Friday, February 25, 2011

Buy Me That: Bug on a Bike!

I'm not even joking.  If one of you freeloading blog-enjoyers doesn't buy me this to hang in our new downstairs powder room, WE'RE THROUGH.

GET ON YOUR TRIKE AND RIDE!

SLB is out of town, but I can already imagine the conversation we're going to have if one of you doesn't pony up and mail this to me immediately.  It goes a little something like this:

Me:  Hey, look at this bug on a trike!  I love him!  What do you think about me getting it for the powder room downstairs?

SLB:  It's weird.  I don't want a bug on my wall.

Me:  Tough titties, Meal Ticket!  I'm buying me that bug!

SLB:  I'll be having bourbon with my oatmeal this morning.

End scene.

Get your - er, I mean MY - new bug friend here!


Thursday, February 24, 2011

Because One Can't Not Be Jean Seberg ALL the Time

I'm sidelined from packing with a dreadful headache, so while my Aleve-and-coffee cocktail kicks in, I'll say hello to you, darling readers.  You've been so brave to do without my ramblings - I know I couldn't go this long without reading my charming words - and you deserve a little notice even in the midst of our chaos.  So, hello there!  I notice you!  I notice you noticing me, which is the way I like it.  Notice on, lucky readers...

I got tired of not being Jean Seberg, so I just went balls to the wall and asked Jami to cut my hair dangerously short.  I may have used the term "lesbian chemotherapy short," but I don't rightly recall.

Hail Caesar!

I really like it, and it officially makes me the shortest-haired person in our family.  I don't know why I'm proud of that, but I am.  Also, it's strange even for someone who's had short hair for a while to look in the mirror, see something blatantly contrary to conventional beauty, and LOVE it.  It's not pretty by any standard definition, but it is rad, and I think I'll keep it super-short for the time being.

Dark circles be damned!  Look at how scrunchy-nosed happy this 'do makes me. 

But I know who you really come here to see, so here's a peek of the lady of the hour, Miss Olivia Lee.

Briefly resting between wiggles

The further she dives into restless toddlerhood, the harder it is to get a good picture of her.  She may not be walking yet, but, DAY-UMN, is that kid squirmy.  So don't be surprised if all you see are fuzzy pictures; they're the only kind I can take right now.


"The room, as part of the world, revolves around me."

She still isn't a walker, although nature and physical therapy will change that course soon, but she's a prolific talker.  Her latest surprising linguistic conquests: "attorney" and "tapenade," but "I love you" and her own name remain elusive.  She does slap her chest while yelling "ME!" and she announces all of her farts by seriously repeating "toot" afterward, so at least I've taught her the important things.

But her cutest new word is a mispronounced one, which is why it delights me so.  Let's kick it old-skool, shall we?


Sunday, February 13, 2011

Ready for my Close-up

The closer and closer we get to moving into our new house the more and more I've been desperately combing design websites trying to develop a decorative flair.  It is one of my greatest fears that I won't be able to do justice to the awesomeness of our new house with my penny pinching, utilitarian ways, that my aesthetic timidity and financial self-denial (self-loathing?) will rear their ugly heads, and that we'll live surrounded by particle board and hotel-grade art FOREVER.  So, on The Morah's recommendation, I checked out Design Sponge today and found that site's "Living In" feature that marries design, commerce, and a shocking number of my favorite movies.

People, you have no idea how far up my alley this little feature is.  But you're about to.

For example, do you know that my current haircut is loosely based on Jean Seberg's in Breathless, a movie I've seen multiple times but can never remember.  Why can't I remember it?  Because I'm too busy looking at it to listen to it or pay attention to it properly.  My mind can recreate each of Seberg's outfits, gestures, and mannerisms, but I can hardly ever remember a single thread of the plot unless the movie is playing immediately in front of me.  So, I literally gasped when I came across the "Living In: Breathless" edition.

No, I'm no Jean Seberg.  But neither are you, so we're even there.

And those of you who have known me since high school will remember my reliance on a stubborn center part long after it was considered fashionable.  Hopefully that, plus my current over-reliance on opaque tights regardless of the season will be judged softly when I plead this:  Love means never having to admit that you look nothing like Ali MacGraw and never, ever will.

And I never even got into Harvard.  Not once.

But the movie honored by Design Sponge that slapped me silly with a nostalgia that would have made Proust choke on his madelines was the 1995 gem Party Girl starring a then-unknown and -unirritating Parker Posey.

H-h-h-hello!

I had this poster, which I'm almost certain I stole from the video store where I worked, on my wall all through high school.  I would "rent" the movie at least once every two weeks from work and watch it after a late night Saturday shift.  I tried desperately to layer long-sleeved t-shirts as the poster suggested, but found that my limited elbow-bending capacity made the look too uncomfortable to endure.  I wondered what, exactly, falafel and baba ganoush were.  And I still to this day crib the line about something or another making "my unborn baby grow gills."  

Make no mistake, this is not a great film.  But it is about a beautiful and sassy young woman living in New York and pursuing a dream of becoming a fabulous - fabulous! - librarian, which fascinated and delighted my small-town smart-girl imagination.

So, thank you Design Sponge for helping me while away a pleasant morning "living in" some of my favorite movies.  I'd call it a time-waster, but it was a true pleasure poking through these archives and reliving my love of these films.  And now, unstylishly, uncinematically, I have some boxes to pack.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

These Little Piggies

Oma makes the best pigtails, hands down.

Excuse me, miss?  You have a little something green in your teeth...

... and a little something evil in your eyes.

But not even Oma can tame the chaos that nature hath wrought on my baby's head forever.  Come bathtime the curls run wild!


Born free!  Free as the hair grows!

Goofy fraggle.