March, 2009
~ Yin & yang ~
I feel a very strong connection to the female spirit… [did i really just write that? Bear with me, it's going to get better] I had one of those moments of clarity this morning as I listened to a female singer while looking at the work of female web designers and opening a package from a female Etsy seller – a gorgeous print of, yes you guessed it, a woman. I've always been a woman's woman but in recent years I seem to have dissolved into a puddle of oestrogen and I really don't mind.
This blog is a very female-friendly space, though i know i have some male readers (hi guys!) but it was a comment a (male) friend made the other day that made me pause – he alluded to the fact that it's all girls around these here blogparts. And i thought about it and realised that that is a pretty accurate description of my whole life right now – it's all about the girls (and i dread to think what kind of google searches are going to find me now i've said that).
Maybe it's because I don't have a brother or any male cousins. Or a present father. Or a boyfriend, for that matter. 98% of the books i own are by female authors; music is probably a 70-30 split (loving this song* right now). My home is a temple to all that is feminine and nice-to-look-at; there is not a scrap of masculinity in this place and while i am more than comfortable with this state of affairs – too comfortable, though i don't miss the boxer shorts. Why do men have so many of them? – i realise that perhaps i'm tipping the scales in the wrong direction.
But you know what? I'm learning to really savour this time in my life; who knows what tomorrow will bring. This time next year the landscape could look very different and I'll be lamenting the loss of all the lovely oestrogen-fuelled living i enjoy now. So i shall continue bloggin' for all the ladeez out there in the audience… and the boys too.
*Serenade by Emiliana Torrini
March, 2009
~ Bloody, shirty & blimey ~
You may have already come across this site, but it's really making me chuckle, so here it is again: the Best of British – An American's Guide to Speaking British…
Also, can anyone recommend a fantastic web designer? Someone who appreciates and understands clean elegant design, infused with a touch of artistic flair…?
March, 2009
~ Does this happen to you too? ~
This afternoon i got mugged in my local bookstore… By a book.
I was minding my own business, thinking about what to buy for dinner, looking over a table of new books, when SLAP a book jumped out and whacked me around the face. What is it with books these days? They all seem to have such tasty-looking covers, all sensual colours sprinkled with sparkling words and seductive titles. The book-mugger in question was called The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam – I mean, come on! I had no chance with a name like that. Of course, i have no idea what it's about (it's a novel), i just bought it for the name. Have you ever done that? Tell me it's not just me.
Beside my bed I have a wobbling tower of books that each night threatens to kill me in my sleep; I just can't read fast enough to keep up with my book porn habit. I'm currently enthralled by Michel Faber's Under the Skin and getting to the end of The Gargoyle (not overly impressed) but there is one book that keeps batting its eyelids at me: The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite. The cover flirts with its swirling serif letters and plump red lips. I can understand the current seductive-ness of cookery books, with their vintage-y covers and luscious makes-you-dribble photography, but now it seems all books are fodder for our fantasies. I'm thinking my own book should be titled The Ambrosial Unravelling of the Tormented Damsel. It's catchy, yes?
Next up: The Valley of the Dolls, after Carla's timely reminder that I've never read it; at least with that cover you know exactly what you're getting.
March, 2009
~ Just breathe ~
These photographs make me happy. Maybe it's because i'm an air sign (i hate to admit there's anything to those sorts of things, but … there is), maybe it's because the winter makes me stay inside for months and now spring is here – yesterday i stalked magnolia trees in the park, daring them to open their blooms for my polaroid camera. Maybe it's because I can breathe again. Clothes drying on the line always makes me wistful for summer days making camps on the lawn, the scent of Ambre Solaire floating on the breeze; years later lying on the swing-chair under the shade of the musty canopy, Duran Duran playing on my Walkman, calamine lotion soothing my sunburn. Not happier days, just younger days. My world feels full of more possiblity now than it ever did then. Funny that.
1. feels just like home 2. revivify 3. jaime m 4. zephyrance 5. feels just like home 6. Peonies & Polaroids
