"An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind." -Buddha

"The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."
Henry David Thoreau

"It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive." Henry David Thoreau

Beautiful Bits

"Russian scientists have discovered gold deposits in the dust of decayed tree stumps. The phenomenon occurs in forests growing in ground where there is gold ore. Over the course of centuries, the trees' roots suck in minute quantities of the precious metal, eventually accumulating nuggets." -Jeff Jawer

So obviously I love alchemy. This bit of info makes me think of nature putting one over on nature by just throwing the two together skipping all the stages in between: from clay to gold. Or just: some clay with gold in it.

Fantasy and Being Real

Cecilia Dean does an awesome post for V Magazine every week called Look of the Week. It's a photo of her standing in the same spot every week wearing her favorite outfit of the week. I love it more than it probably deserves. First of all I have a serious photo diary fetish. And a photo fetish. And a diary fetish. And a fashion fetish. (And in many ways these are all of the things that I'm missing doing lately...) Anyway, moving on.
A few things I've noticed are making me really like her. First of all, in many of the photos she doesn't look as beautiful as she is. Why do I always find it surprising that a woman (read: a woman in fashion, especially) might actually not care about posting a very honest photo in a forum available to millions of viewers? Perhaps I've had too many Southern women in my life... Anyway, in truth I think she's beautiful due in large part to that. I like that she let's us see what she "really" looks like in a fashion magazine full of models spackled into disguise. And that she seems not to notice or care. Anyway, here is one of my very favorites -the first one I saw, too:

(Alright, long story short: go to this link to see my favorite outfit of hers.)

While we're on fashion, I've already written about Tavi at style rookie. This is a lovely neighbor of mine. She has crazy awesome style and is very creative. She gives the definition of a word (usually adjective or adverb) at the start of each post which is where I learned this awesome word "Limerance; An emotional state in which a person feels an intense romantic desire for another person." and many more. I seriously need to ask her if she just sits around paging through the dictionary or what. While I do so love Cecilia's honesty I have always loved a fantasy, too.

Leftover Cuties- "Game Called Life"

Game Called Life

The last bit of the theme song for the show The Big C is "Tell me this was just a game to play, called life."
Right now my inner life feels way richer than my outer life. I feel like inside me there are a million more possibilities than outside. There's a lot of fun and happiness. A sense of vast open places and good company to fill up the emptiness. Everything is skipping where outside it's still or scuttling around. This is the kind of day when I need only as much as is in my lone life. It's a cocooning day.

I'm Confused

I hate to be a big complainer, I really do, but this is bugging me. Lately there have been a lot of street party events in my neighborhood and neighboring hoods and they seem to all be nothing but yet another opportunity to shop and eat. Am I the only person this doesn't appeal to? And not that there aren't plenty of other things going on, there certainly are many. I'm just dumbfounded as to how shopping and eating have become such major attractions that people will turn out in droves and even sometimes pay entry fees in order to have a chance to buy stuff and eat. I kind of get the whole food truck phenomenon as the availability is so limited. It's not a restaurant that you can eat at any time the whim strikes so if you like their food you've got to keep track of where they're going to be and be ready to show up. I'm not too into it myself as most of them don't cater (ha-ha, I know, it works on two levels) to vegetarians. And those that do are either greasy (all about melted cheese which I totally love) or are deserts (which I also totally love) and to me those things are a treat, not to be consumed on an as available basis -if that were the case I'd live on grilled cheese, waffles and doughnuts. So the food thing aside, because I kind of get it even though I still think the obsession level is way out of proportion. Anyway, the food thing aside. These "street party's", or whatever they're usually called, where you go and there are a bunch of vendors set up. Now, again, I get that a lot of these are featuring independent crafts-peoples' wares and that they may not be available in stores or even online, sometimes. But really, when did shopping become the main event for Americans? Don't we already have enough opportunities to spend money? Aren't we in need of learning to outgrow consumption and possession? It's like the backlash of the green movement. Oh, and anyone who's trying to sell anything these days will try their best to make it recycled, upcycled, renewable, biodegradable, etc. Here's a thought: do we really need any of that stuff? Do we even want it? Aren't we in the middle of a recession brought on by outrageous overindulgence, being brainwashed into believing that our self worth is a reflection of our possessions and corporations allowing us to believe that we can all "live large" on credit?
Did anyone else see No Impact Man? It was awesome. Bizarre, but awesome. I like how cool his wife is when he's washing clothes in the tub and telling her about how he's going to make shampoo for them. I seriously thought she was going to lose it but she held it together. Really though, it was great to see them become so conscious of what they were doing. Yes, it was way over the top and the compost bin in the kitchen was a really bad idea and I'm really impressed they didn't end up getting divorced because of the project. But by the end of it they had realized a lot of alternatives to their previous lifestyle that were really very practical and seemed to actually improve their quality of life. And one of the big messages in the whole thing was to be aware of consumption. How much you buy, what you buy and why. So why do I feel like there's a bigger push than ever to keep people buying stuff? Keep buying!!! We can't seem to think of any other way to make this work! We're trying so hard to make it sound like a good idea: it's green, it's local, it's organic, it's independent, it's reused and most importantly it's for SALE!

Not the Adventure I Was Hoping For

I went to see a band tonight. This used to be one of my favorite things to do. Tonight everything seemed so ordinary, nothing was exciting: not being out at night, not the venue, not the crowd or any of the individual people. The idea of fame has become irrelevant to me. No one seems somehow "bigger" than me, they're just the ordinary (though talented) people on the stage rather than the ordinary people not on the stage. I think I miss being naive. I think I need drugs.
This also led me to think about this whole mad craze called "The Law of Attraction". On my way to the concert I was totally excited, envisioning a much more fabulous time -I have a super imagination. Now according to what I've read about the Power of Attraction, your world is created by your imagination. Your thoughts create a vibe and this is what draws experiences to you. Let me assure you that I absolutely did not vibe this into my world. I was vibing let's-meet-a-cute-guy-who-has-weed-with-him, trust me. What I got was a pack of teenagers and the one old dude (much, much older than me) hitting on me while I smoked a cigarette outside. And this in particular annoys me because that has been a lifelong curse and I thought I'd broken that curse a while ago, if nothing else I had at least totally forgotten the tradition. But here he comes again, every damn place I go some old pervie guy turns up. Should this at least flatter me as it hasn't changed since I was a teenager and most women tell me this stops happening to them in their 20's? I guess that's something at least.

Update: Oh what a relief? I just checked my personal daily chart and it looks like the Sun is squaring my natal Venus -fresh hell, I tell you! At least this explains why nothing seems as beautiful as it should be and yet my imagine is in overdrive. Also makes some sense why I have to deal with the old man nonsense again.....