Ossie Clark

I know absolutely nothing about fashion. Despite the fact that when I see the word "boho" I think hobo, and I've never used "chic" in a sentence, I still manage to post things about dresses. I've always loved them. I rarely wear them. But I really, really love dresses. So! New favourite designer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossie_Clark
ossie clark dresses
The giant paisley, curtain-y fabric really works and the necklines are so classic.

Origin of Expressions 3, Down to the Wire

trying to find a catchier title.
down to the wire  (American & Australian)

until the very last moment that it is possible to do something

Usage notes: In a horse race, the wire is a metal thread that marks the finishing line.

Diablo Lake, WA

OOOOOHHHHH
diablo lake

Quote # 21

“You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don’t think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully.” – Anthony Hopkins

Poem of Home

Remember my brilliant poem-a-morning plan? yeah, not so much. But here's one I wrote yesterday. These are all really crappy, I know it, but that just sucks for you. HUM. I'm practicing!

Oftentimes I think of home
that worn-out porch now overgrown
the hedges lank
the children flown
so far away
from there.
And somedays
in my waking hours
I smell the kitchen
the woodland flowers
and hear the crooked
screen doors creak
a lullaby alone.

Quote #20

I kept trying to narrow this quote down, but decided in the end to use the entire thing because it's difficult to divide Kingsolver's prose.
"I believe in parables. I navigate life using stories where I find them, and I hold tight to the ones that tell me new kinds of truth. This story of a bear who nursed a child is one to believe in. I believe that the things we dread most can sometimes save us. I am losing faith in such a simple thing as despising an enemy with unequivocal righteousness. A mirror held up to every moral superiority will show its precise  mirror image: The terrorist loves his truth as hard as I love mine; he has a mother who looks on her own child with the same fierce pride I feel when I look at my own. Someone, somewhere, must wonder how I could love the boys who dropped the bombs that killed the humanitarian-aid workers in Kabul. We are all beasts in this kingdom, we have killed and been killed, and some new time has come to us in which we are called to find another way to divide the world. Good and evil cannot be all there is."
~Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder: Essays
This is the bear story to which she refers: http://boston.com/news/daily/02/bear.htm

Letters To The Other Side, Vol.2

Dear Ms. Amy Winehouse,

You are such an inspirational singer. Your voice is packed with bravado and courage and pure, raw talent. It hearkens back to the great ages of Nina Simone, Billy Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and Natalie Cole. It sounds like a hundred and one sultry summers. 
   Again, I am sorry that you, as with too many others, left this physical world so soon. I'm sure you would have gone on to create even more wonderful tracks for cheering up a dreary day. Your music is upbeat, refreshing, and full of fantastic bell peals. 
I also appreciate your personal style-the beehive, the cat eyes, the neon colors-you've become a style icon, I don't know if you realise it. 
And don't worry, your music is unique. It'll stick around.
                                 With love,
                                              This side  

Same-Sex Marriage

I'm very happy for gay and lesbian couples right now. Same-sex marriage has been approved in Maine, which really shows that our state is a tad more enlightened than it was in 2009, when the same-sex marriage bill was shamefully repealed by the good ol' rednecks.
It's really all about state of mind. Though I am not gay, I'm just as happy when I hear that a gay couple is doing nicely and having kids, etc., as I am when I hear a man/woman couple is. I think that after centuries of horrible, horrible oppression and shame, these fellow human beings have a pretty large right to happiness. As Sarcaschicks so succinctly puts it: "It's the 21st century for goodness' sake, I don't know why we're still debating this as an issue."
Also, m'dear colleague and I were just discussing the benefit of spotlighting gay couples in shows. It's great! The general public needs to see this and get used to it! Take Glee, for example-I want Kurt and Blaine to be together so much right now because their relationship is poignant, cute, and such a very, very natural progression from where they are at the moment. (Grant you I'm in the 2nd season, so I have no idea what happens. That's me, consistently behind the times since 1995.)
Anyway, just some thoughts on this issue. HURRAH FOR BEING MORE ENLIGHTENED, POEPLE! WELL DONE! BACK CLAPPING ALL 'ROUND!

