Important Influences part 1- raised by the television

So a friend of mine posted a video on Facebook I forgot about but was a huge influence on me when I was 4 and 5 and really explains everything and why I am the way I am:

Seriously, this was my first impression of what a fashion show was like. I wanted to BE Miss Piggy. In this scene from The Great Muppet Caper she is the epitome of feminine beauty and glamour. I wanted to swim around with syncronized swimmers and I often practice when we would go to the public pool during the summer. When I was the Student of the Week in Kindergarden I think I even said I wanted to be a syncronized swimmer like Miss Piggy when I grew up but my teacher told me that it wasn't a real career and then asked me what else I wanted to be and she put down "nurse" for me.

This let me to think about other influences of televison and movies in my formative years that were important to me that make me the person I am today. I thought I would provide a photo and video list of these things...

First and formost:

Miss Donna Summer. Specifically dressed up in her gorgeous pink waitress outfit. I would make my mother play "She Works Hard for the Money" over and over starting when I was 2 or 3. I thought the lyric was "She Works Hard for Mommy" I was obsessed with Donna. Around the time I was interested in her, another music icon emerged. For the longest, I though they were the same person. Donna Summer apparently sounds a lot like Madonna to a 3 year old.

Madonna was a big influence too, specifcally in this outfit:

Who reminded me of two of my ultimate fashion icons, Peaches and Cream Barbie:

And Dream Glow Barbie:

"We Girls can do anything. Like Barbie!" Oh silly 2nd wave feminist advertising executives.

Which brings me to another strong woman of the 80s:

Mary Lou. I totally had the leotard when I was a kid. I think my favorite is that horrible dribble of milk on her face at the end..

I totally would wear my Mary Lou Retton leotard and dance around with a ribbon on a stick in the front yard.

Part 2 to come later!!

Time to get serious..

I signed all my bankruptcy paperwork today. I'm not sure where it is at now, I'm assuming with interest I have about $55,000.00 in credit card debt. I'm still nervous about a lot of things. I feel like there are some things stacked against me. However, I am feeling better about a few things I was worried about and that despite the outcome, even if it's shitty and horrible, it'll be over soon.

I'll still be in debt from the school loan I just took out but that's ok and a good investment.

For now, lets assume all is going to go swimmingly and talk about the things I'm looking forward AFTER the discharge:

-Really strict budgeting. I haven't been as careful as I have been since I stopped paying my credit cards but it's definitely has simplified things for me and it's not nearly as hard as I thought it would be getting by. In all, I'd say, I'm less stressed about money than BEFORE I stopped paying my credit cards. I want to really start to buckle down though.

-Saving all the money I can! I've become so much smarter about the purchases I do make and I feel like I buy a lot less things out of feeling "entitled" to them. I can't wait to save an emergency fund and then, eventually save for large things I want. :)

-Starting an IRA. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to starting some sort of retirement fund. I hope to save 100.00 a month if I can manage for 2-3 years and eventually go up to 200.00 a month after that.

-Health Insurance! I think there's not much to say besides that. For me, its tax deductible! If I can afford it or not really depends on what I'm making while I'm in school.

-Getting ahead on tax payments! Yes, actually paying ESTIMATED taxes until waiting until April to sort it all out.

Let's just hope that things go well for me...

Weird Purgatory.

Ok. So, I'm going through a lot of transitions right now.

1. I start school in January.

2. I'm having problems with my apartment/property manager in regards to my apartment being low-cost and rent controlled.

3. I'm filing for bankruptcy.

All of these things have been going on as early as March. I feel like I've made a lot of progress with controlling my anxiety and my outlook on things but the last two or three weeks have been EXTREMELY difficult for me and I feel a lot of my old anxiety coming back and all the physical manifestiations of it, like the constant wrenching gut, headaches, and my jaw clenching/teeth grinding. I don't want to feel this way but it's really hard to control.

I'm very worried about all of these things but especially numbers 2 and 3. Everyone tells me not to worry but honestly, how can I not be worried? Especially when I'm trying to be as constructive as I possibly can about these things and I'm kind of waiting on other people at this point..

I feel like I'm in this weird purgatory... and I just want everything to be tied up in a neat little bow and be as little as a shit show as possible.

Someday I will actually post something relevant..

I started a new job on Tuesday. I have an awesome new uniform and everything...

Lion Tamer!! The lion I'm taming is named Toby.

And now for another scene from that cinematic masterpiece, Teen Witch (the best part is the guy in the red headband around 1:32:

Oh Lula, how I love thee..

I promise to start posting for reals soon but in the meantime:

Things To Take Notes of

Some of my reading choices are that of a 14 year old punk kid.

I worked on a photo shoot with Yoko Ono on Monday. She was really cute, nice and in AMAZING shape for being 75 years old. I poked around her website and found this interesting quote.

While I don't consider myself a pacifist, It's still interesting.

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along wether it's a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictator. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

-Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII

I kind of have a great idea for an eco-friendly fashion company..

Too bad I'm like going thru bankruptcy, and basically have no money to do this.. 

