and then finally sleep for maybe an hour straight - maybe - before doing it all again. If you have kids, you know this.
We'd vowed to share a room with him for at least the first full year. Shit, before that we'd vowed to have him sleep in our bed for the first full year. Things change when you actually have the baby.
We'd read a bunch of articles about sleep training (Ahem. Do it. Trust me.) and since we were desperate we blew up an air mattress, got out a pad and pencil to write down what times he woke up to cry and for how long, bought a bottle of wine, rented a movie and stole ourselves for a loooooong night of miserable wailing coming from the bedroom. It was a breeze. He cried some, yeah, but not as much as we'd anticipated, and he learned how to put himself to sleep ---and stay there, more importantly--- within a few days. The best part was that we no longer had to be quiet. We could snore or change positions or sneeze or cough, and he wouldn't wake up. We could even talk, or watch Sienfeld. Or stay up past 9:30. Or read in bed. In one night, literally, we gained our "adult" lives back, and suddenly the intense postpartum zombie period was completely over.
Obviously, the next day we broke down the air mattress and moved our bed into the living room for good. You'd think I'd be happy.
This makes our living room the bedroom. This is something that bothers me, a lot, and as I embark on a quest to change my outlook on life for the better, I think I might have to start in the bedroom. I think I need to learn how to accept the fact that Andrew and I used to have a spacious one-bedroom apartment and now have a studio (with a huge baby room, granted).
Because every day I look at our livingbedroom and know I can't change it back, I try to find ways to make myself enjoy the way the room feels, looks and functions as best I can. It's tricky when you have a specific aesthetic (see this entire blog to know what I mean) and are then required to fit ALL OF IT into one small room. Rooms have "auras," I think. Colors, fabrics, textures, ways to working light into whatever mood the room elicits, types of wood that best fits the room's purpose, etc. In my life, bedrooms have bedroom auras and living-room have living-room auras...on top of that, workspaces have workspace auras and, oh god, eating areas have eating area auras. Combining them all is...how can I put this? A clusterfuck. Our apartment, to me, is a CLUSTER. FUCK.
Add an eight month old to that. Who just learned to crawl. Add a compulsive collecting habit. Add a sewing machine without a table, baskets of fabric and needles. Add a compulsive and always-growing book collection. Add indirect sunlight (a.k.a. Depression) and postpartum hormones (a.k.a. Depression). Add the fact that you're home all day while husband takes the only car to work and it's too cold to even go for walks, let alone get out to run errands or have playdates with other moms, or anyone for that matter (a.k.a Depression.)
These facts + a Clusterfuck can only equal more sadness (a.k.a. Depression) and the vicious cycle progresses. A pile of self-help books borrowed from my neighbor sits on my bedside table. I have decided to self-actualize. I have decided to change my outlook and organize my priorities. I have decided to tackle the task of accepting Bedlivingroom. I have decided to embrace Bedlivingroom, at all costs. I have decided to put some actual effort into transforming Bedlivingroom into something that is cozy beyond belief, and still oozes the aesthetic I desire. It might take some hard work, some majorly creative thinking, but I have to be down for it. I'm down for it.
And so, I'm going to start with my bed. I'm going to make my bed my project. We will get through this, my bed and I. It's just a rough patch.
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Clusterfuck beds that work:
Some examples of a space that shares function, without sharing function too much. (Where's the bed? Oh, right. There is no bed!)
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A great solution to our book problem might be borrowed from William Abranowicz
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....and just spaces, in general, that are inspiring me to embrace my problem.