Wild Target Review

Just saw the indie film Wild Target. It is spectacular, for those of us who like that sort of thing. It is a combination of Little Miss Sunshine, The Lady Vanishes, and 39 Steps, and also happens to include nearly all of my favourite English actors and actresses.
The soundtrack was a perfect mix of folksy alternatives and French music (performed by the London Philharmonic, no less!) The opening title track has a theremin, which I've become quite good at identifying thanks to its distinctive use in Midsomer Murders. 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17340257
http://www.squidoo.com/wild-target-movie-soundtrack#module128106141
http://www.wildtargetmovie.com/#/?section=home
While we're on the subject of rising stars and stage legends, here is another movie that is an absolute must-see, both for its unique shot angles and concepts, and its noir, shrouded plot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_39

Quote #19

I really should start reading the Bible. Besides being a spiritual manuscript, it contains lots of stories, moral and otherwise, fascinating plots, and imagery. So many of our everyday expressions today come from the bible as well: http://grammarpartyblog.com/2011/12/02/the-king-james-bible-gave-english-some-awesome-phrases/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/king-james-bible/richardson-photography
"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." ~ Isaiah 2:4
I find this term "learning war" interesting. We do learn war. We actively and gleefully learn it, in video games and from television and from bullying at school. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_to_ploughshares

sophie sumner Vogue Italia August 2012

Hearkening back to the olden times is what fashion should be ALL the time:
sophie sumner Vogue Italia August 2012

Books For London

So smart, oh so, so smart: http://booksforlondon.org.uk/2012/08/27/new-logo/
http://inhabitat.com/nyc/obsolete-nyc-phone-booths-turned-into-free-mini-libraries-by-architect-john-locke/

Silliness Re Life and Death

Whenever I'm reading, say, a biography, and see a date like 1885-1975, I have to stop and look again. I know it's not a new thing, this spanning of the centuries. It happens all the time. People are born on a certain date, they die on another. But to me, there on the page in plain black on a white background, it is shocking. It's like when I read that Jane Austen was born in 1775, in the heat of the Revolutionary War. By the time she was 20, that war was in the past, old news, history. It's never referenced in her stories. It's just...I don't know how to describe it Heck, MY life is crossing from one century into another. Why is this so weird? Is it just me being myself?

Old Expressions 2, Coals to Newcastle

I've always loved this one. I must use it more often!
"Coals to Newcastle."
Before railway were invented goods were often transported by water. Coal was transported by ship from Newcastle to London by sea. It was called sea coal. Taking coals to Newcastle was obviously a pointless excercise.

Old Expressions 1, Get the Hell Outta Dodge

This might become a fixture on the blog. We'll see.
"Get the hell outta dodge."

To leave somewhere immediately, to evacuate or scram.  "Get the hell out of Dodge" is a reference to Dodge City, Kansas, which was a favourite location for westerns in the early to mid 20th century. Most memorably, the phrase was made famous by the TV show "Gunsmoke," in which villains were often commanded to "get the hell out of Dodge." The phrase took on its current meaning in the 1960s and 70s when teenagers began to use it in its current form.

jedediah smith national park, CA

And because I'm feeling sentimental about the West Coast right now:
jedediah smith national park, CA

new river gorge bridge, WV

I don't know what it is about this bridge, but it makes me extremely happy to look at it.
new river gorge bridge west virginia

NaNoYesWriMo

Okay, dagnabbit, I'm going to unofficially (off the site???) try this NaNoWriMo thing. BUT I'm not writing 50,000 words, and I may or may not be applying to all their guidelines. Originally I thought, Oh! I'll just write a thousand words a day for the next 22 days: then I'll have the moderated goal of 22,000 words, which is still better than nothing, and considering I forgot NaNoWriMo this month and didn't get a chance to plot and outline and think ahead (which takes me a very long while....and which you ARE allowed to do during the months before NaNoWriMo!)...anyway, this still seems to be a fairly okay idea. 1,000 words really isn't hard. It's a page and a half, and remember when we used to write twenty pages a day in short-hand, cramped writing with zero paragraph breaks? Yep, those were the good old days. The fire, the cookies, the blankets, the cats that would lie on your notebook. Oh, right, this will be different because I am NOT counting out words from a notebook. Writing by hand is my preferred method for everything, but maybe this will be a good opportunity to improve my day-to-day typing skills with lengthy sentences rather than slim business e-mails.
   I wanted to finish off my 1800s Sherlock Holmes fanfic because that's been stagnant, but I've already written on that. So, I'm dooming myself and jumping right in with a fresh story about a girl who travels all over in a hot air balloon.
So, there, NaNoWriMo....maybe I'll put this up online? I have no plot, no nothing. We'll see how this goes. But Wheeey, what's there to lose? My writing brain's been slipping into dormancy for a few months/years/ It can't hurt to just plain write, even if it comes out ridiculous. So here goes.

Willa Cather also said, and this I love: "Some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm."