UPDATED: I almost entirely forgot about this..

So apparently I posted the wrong version of this.

Below is a more hilarious version of the same sketch.

Kangaroo Hunter

like being on the moon

I'm going here next week for work:

So I haven't posted anything interesting because I've been so busy. I brought Belvedere home and he's amazing (photos to follow in another post.

But I thought I'd also start posting about all the crazy geneological research I've found over the last several months. I've taken an interest in history of the Dark Ages.

Why?

Because I managed to find out that 10 generations of my ancestors lived here:



Basically, on my mother's side, if you go back far enough you find that one of our lines goes back to a super rich plantation owner in very early Virginia. You go back further through family trees and discover that the line goes back through men who have "Esquire" attached to their names, and within four generations or so you discover Govenors of Bramburg, essentially, the rulers of Northumberland.

This goes back for 10 generations beyond that to sometime in the 11th or 12th century.

So how did this person get such a fancy castle you ask?

Because my 16th great grandfather or something ridiculous like that, saved King Richard the Lionheart from certain death in the 3rd Crusade at a battle in Israel, basically the first battle right after landing there.

If you start to read about military during that time, those who traveled with the king came from nobel birth and if you go back further in the 1st Forster of Bramburg's linage, you discover, his great grandfather was the brother of Matilda of Flanders, the first queen of united England who was actually french. So basically the story gets really crazy from there and the lines of those two can be traced back to Frankish and Germanic Kings that trail off somewhere around when you get to the Caroligians and Charlemenge, the father of united Europe.

Granted, none of this matters now but I think the history of it is pretty cool...

I'm still 7 years old.

I totally wish I was kidding when I say, at the age of 28, that I'm wearing my swimsuit to work tomorrow...but I'm not.

I'm totally wearing my swimsuit to work tomorrow, with a skirt, and a blouse I got from a costume house.

Lizards vs. Frogs

Happy Memorial Day!

lives lost and farm animals

I've always have had a deep fascination with old photographs that people throw away. It's hard for me to understand why someone would forget about something or someone and throw away images that once meant something to someone.

A few weeks ago when I was in California, I spent some time in two awesome reuse stores that collect items that would otherwise go to land fills to sell to artists and teachers at a minimal cost for reuse.

One had a HUGE bin of old photos and I literally spend two hours going through the photos. I bought a bunch.

Here are some of my favorites:


I love the spots on the photo.


There's something really interesting about this. I think it's the cross and the fact that the church looks like it's in the middle of nowhere.


I love graveyards in latin america. There's something far less bleak and depressing about them that the graveyards I'm used to.



This is by far my favorite. A deer with a picnic basket in October 1961



There are no words for this.


This is one of those photos that make me wonder about the subjects..



Matadors.


Swans.



Turkey Parade.



Still life with roma tomatoes on a 1980s bed sheet. I really wonder the motivation for all of this effort.



It's hard to see in the photo but this is the Eiffel Tower from the Left Bank. Whoever took this probably thought this was a throw away, but I think it's lovely.

i'm going to be the most popular girl..

Teen Witch is basically the best movie ever. Anytime it is on TV, I will watch it.


Also I want to buy this Edwardian swimsuit and wear it as a dress.. when really, it's a swimsuit:

I've been going to therapy for six months now. It's really helped me a lot even though every friday, I dread going and sitting in the waiting room with copies of magazines no one reads like Cat Fancy and trying to decide what to talk about.

Breakthroughs/Insights that I've had:

-I feel like a victim and I continue to feel like a victim of my early life. I feel inadaquate in all aspects of my life because I feel like a failure and inherently bad because of the connections with my mother, even though the entire theme of my life has been to do the oppisite to try to prove that I am not inherently bad. All of this isn't the case but this is essentially the root of why I have the negative feelings I have.

-I'm scared of talking to those I care about important life goals with the people that are most important to me because I am ultimately afraid I will make them unhappy or I will let them down, because the dialog in my head that tells me i'm inherently bad. The same reason as to why I don't like getting close to most people is because I'm afraid either they will find out I'm a horrible person or that they will let me down.

-I've come through the denial and fear about the debt I have. I have decided to declare bankruptcy. Which is not a decision I would have previously made. I am scared of the uncertainty of the future, but for the first time I'm ok with being uncertain about things.

-I've decided that I do not want to be a fashion stylist any longer. As a result, with my work, so much of the pressure is off and I feel like my anxiety is much less than it was, a year ago. I also have a lot less negative dialog in my head when it comes to work and the people I work with. I also feel happier because I don't feel inadaquate and I feel like I will eventually be free to live a richer and fuller life than those people that I work around that don't take time out for themselves or are caught up in super-hyper-materialism and are emotionally bankrupt and insecure otherwise. I'm not sure what I want to do exactly but I'm waiting to be able to afford some work shops and classes so I can explore a bit.

-I have decided and have come to terms with that, I do not want a relationship with my mother until she can get help for herself. I feel used, manipulated, and the more I think about how I grew up and how she and my family was never truly there for me when I needed them most, the angrier and more sad I get. I have checked on her, but I have not spoken to her in over 5 months. I do worry but a lot of my worry and anxiety is gone because she's not in my life.

