An early morning walk

Sometimes I just feel like being alone.

Not because I hate myself, not because I’m depressed, but because my head is crammed so full of stuff that I need to drop all my masks and boundaries and wariness and let it all out in a slow and quiet explosion. This is why I love getting up so early.


In the morning, on my walk

At 6 am, the world is dark, damp, and still. The people are asleep, but outside everything is awakening. The first rays of the sun are brightening the horizon, the birds are beginning their morning-song, and the only things stirring are animals nibbling unobtrusively at the grass.


An apple on our mostly-wild orchard

I go out and have a quiet walk. My feet get soaked, and my jeans get smeared with mud, but the serenity seeps inside my head. I slowly turn my focus from the internal to the external.


A butterfly in the foliage, complete with muscadines

I see things that I don’t normally pay attention long enough to see.


A wary-looking turtle on my woods path

I like to touch things, linger over their scent, drink in their colors.


An overhang of roots and plants above WNC's red, red dirt

This is a good time to go to my in-laws’ garden when we need to cook something that day. I have a goal, a purpose, a direction…at least for half an hour. Plus, the garden is a riot of textures and hues that delight the senses.


Gerbera daisies, in a beautiful color combination


The garden and all its tasty glories

Whenever I see a wide open field, or a sweeping expanse of a hill slope, something inside me is released. I want to spread my arms wide and run into the wind with my hair tossed and twisted into live snakes. I am alone, and it is enough.



I want to buy an RV and set out across the country by myself in a nomadic life, and I want to throw it all to the winds and go find a job teaching English abroad for years in a country where I don't speak the language, and I want to get a small sailboat and hover around the islands of the Caribbean, fishing and diving for my dinner, picking fruits and living off what I can barter for…I want to have a microhouse deep in the wilds of Wyoming, or a motorcycle, a tent, and a thousand European highways.

I want great things and a never-ending wonder of an existence…but after I take my walk, I am mostly contented to be where I am. Myself, in my house, with my husband, in our orchard.

Things I like in my house

I used to be one of those people who would buy random stuff just because it was neat, or "would be a great conversation piece," or other similar and stupid reasons. There are many nifty thingamajigs in the world; my eleventy-zillion boxes of stuff from my college dorm room attested to that. I planned to keep it all and decorate my future house with it. Then I met my husband, and we moved seven times in six years, and I learned that was a little impractical. So I got rid of a lot and made a solemn vow to not acquire any more stuff unless it was either practical, or until I had a house.

Now? I has a house. Of course, my taste has changed, as has my budget (new My Blog Drinking Game = drink ten shots if D goes one entry without mentioning how poor she is).


Got this vase for $10 from a yard sale last week. It says it's Japanese, but I don't know how true that is. All I know is that it's got intricate line painting and high contrast and it's LOVELY. We're looking for a nice tall plant stand to put it on, but we'll probably have to yard sale/thrift store that as well, since IKEA has failed us in providing cheap things that are actually what we want.


Hubs found this cat in our storage trailer, which is stuffed full of random appliances, a broken tanning bed, a cast-iron stove we plan on stealing at some point, and my mother-in-law's Christmas supplies, which take up a whole room. I like the devious look on his featureless face. I also like the dried daffodils in the green glass vase. I also really like green glass.


We got this print in Kyoto, while walking along the Philosopher's Path. The artist hand-drew this, incredibly detailed and intricate and wow. We wanted to buy all of them, but that would have been something like 200 bucks, so one it was. The size was very irregular and didn't fit any standard frames, so instead we got creative with a floating glass frame. I'd prefer a nicer sight through the glass than our crappy double-wide wallpaper, but it's better than nothing.


Maneki neko says, "Hello!" If I had a lot of money, I would buy a lot of maneki neko. I would stick them all in a big shadow box and hang it on my wall.


We got this hand-painted postcard on the Philosopher's Path for a mere dollah. The picture frame is a wedding gift that has sat unused for almost two years (coincidentally enough, since the wedding), but Hubs decided it would go nicely together. I like his style.


My in-laws go to a lot of yard sales, and often find really amazing stuff. Mother-in-law and her sister found a set of shadow boxes somewhere, and I was given this one. I LOVE shadow boxes. They are like adult dollhouses except you can't reach in and play with the stuff you put in them. This one is hanging on my office wall (my RED walls, that I painted myself, four coats, no applause) and is appropos what with the books and all.


I don't own all that many knickknacks anymore, since I disposed of a lot of them every time we moved and have only just begun to accumulate more. These knickknacks, however, are not going anywhere. They are from left to right: a peacock feather and Pier One red glass bottle centerpiece from our wedding, a frame containing baby pictures of Hubs, a menorah I got for my Bat Miztvah (it's never used, but I likez eet), Agent Skully, the artist formerly known as Mr. Skullhead (Mother-in-law randomly painted that for Hubs back in the day and I stole it from him), a Ramune bottle (Japanese soda), a Wieselburger beer bottle (drunk by me in Vienna circa 2003), and a Jelinek rum bottle (purchased by me in Prague circa 2003).


