Jordan Crane

Happy Halloween! I like artist/comic book artist Jordan Crane's kind of scary, kind of sad, bittersweet images. They're melancholy, but cute, to use an over-used word. Oh, they're not just for Halloween, either. I just thought I would talk about them today. The green one is called "late night long walk high hopes" and the poison one is called "write note if swallowed".

These are from a postcard book of his. It's called Uptight All Night: 30 postcards. The colors are super saturated and the postcards are much more beautiful than what one would usually see in a postcard book. I like sending postcards through the mail often instead of notecard + envelope. I took on this habit after receiving a postcard in the mail from my calligraphy teacher. His writing is so beautiful that every letter and number just makes your eyes bug out of your head! It's show-offy, or somewhat exhibitionistic, to send a postcard instead of a note. In spite of that, or because of it, I like using postcards.

Cinderella Says

It's really simple: if the shoes don't fit, I don't buy them.

A great principle, very simple--but there's this phenomenon that happens to me sometimes, usually when a beautiful shoe is on sale for a really good price.
The phenomenon works like this: I try the shoe on, and it seems to fit! It feels great! It's like walking on clouds! Gleefully, I buy the shoe. I get the shoe home, admire it for a few days, possibly crow to my friends and boyfriend about the deal I got. Then, the first time I'm going to wear the shoe, it hurts like a motherf*cker.

That's what happened with these cute John Fluevog chunky platforms. I love Fluevogs--on other people, and in the store.
They're beautiful, they're weird, and they're not common. But I've never found a pair that fits me. My shoe size is usually 6.5 but sometimes 6. Every shoe or boot of Fluevogs' that I've ever tried in 6 has been too tight, and every 6.5 too big. And I go to the boutique and try at least twice a year, trying several styles.

The other day I was supposed to meet my friend at a certain time on a certain street, only when I called her she said she was just waking up from a nap. She was going to come in 1/2 an hour, she said. So I wandered over to Fluevog and saw these brown, apricot and pink platforms on sale for a mere $89, regularly $225. They were the only pair left and they were a 6. I wasn't even going to try them on, but since I was waiting for my friend and there was no one in the store, I did. And they felt great! I was in shock... happy shock! Of course I bought the shoes. The next day when I tried them on with all my outfits that would match, they had suddenly shrunk and my toes could not move around and I felt like I had my feet bound. DAMN IT! So I took off my thin sock and put on an even thinner nylon socky thing and they were still killer. Sadly, I examined my receipt and sure enough, it said FINAL SALE. "FINAL SALE" was even circled in pen by the salesperson.

I let my friend try them on, thinking she might want to buy them from me--she also loves Fluevog, and she has a slightly smaller foot than I do. She got the same happy glaze on her face that I recognized from my own-- she was talking really fast and saying they were slightly too tight but she was sure she could make them work, etc etc. I think it's the $89 dollar thing, really. It's just such a great price that it makes people crazy. I don't know, maybe a cobbler could stretch them for her where they're tight. For me, it was the length of the shoe, and the arch didn't even hit my arch in the right place, so it kind of felt like the shoe was trying to eject me out of it, with only the strap like a seat belt holding me in, so I know that stretching them won't help me. I'm like Drucilla and Anastasia trying to cram my caveman feet into Cinderella's shoe. But maybe they will work for my friend. If the shoe fits, wear it! But if not, stay away, no matter how inexpensive!

Georgia Rule

If I wrote about all the bad movies I see, it would just be endless. I kind of purposely try not to write about all the bad movies, much like I try not to write about all the clothes and shoes I want, because where do you stop with that kind of thing? A person could have a whole blog, updated about 20 times a day if you write about bad movies and all the clothes and shoes and handbags you want.

But Georgia Rule was just SO, SO bad that I must make an exception to my rule! It was so bad that I can't believe the studio producers had the nerve to write a scolding letter to Lindsay Lohan telling her that her bad behavior was jeopardizing the film. Umm... she could not have made the suckiness of this film any worse. It had a bad screenplay, bad dialogue*, pathetic attempt at making LA look like rural Idaho... and Dermot Mulroney as a veterinarian... Jane Fonda's stiff, expressionless eyes and eyelids... everything about Felicity Huffman, oh, God, Georgia Rule is SUCH A BAD MOVIE!

Tangent: look at this old picture of beautiful Jane Fonda.

The movie sucked so bad I can't even write a coherent post!