Dire NaNoWriMo Premonitions

I'm pretty much convinced that the time on the Camino de Santiago not spent panting and sweating and dying will consist of me beating myself up about not doing NaNoWriMo AGAIN in 2012. Then, on the last couple days of the trip, I'll think of some fabulous idea for it, come home, adjust back into the stinging swing of a full summer schedule, and promptly forget that flash of inspiration.

Quote #18

"The greatness of a Nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
--- Mahatma Gandhi 

Our Country is Awesome

I told you there would be one post that had this title in a non-demeaning, positive respect. Alright, what I love about our country, listed in no particular order because ranking things annoys me and makes me indecisive and fidgety:

• ·      The diversity of culture. From the North to the South and round about, you can’t deny we’ve got character. Good or bad, most of the time a mix of both, everyone knows it and everyone holds their share. And the different regions are so damn famous for it, too.
• ·      The changing landscape. Honestly, we have some of the most gorgeous parks, mountains, and deserts out there.
• ·      The  Expansion era. Not the bloodshed, forcing-people-off-of-land part. But excepting that, it was such a time of exploring and traveling and reaching out roots and settling down. And log cabins *sigh* Really, all the eras.
• ·      Our museums. We have some pretty great painters’ work in our museums, not to mention the museum’s frequent costless-ness.
• ·      Our quirkiness. The weird foods that we come up with; the entire 70s and 80s (what was going on there, anyway?); the fashion fads that dominated so steadfastly for decades, then morphed into new fads like lightning, and the slang that went long with them. 
• ·      The open skies. The plains. We have so much sheer space.
• ·      Cowboy films. They’re so incredibly American. Where every other thing has its near equivalent in other countries, this is something that’s actually ours, inside and out. And it’s so iconic, I mean, come on-the young buck riding off into the sunset with his hat brim and neck scarf flapping in the wind….
• 
  

The Hate List

(Yes, yes, there’ll be a love list too, but this blog is a place where some of my deepest, darkest thoughts get put down, so….deal. Heh. That sounds so obnoxious.) Okay, so, some things I hate about being sick. Sometimes acutely and actively hating on these actually helps dull them.

• ·   The endless strings of numbers that your brain latches onto for no apparent reason. The numbers that you repeat over and over and over again in your head. And/or adding 3-digit figures. Also, repeating five words of a song over and over and over like a sort of torturous mantra.
• ·      The dead weight that presses your limbs down, so you can’t get up or even think about getting up. I don’t know if it’s just me who gets this, but it’s a really horrible and weird sensation. I can never figure out if it’s imaginary or due to fatigue or delirium.
• ·      The near sleepless nights where your body goes oh so steadily and predictably between being clammy and chilled to the bone, to feeling like there’s fire licking at it.

And that’s it for today, you lucky buggars.

College Worries, What's New

I am the kind of person who would change their major at least 5 times in the course of four years, thereby never graduating and getting further and further in debt as I realise that the classes I wanted to take are no longer the classes that I want to take.
I know this.
And people laugh and wave it off and say, "Oh, honey, just get scholarships and dive right in. You'll figure it out, ho-ho-ho." Well buddy, I REALLY DON'T KNOW IF WHAT YOU'RE SAYING THERE IS TRUE. After all, this is my money we're talking about here. Haha, my money. Allright, when I actually start taking on paying jobs and earning money.
   Also, I find that I am not a particularly ambitious person. I find it hard to do something if I'm not committed, convinced, and completely in love with it 100% of the time. I love learning, it's just that I'm not very trusting and I like to know everything about something before I begin; have all the facts; know the risks; weigh things over and over until I divine some reliable conclusion from them. If people offer me opportunities, positions, etc., without telling me all about them, I get very nervous.

The Decided-Upon Trail

Our Camino de Santiago (route: The Way of St. James) guidebook arrived in the mail today. I've been reading Wild some as well (a fantastic book). For weeks I've basically been in a reverie regarding the trail. But not a stupid innocent "this is going to be tremendous fun," reverie.

   I was standing in the kitchen looking down at my feet and realising that they should be larger or sturdier or something. I thought, 'these are the feet that are going to carry me nearly 500 miles,' and then I thought, 'I need Hobbit feet.' I mean, I've walked trails before, carrying awkward maintenance tools and small backpacks, and I've hiked up and down hills in 80 degree-weather, but this is going to be so much different. I don't really know what it'll be like. Any opinions or pre-conceptions I have right now probably will be thrown to the wind once we actually start hiking. I'm trying to decide whether or not to bring a camera. I really want to, but will it be distracting? I think everyone will be so exhausted most of the time we won't have energy to pull out cameras, set them up, and take the picture. The guidebook says to just immortalise the views, etc., in your memory, but then there's family to consider, and won't they like to see photos? I don't know. My head is swimming with what to pack.