I'm a lot happier than I was six months ago even though right now, my future seems bleak. I haven't been shopping nearly as much and my moods are much more level than they used to be.

So I've been helping a friend of mine resource stuff for their wedding.

They've only been offically engaged a week but I have a lot of random ideas and resources to get stuff on the cheap thanks to my job.

The amount of money they have to spend isn't really a lot. It scares me and makes me think it's wasteful, the idea of even throwing that much money away on one day. The reality to me is also depressing because I haven't had that one day that's all mine, I tested out of high school, I never went to a graduation ceremony for college so I kind of do want a wedding someday but I don't have any family to help, I don't want to spend a ton of money on it or putting so much energy into it that I'm not thinking about afterward or the long term. That, and I don't want it to be lame.

So, I really think I ever go through this, I totally want to have a Wedding/Halloween Party. I'm not talking about keeping it classy because that's when it gets corny.

I'm talking super tacky, awesome fun Halloween wedding. Because how ridiculous and amazing would it be to ask your wedding party to dress as zombies??? Everyone is pretty much gaurenteed to have a good time too and if planned in advance and with a lot of creativity, can probably be done really cheaply.

I started to look around at this because I was just curious how much people drop on stuff like this and I found these:







Dia Del Los Muertos WEDDING TOPPERS

I love California!

California is awesome!

-Yesterday Sean and I went to Banjo Night and to Thrifttown!
-Today I went to go get a hot dog at a famous hot dog place down the street from Sean in Oakland on Telegraph.
-Afterward I started walking toward BART and instead found a awesome home shop with cheap antiques, a cafe with out door seating on ironing boards, and a hippie book store! I found a book on a counsel of 13 grandmothers from all over the world which is pretty awesome!

-I went to a thrift store and then stumbled upon to the East Bay Depot for Reuse store. Which is basically a junk store that save things from going into the trash and makes them available to artists and teachers super cheap.

-Sean and I went to Niles to go to all the awesome antique shops and I wanted to buy EVERYTHING.

-We went on a couple of drives on backroads through the hills and then went to get sushi and drank a bottle of sake.


Now we're on our way to cardboard car races through a gallery in West Oakland. Totally awesome!


For those who didn't see the Susan Boyle video, you're living under a rock. I've watched it like 3 times and I've cried like every time..

I don't really have much to say. I've been sick the last few days.

I've been dancing around my apartment to Matthew Sweet. I think I'm dating myself there. It reminds me of when Lizz lived in CA.

The carrots I've been growing on my windowsill are almost camera ready I just don't have charged batteries.

Instead, I'll leave you with this little gem:

"They want our way of life." They can have mine anytime they like because God knows, I know, I ain't living right..

 

I promise to post something happier eventually 

 

I've increasingly become concerned about the economy, the future, the environment, how our way of life is unsustainable and how my generation will not have a better quality of life than our parents, where my food comes from and generally all of the social/political/ecological problems that we face. 

 

I haven't been able to do much in the past two days because I've come down with a nasty cold and the extent of my activity is walking to the fridge to grab water or juice or lying in bed watching netflix movies or falling asleep to documentaries on corn and food production, and abortion and the fundamentalist christian movement (because I don't really like fiction).

 

So I've become increasingly paranoid and anxious about the state of things. 

 

I decided to check CNN.com (which has also fueled my increasing anxiety) and found out that North Korea launched their rocket which may or may not have a missile or warhead attached. Either way, it's really scary and I'm frightened at the possible outcome of this.

 

To make matters worse, there was an ad before the video for "clean coal" which really isn't a whole lot better than regular coal and isn't a viable option to replace regular coal or oil. 

 

Maybe, I just need to go back to sleep.. 

If I had roommates, and this was a reality tv show, I'd be voted out of the house for the way the apartment looks right now.

Telling the Bees

So I've recently taken an interest in learning traditional crafts. I  think it would be interesting to learn things that humans, at one time all, knew how to do.

I went with Jim to the New York Public Library on Saturday to go see a photo exibit and in the bookstore I found this book. 

It's pretty amazing and covers breifly everything from building stone walls, to beer brewing, cheesemaking, pickling, making your own bow and arrows, how to make hay, etc.

The favorite chapter I've enjoyed thus far is on Beekeeping.  It covers things like at one time, people used to have to tell their bees major things going on in the family for fear that they may swarm or disappear from the hives. People once thought that bees were very sensitive to human behavior and emotion. It was thought that at one time, people who lived really chaotic lives, could not keep bees because the bees would leave.

For example, "Telling the bees" would involve  informing them of all deaths in the family and during the time of mourning, the bee hives were shrouded in black mourning cloth and as the coffin was raised out of the home to be buried, someone would go lift the beehives to signify their importance to the family and to involve them in the funeral. 

There's also chapters on simple cheesemaking, butter making (which I'm so going to try),and how to pluck a chicken (which I'm not going to try).