Cupcakes!

Natalia

Natalia
the lipstick lesbian
does what the team mascot says
she has a tender heart

A suitable replacement

No oriental housejackets. No silver cuff. No brown suede hobo bag.

But a coat, a glorious grey wool coat!
With a purple lining! On sale!

This is the kind of coat I dreamed of as a little girl. My mom thinks it looks like a Russian military coat, but those pleats, that buckle ... I dream of braided British girls running around the snowy courtyard of their boarding school.

Appropriation

Tomorrow is my day out on the town. A coat like this would clearly solve all of life's problems ... A friend brought me something similar as a souvenir, turquoise silk edged with yellow, but it is hopelessly huge and I don't see how it could be remade to fit little old me.

What else will I be looking for? A silver cuff to replace the wooden one that was broken this summer. A ruby-red cashmere scarf. A bag which speaks to my heart. Inevitably, I will come home with none of these things; rather, I will have purchased another skirt or "interesting shirt" and have tried on at least seven different pairs of shoes without which I could not possibly live another day.

Which reminds me that my closet is in shirt embargo right now. I realized last week (after coming home with ANOTHER shirt, a stripey jersey knit) that the shirt-to-drawer-space ratio is hovering around 3:1.

I didn't want to do it, but there was something about some straw and a camel and a certain look in my boyfriend's eye.

Turtlenecks!

That's one thing that I hate so much about capital-F Fashion: the sheer impractibility of it all. What use do I have for a sheer, floaty, sleeveless baby doll top that's cut to the navel? I wish that I did have a use for such an object, alas I do not.

But! Do my eyes deceive me? Are those ... TURTLENECKS I see on the runway? Turtlenecks in combination with other fashionable beautiful clothes?

Okay, lose the pants on the first one. It's dowdy, but I'm a little dowdy too. How about the second one? 40's chic? Love it!

"Demure, funereal," the fashionistas sigh and shake their styled heads. I'll gladly take it if it involves turtlenecks.

(Images from The Sartorialist.)

Convergences. Sticky-sweet. You have been forewarned.

Today I wept for beauty for the first time in three years.

Hundreds and hundreds of cedar waxwings, little tiny chirping birds. You know how they go crazy in midwinter and dive-bomb the trees. Just as I walk down the high level bridge and the view opens up, the first orchestral surge of "Wake Up" by the Arcade Fire washes over me. A gust of 60 km/h north wind hits me full in the face, and these birds come soaring over top of the bridge. Waves and waves of birds, flying with all their strength straight into this wind, pushing up over the bridge and then zooming down to the trees on the other side. I counted five, six, nine surges of these birds, a hundred per flock, as they rose and fell over my head in time with the music.

I was thankful for my scarf and fur-edged hood. I pulled them up and allowed myself to weep, to soften my spine and fall into the wind. If I had let go just a little more, one of those gusts would have picked me up and battered me into unconsciousness on the rusted-out supports of the bridge. How I wish I had: it would have been a release sweeter and more complete than orgasm.

A study in contrasts: part one

Two twentysomethings -- both a little crazy in the head, both contradictions in terms.

Anneke is a queen. People are smitten with her as soon as they speak to her. She is dynamic and mysterious and fascinating. Every few years she packs her bags and makes a fresh start in another city, in which she easily finds new friends, lovers, wavering souls ready to adore her in her little fortress of self-confidence. And in her wake the worshippers wait for missives from their goddess.

But Walter -- oh, Walter. He is predictable. He is staid and practical. When Walter sees the map of his future laid before him, he carefully calculates the value of each route, and then he doublechecks his math. He lives in a city for which he has cultivated a marked distaste, and he remains because it is the most logical course of action, given his long-term plans. Most of his friendships have soured, but he harbours a secret hope that everything would be different in another town.

This is not meant to resolve itself in Freudian analysis. What needs to be pointed out, however, is that although these descriptions of my friends are completely accurate, we need to look closer. Because Anneke has a daily routine (into which she plunges with gusto), while Walter, in a conscious attempt to avoid predictability, does not.

Does then a daily routine release one from the demands of daily unpredictability? Is it a form of absolution? Or are daily routines such draconian things that in order to get away from them, one must make a clean and complete break?

Girl on swing

Christianity: deceleration lane

The Pentacostals have stolen three years of my adult life -- those last beautiful adolescent years that are spent discovering self, discovering the world. Oh, but for the lost 6-month backpacking and drinking tour of Europe, triteness aside!
Now, looking back, I regret those three years with great regret. I tried so hard to believe, to buy into all of it. Dutifully and diligently I supressed my misgivings.

The gospel truth is that I -- as lost, misguided, and naturally moral as I may be -- cannot believe in such a thing as Pentacostal Christianity. It is just too freaky.