* Some of Lindsay Lohan's character's BAD lines:
1) "You don't have to brush me or feed me after riding me."
2) "I'm going to find your boyfriends and f*ck them stupid."

and this profound pearl of wisdom:

3) "You can't stop what's done to you. You can only survive it."

I know, I was a total moron for even putting it on my Netflix queue...

The Panty Fight

I was introduced to the concept of Nordstrom Rack by my friend Eileen, who till recently was also my co-worker. She would always come to work and say, "Like this top? $12 at Nordstrom Rack," or "I just bought a bunch of underwear... Nordstrom Rack..."

So the other day Eileen and I went to Nordstrom Rack. I had been there once before, I remembered upon entering the store, but it was such a traumatic experience that I must have blocked it out. Actually, Nordstrom Rack wasn't the bad experience... I had dropped a metal luggage cart thing full of sex toys on my foot and it literally cut off two of my toenails, and at the time I only wore high heeled shoes or high wedges. I had to buy a few pairs of shoes that were open toed, because I could not put any pressure whatsoever on the completely bare, sensitive nail-less toes, and also low-heeled, so a sympathetic pal had taken me to Nordstrom Rack, but I'd forgotten that it was Nordstrom Rack.

This time, I realized that there are remarkable deals at Nordstrom Rack, like a $1,000 Isabelle Fiore purse for $265, and Citizens of Humanity jeans for $78. The pain in the butt part is that you kind of have to dig around and rummage around and you might find something wonderful but they don't have your size, etc. But it's fun and you might find some great deals.

So then I went with my friend Ruth, who got into a panty fight with some woman. Apparently, the woman grabbed a pair of panties that Ruth would have bought almost right out of her hands. Ruth laughed about it. She wasn't too mad. That lady was lucky. Ruth has a black belt in kung fu!

The panties I like best are Cosabella's. They're really pretty and really comfortable. The plain solid colored ones are around $21 a pair, and some of the more lacy ones or ones with ribbons and other details are more like around $35 a pair. Sometimes you can get a great deal on them from Ebay sellers, like the solid ones, brand new with tags for like $10 or $12.(They don't let you sell used panties on Ebay, but they used to. Technically you weren't supposed to, but people would have ads that said things like, "unWORN, unUSED not DIRTY panties for sale..." But Ebay put a stop to that.) The other night I bid on and won a lacy pair for only $15.50 or something like that.

The next day I have this email from another person who was bidding, and the email says something like, "Sorry to bother you but I bought the matching bra and I was trying to win the matching panties and I was wondering if..." Never say that I am not a nice person, because I wrote to her told her that I can understand wanting a matching bra and panty set and yes, I will sell the item to her for the same amount I paid. I am not engaging in a panty fight! I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Hardier than Cockroaches?

There's a fennel plant growing out of the asphalt in a parking spot right outside my work. I can't believe this thing grows there--it's such a filthy, industrial part of San Francisco, and people are constantly snapping off its branches with their oh-so- skillful parking.

Even more astounding is that swallowtail butterflies have laid their eggs on this fennel plant and now it has some caterpillars on it! There's also one chrysalis attached to the railing of our stairs. It's incredibly hard for me to spot the caterpillars because their camouflage is so good! I took a few photos. Here's one.

Butterflies and Rainbows

Gloomy day. I had to pick up the company bagels at 6:30 am for work and it was raining.
(I was impressed with myself because I put fresh new windshield wipers on my car a few weeks before it actually rained. Hey, I'm turning into one of those organized, prepared people! Now if I can just start actually saving some money...)

As I was leaving work, one of the managers found some swallowtail caterpillars on a fennel plant outside. She was so excited, showing them to three of us who were leaving at the same time. There was already a chrysalis hanging from the railing of the stairs, too. My work is located on a really dirty, dangerous street; by dirty, I mean it's a common passageway for diesel semis and it's a very industrial area--it's polluted and gross. Pretty amazing that butterflies would want to come lay eggs there.

Then on the way home I saw this rainbow. Butterflies and a rainbow in one day. I thought it was a sign I was going to get into a car accident and die on the way home, but I was wrong. I lived to tell.

Dahlias

The dahlia garden at Golden Gate Park is one of my favorite annual San Francisco events. (My least favorite is Fleet Week, which just ended two hours ago. This annual display of miliary might literally flies right over my apartment, with all its earsplitting, booming, shrieking scariness.)

