New Fashion Inspiration

I discovered the street fashion blog Advanced Style today.  I am forty or fifty years younger than the average woman Ari Seth Cohen features on his blog, but I have nevertheless found this collection more inspiring than any other fashion blog, magazine, or website I have yet seen.

Here is what I have learned:

You do not need to seem distant and cold to be fashionable.  The warmth and confidence that emanates from a smile will make a person seem more comfortable in her skin and thus more fashionable than those around her.  Evidence:

If you like it, then stop questioning it and wear it.

Embrace the hat.

And most importantly, don't wait around for your "best" body to appear. Wear what you love now in the incredible body you have. As Beatrix Ost, the woman below, says, "In your body is a good place to be."

 


As I was looking through the photos, I kept thinking to myself, "This is the kind of woman I would like to be in forty years."  I stopped myself.  Why wait?  This is the kind of woman I want to be right now.

Northern Exposure

I'm moving to Alaska.

For an as-of-yet undetermined length of time, I will be working on an Alpaca and Llama ranch on the Kenai Peninsula.  I only decided to go last Sunday, and will be leaving in about twelve days.  It's probably a good thing I am leaving so soon, because my excitement grows by the hour and if I had to wait much longer, I'd probably spontaneously combust.

Because that's totally possible.



In the meantime, I'm patching clothes, gathering supplies, and getting everything in order. Mostly, though, I'm wandering around the house waiting to run into someone in my family so I can exclaim, "I'm going to Alaska!" for the sixty-second time.

Also, despite what the title might suggest, I'm trying my hardest not to allow my love of the nineties show Northern Exposure influence my expectations of Alaska, even if I've been in love with Ed since I was sixteen, want a disk jockey like Chris in the Morning, and am very tempted to get a Maggie O'Connell hair cut.

Remember, Olivia: Cicely does not exist.  And even if it did, Ed would now be about forty.

(if you would like to make an AWESOME collage like the totally pro one featured in this post, you can go to Photovisi!  That thing should go in my portfolio!)

A Day at the Zoo

My mom was cleaning out her study and found a piece of lined paper with my handwriting on it under her desk.  I'm going to let you read this little gem for yourself:

A DAY AT THE ZOO 

One particular Saturday, Billy and Laura went to the zoo.  Their father Arnold took them because their mother had a headache and needed "Mommy Time."  Billy and Laura thought it was funny Mommy got a headache every Saturday. 

Billy liked the monkeys and hyenas.  Laura liked the elephants and tropical birds.  Daddy liked the pretty lady at the concessions stand. 

While Daddy talked to the pretty lady at the concessions stand, Billy laughed at the hyenas.  One of the hyenas got angry at Billy and Billy got scared and fell into the hyenas home.  The hyenas ate Billy and laughed. 

Daddy was still talking to the pretty lady at the concessions stand.  Laura was playing in the tropical birds aviary.  An escaped spider bit her and Laura died. 

Daddy was still talking to the pretty lady at the concessions stand.  Then he heard screaming.  When he found out why people were screaming, Daddy was scared.  Mommy was going to be very angry. 

THE END

I would like to add that based on the handwriting I must have written this in the last few years, when I was probably no younger than nineteen.  And to think they let me babysit children.  Also, based on the psychiatric profile we can create from this piece, I have a problem trusting men and fear zoos.  If you have any other neuroses you can contribute based on this piece, please feel free.

Pyrographs

Drawings created with fire.  Pyrographs.



From the Anthropologist.

Things that happen when you get a tonsillectomy

I just spent fifteen minutes looking for an old Harry Potter cup with a built in straw we used to have.  I think we gave it to Goodwill years ago.  I feel disproportionately sad.

Also, in a vicodin daze yesterday, I told me mother the sound she made while writing in her journal was stressful enough to give me a heart attack; repeatedly told my family they were "too tense" as my father and brother attempted to set up a PS3; and openly wondered if I was a bad person because I was considering starting a new sketchbook, even though I already have a couple others I'm using.

Apparently, narcotics and having pieces cut out of me doesn't put me in the most rational state of mind.  Who knew?

1995

Levi's 511

These are such Portland jeans!  I love the idea!  However, why don't they have a women's line as well?  C'mon Levi's, do you really want to make the statement that only men need jeans in which to commute to work?  That only men bike?  I'm pretty sure women would benefit from some reinforced, water resistant jeans too.

Reboot

I originally posted this in March of 2010.  I've decided it's still relevant--except for point 2's mention of homework.  Let's replace "Doing homework" with "Applying for jobs":

1. Reading books is a wise use of my time. Looking at books on amazon.com is a poor use of my time. (But seriously, look how cheap these are!)
   