We have a china hutch full of pretty things. I've always loved the blue and white patterns of Mediterranean-inspired stuff, like these condiment dishes with their tiny spoons. There's also an incense burner I honestly can't remember how I acquired, and a trinket box decorated with seeds that my mom got us from Argentina.


I sewed and embroidered this mat for our side table a few months ago, to keep the lamp from scratching the hell out of it and to distract the eye from the unsightly lamp cord. Our living room/dining room area has this whole muted, earthy crimson-sage-tan-black color palette going on, so I went with that. Now I need to make one for the coffee table, because we are slovenly slackers and use dish rags to lay our plates on while we eat on the couch in front of the TV, oh god.

We need to get some more wall art at some point, but I like what we have so far.

Interest piqued

Every now and then, I get a random urge to start dressing like like a shlub, and more like I used to, which is "funkily." I've never been what most would call a "fashionista," and honestly, my style is as schizophrenic and muddled and eclectic as...well, pretty much everything else about me, but I do like pretty clothes.

Back when I was in high school and first started actually noticing clothing (late bloomer, I know), I wanted pretty much the entirety of the Delia's catalog. I loved the 90s fashions for the most part-- graphic tees, ringer and baseball tees, tight corduroys, big ice rings and jewelry with crazy graphics, Asian print practically EVERYTHING. I read Sassy. That's almost a cliche for 90s alterna-girl, but I loved it. I wanted to dress like a kinderwhore. I wanted babydoll dresses. I started going to thrift stores and bought these awesome rust-colored cords that I adored. Of course, being 4'11" and not being endowed with hips yet, they didn't fit. I think I went through high school in baggy pants.

I went goth later on, and stole my mom's old hippie jeans (they slowly disintegrated a year later, I wore them so much), and wanted to be punk but didn't know where to find the clothes. I found some old kids' t-shirts and wore them with Sesame Street barrettes. Then I more or less started the whole skirt-over-pants thing at my school...I was at least one of the first to start wearing them.

I went through a Japanese fashion craze in college, all brights and layers and random crap, very derelicte, very *gulp* Olsen Twins-meets-raver. The brights got old fast, but instead I started trying to alter and sew my own clothes. That never went too well, because I lack mad skillz.

Since I left grad school, I kind of stopped bothering. Between being paranoid about looking all professional and sober (despite my work's lack of dress code) and having to wear a uniform as a waitress, I fell into this jeans and t-shirt rut. How boring. I'd only try to look cute when we went out, and we never went out, so.

We went to Japan in June, and I'd been hoping for some serious fashion CPR. Japanese people are short like me and have nice street fashion, or so the legends of Harajuku told me. In actuality, we arrived in Harajuku and its ilk right at a moment when things were in stores that quite horrified me (mostly). I like girly, do not get me wrong. I love romantic clothes, crochets and knits and lace and ruffles and chiffon and floral print. But this was, like, Laura Ashley-meets-Laura Ingalls print. Wallpaper print. Couch print. YUCK. And with the crochet it was too busy (too busy! for ME!) and looked cheap.

Plus I don't get why people like jumpsuits, or high-waisted things, or slouchy pegged boyfriend jeans. Drop-crotch leggings! WHY??!? Why do people find these things flattering???

Happily, on less "MUST FOLLOW FASHION TREND OF THIS MILLISECOND OR DIE" people, I liked the clothes a lot more. People just look more put-together there. They'll wear jeans and a t-shirt, yes, but the t-shirt will have just a little detailing to make it interesting, or they'll wear a nice cardigan or drape over it, or they'll have some cute accessories to spruce it up, and shoes. Oh my god! The shoes! I've never seen so many cute shoes! But alas, I was poor (despite cross-globe travel) and did not buy any. Even the office workers in their uniforms would have cute clips or pins in their hair, or adorable (and subtle...not crazy airbrushed jungles and tiger stripes) manicures. I wanted to take lots of pictures.

There's a fashion trend in Japan that is much like the hippie/bohemian look at home (I can only assume it's a trend, as there were similar stores everywhere), only it seemed...MORE so. Brighter and bolder, more daring. The outfits were all layers and mixed fabrics and a riot of texture. Embroidery, batik, natural fibers, but somehow still subtle. A lot like the gazillion hippie stores in Ashe-vegas but less mass-produced and more interesting. I liked those stores the most.

So pre-Japan, I've been making an effort to try to be less shlubby, like I said. I have some nice clothes and accessories that I've rarely worn because of current shlub-dom, so I've been digging them out. Of course, the fact that I've weeded out a lot is hard. I have five of the exact same black shirt from Kohl's in my closet. That's, like, a third of my wardrobe, and IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME.

Reading fashion blogs and actually looking at the catalogs of stores that aren't Kohl's or Target (oy) is both giving me inspiration and the ITCH. Want clothes. Want MORE. I'm foaming at the mouth as I type. It's all zombieriffic and disgusting. Maybe I can steal brains and sell them for science so I can have the money to actually afford my revamped form of expression.


(image courtesy of here.)

I like more or less the entire Anthropologie catalog, and the contents of this Etsy store, and I'm dying to
go to thrift stores and the hippie stores to see what I can salvage. I wish Anthropologie clothes weren't a million dollars each. The thrift stores might be all I can manage now!