The best time to see the dahlias was probably a month or three weeks ago; the flowers are on the downturn now, but still outrageously beautiful! The dahlias are so amazing in their mathematical, patterned perfection. Although the word "dahlia" comes from "Dahl"-- the name of a Swedish person, they actually originated in Mexico and Central America. Aztecdahlias.com says they originally had an Aztec name-- "acocotli" or "water-cane", and they are the national flower of Mexico. Go see them, before it's too late!

The Great Jade Hunt

My sister's birthday approacheth. What to get? I rembered her telling me something about some doll she has-- a "Bratz" doll with "yellow" hair, as she says. She's turning six.

The Bratz dolls, in case you don't know (I didn't), are a popular line of dolls who have really big heads compared to their bodies, large cat-like eyes and big, inflated looking lips. They wear slutty fashions and often come with interchangeable miniskirts, tiny tops, and feet. That's right... you don't just change their shoes... you change their feet, which have the shoes painted on! A few years back there was some scandal because one of the Bratz was being sold with a thong panty.

I'm somewhat horrified that my sister is into these Bratz, but on the other hand, I remember what it was like to be my dad's child. He's extremely unconventional, and while I now appreciate my hippie upbringing, at the time, as a kid and teenager, I often just wanted candy, Guess? jeans, name-brand stupid toys (not super educational toys), and a lunch pail like everyone else's that wasn't ergonomic and made of renewable hemp or organic cotton. I usually get my sister books or art supplies. But she's in kindergarten now, and is now old enough to realize that she who has the most toys... well, she who has the most toys has the most toys, that's all. Kindergarten can be competitive. I remember!

So off to the toy superstore went DD and I.

There was a whole aisle of Bratz and Bratz paraphernalia, but it was at first difficult to find "Jade"--the somewhat Asian looking character. I was also looking for the "Bratz Kidz" line of dolls, which are more age-appropriate for my sister. The Bratz Kidz are dressed more modestly than the adult-ish Bratz, and they come with accessories like a pony or school things or fairy wings and wand. Their changes of clothes include bell bottomed jeans and little cardigans (thank God). There was no Winter Fun Jade, though... no Back to School Jade... no Jade with Pony, although there were all the other characters available...the one with "yellow" hair (Cloe), Yasmin (possibly Latina, Yasmin is a brunette), and Sasha, presumably African American. Fortunately, DD found Jade in the clearance aisle... I ended up purchasing Sasha, Jade and someone named Lilani. I chose Lilani because she seemed more rare and because she came with a fairy costume. After three days of researching Bratz, their potentially harmful affectz, their availability, and their pricez, I've gone completely nutz!

Snow on the Mountains

Sometimes I like a green bouquet--Bells of Ireland, eucalyptus, some lemon leaves, and other green things florists bundle into a green bouquet can be really pretty and kind of a soothing change from a colorful bouquet of flowers. So, at the Farmers Market I decided to buy this plant--"Snow on the Mountains", or Euphorbia Marginata.
Turns out this stuff bleeds a milky white sap that is potentially irritating to the eyes and skin... in fact, the whole plant is potentially irritating to the eyes and skin. The person who sold me the plant cuttings said, "Don't touch the plant and touch your eyes..."
"Okay, thanks for telling me," I said, trying to be nonchalant, but actually sort of wanting to not buy them after all. Anyhow, the plant cuttings sat around our apartment for a week and in that week some of the flower parts opened, releasing some kind of insect hatchlings that were striped yellow and black like bees, but much skinnier. Fabulously poisonous, infested Snow on the Mountains! Just great!

When Coffee Snobs Fall From Grace

The other day I was helping with what we at my work call Worker Food. Worker Food is this program where we all put in a certain set amount of money and with the money, the Worker Food Committee makes a budget and buys fruits and vegetables from our company. Then they display it in this kind of makeshift "store" we have, only the store is "free"-- or you take on the honor system, based on your weekly $$ contribution.
The company sells the produce to us at cost, which is very nice. I'm not on the committee currently, but I was subbing for someone who is, who had to miss work that day. So we were cleaning out the old produce and displaying the fresh stuff when I discovered three cans of this Starbucks Double Shot Espresso and Cream stuff.