2. Doing homework is a wise use of my time. Complaining about homework is a poor use of my time.
   
3. Drawing, painting, sewing, creating anything is a wise use of my time. Staring vacantly at craft blogs is a poor use of my time.
4. Singing and playing guitar is a wise use of my time. Spending an hour trying to find the tabulature for "Make My Heart Fly" is a poor use of my time.
   
   
5. Being outside is a wise use of my time. Sitting in my room, bored as the dickens, is a poor use of my time.
   
6. Cleaning my room is a wise use of my time. Moving around piles of dirty clothes, books, papers, and receipts while attempting to find lost spoons is a poor use of my time.
   
7. Writing letters is a wise use of my time. Journaling is a wise use of my time. Blogging might be a wise use of my time. Practicing my signature is a poor use of my time.
   
8. Enjoying good TV (aka 30 Rock) is a wise use of my time. Surfing hulu in efforts to find anything watchable is a poor use of my time.
9. Going to the gym is a wise use of my time. Looking at the lint between my toes is a poor use of my time.
10. Making dinner is a wise use of my time. Sneaking into the kitchen to eat chocolate chips is a poor use of my time.
11. Watching bad movies with my friends is a wise use of my time. Watching bad movies by myself is a poor use of my time.
12. Spending time with friends is a wise use of my time. Spending time wondering what my friends are doing is a poor use of my time. Attempting to discover what my friends are doing via facebook is an extremely poor use of my time.

Sometimes, you need someone else to say it for you

This quote comes from one of my favorite blogs: The Style Rookie.

"One day I will write about how the hipster stereotype is 1) boring humor, 2) too broad and applies to everybody, and 3) stifling of creativity because everyone is scared of seeming pretentious."

-Tavi  Gevinson, emphasis added

That quote manages to express a sentiment I have been attempting to pin down for a while.  I don't think I'll really know my opinion of the term "hipster" for at least a few decades, but at this moment, I'm trying to de-stigmatize the word.  The animosity I have towards it makes little sense when paired with my inability to define it.  I am tired of avoiding or reconsidering certain aesthetics because I think they might somehow fit into the indefinable umbrella of "hipster".  I'm certainly tired of attempting to define the indefinable umbrella, and I'm pretty damn sure the fear of being a hipster is poor reason for me to avoid things I find beautiful or interesting. 

A start to my day

By start, I mean continuation?  I didn't sleep last night.  Since the clock stroke midnight I have updated my résumé and applied for two jobs, gotten dressed, walked to the grocery store and back, eaten breakfast, watched the second half of Hello, Dolly!, and written this blog post.


Oh, I also found this clip from a favorite movie of mine:




I'll sleep later.

Hopefully.

(Treguna Mekoides and Tracorum Satis Dee!)

The Fallibility of Dahl

(image credit )

Roald Dahl counts among one of my favorite authors.  I loved him as a child, and now, after reading The Best of Roald Dahl, a collection of twenty-five of his short stories for adults, I have fallen in love with him again.  However, I have also recently collided with an account of his anti-Semitism that included this quote:

"There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason." 

-Roald Dahl, as quoted  by  Abraham H. Foxman 

What an indefensible statement.  

This is not the first time a figure I admire has horrified me through a display of ignorance, hatred, or bigotry.  Nevertheless, experience has not yet taught me how to navigate such an issue; it has not taught me how to marry what I love about a person's work with what I object to about a person's life.

Right now, I find solace in the fact that none of us are perfect.  I try to remember if I go searching for the infallible hero, I will only find disappointment.  Perhaps it is better not to have heros at all: there are few things as dangerously black and white as heroes and villains.  And I think perhaps I am not supposed to marry these two contrary aspects of Dahl's legacy.  It will serve me much better to learn to recognize simultaneously the merit of Dahl's work and the downfalls of the man.  

Let's Stop Pretending

Welcome to my blog's new home.  Here are the reasons for the move as stated on my previous blog:

I'm moving this blog to a new URL. Why, you ask? Mostly, I'm moving because I no longer feel the need to be anonymous. Quite the opposite: If I am willing to post an opinion, thought, or idea on the internet, I should also be willing to support that idea with my name. A great deal of cruelty comes from the anonymity allowed by the internet. 

Also, if I am going to post my own writing and artwork, I damn well want people to know that it's my intellectual property! I am American, after all, and raised to hold ridiculous pride over works of my creation and to abhor the crime of copyright infringement above almost all else. 

Finally, I also want to associate my blog with the small but growing world of Crowlivia. Olivia Johnson is a pretty common name. Crowlivia is not. Google "crowlivia" and just about everything links back to me. I'm a power hungry despot. Obviously.

So, if you wish, you can now visit Cawing and Clawing, formerly Let's Pretend I'm Ruth Little.

Hopefully, this move will be linked with a resurgence in posting.  Until I get going, feel free to visit my on-line portfolio where I just posted some more work.