Well, I'm a coffee enthusiast, shall we say, and I like good coffee, recently roasted and ground up right before the brewing. I don't like Starbucks, and I only drink it once a year on my Christmas pilgrimage to see my family, because it's the only coffee that's slightly better than the coffee from a fast food joint along the seven hour car trip. (Why drive? Because there are lots of Christmas presents in the car.)

And yet, the fact that someone had put these weird little cans of espresso-n-sugar in the Worker Food seemed serendipitous... so I took one and tried it. I poured it over ice and actually drank half the thing before the sweetness became overwhelming and I stopped. But it actually wasn't half bad. Now, see. Someone's going to kick me out of the Blue Bottle coffee line next Saturday, outing me as someone who not only drinks Starbucks, but drinks it out of a CAN.

A Head for Business and a Body for Sin

I'm fascinated by a new manager at my work who wears horrible clothes, like straight out of the 80's, and I'm not talking cool 80's fashions worn with a 2007 sense of tongue-in-cheek; no; I mean 80's shoulder pads, big square navy blue women's suit with ill-fitting skirt and huge gold double breasted buttons, a loose polyester scarf around the neck, and closed-toe, high but thick-heeled clompy shiny pumps. I feel badly for her.

Whenever I see her and am stunned anew by the hideousness of her clothing, I think, "I've got a head for business and a body for sin," which was one of Melanie Griffith's lines in the movie Working Girl. This woman reminds me of that era of work fashion. Th funniest part is, everyone else dresses casually at my work. I mean, it's a vegetable warehouse, for God's sake. Most of the people are warehouse workers and truck drivers, our office is grubby, and we're always on recycling bin duty or kitchen duty or some other dirty duty. Her dressing up is so weirdly out of place, which is what makes it so fascinating!

Pink, Poodles, Paris

The moon is full tonight, and the weather is so mild it hardly seems like we're in San Francisco. It was a wonderful night to take a long walk, and good thing, because I would have been forced out of doors regardless of the weather and the moon's cooperation by my insane downstairs neighbor (that's always one of my common whiny refrains-- "insane downstairs neighbor"... the only thing I say more often is "insane boss") Anyhow my INSANE DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR bought some tacky little paintings or photos or something like that, apparently from Ross Dress for Less, or perhaps Marshall's, and was hammering nails into the walls to hang them. At first I thought maybe she was building a piece of furniture from IKEA, in which case all the hammering would make sense. But then I went outside to escape and saw that she was hanging all these little 8" x 10" frames with ugly pictures in them in a row on her living room wall. It looks like she's decorating a dental office in 1989 in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

Don't ask why but this got me thinking about color and style and my current cell phone, the Sanyo Katana II in "Pink Fascination". I like the phone... I don't like a lot of bells and whistles and accidental connections to Mars for $10 a minute... just a nice basic but not clunky or outdated cell phone, and this phone fits my criteria.
Okay, I really do like the color of it, but the only other colors were black and gray. If there'd been red I might have gotten red... Sometimes pink is a little gaggy, like who would carry a pink cell phone except the silliest of the silly? It goes along with having a dog who weighs less than a coconut, and carrying said dog in a handbag...

Retrolite, Bakelite

My newest bauble is from Classic Hardware--they make this plastic jewelry and they call it "Retrolite". It's supposed to be an homage to Bakelite. There's a wonderful little antique shop near my home and the woman who owns it has owned it for thirty years! One day she told me all about Bakelite--how it was this miraculous plastic and it was used for knobs, appliances, etc. It was incredibly strong and took color very well. Then they started making napkin rings, bracelets, pendants and other jewelry out of Bakelite because they could make the colors so vibrant and beautiful. Then, people who worked in Bakelite factories started getting sick. Yup, Bakelite was toxic. So, no more Bakelite.
Now, people collect Bakelite--the finished products aren't toxic, it was the manufacturing process.

(Boy, that was a pretty crappy explanation of Bakelite, but you get the idea.)

A Sucker is Born Every Day

Although I've grown out of See's Candy, as far as their chocolates go (they were always around at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Halloween when I was growing up), I still love their square lollypops. My favorite ones are the butterscotch and cafe latte flavors, and the chocolate flavored one is pretty gross... like a Tootsie Roll... that type of weird artificial chocolate flavor. They used to have peanut butter, which was gritty and kind of weird, too.

Now comes this Pumpkin Spice flavor... I had to try it. It's kind of strange and waxy or plastic-y at first, but then it's okay. Overall it's like that vanilla pumpkin spice flavored product that they pump out of an enormous jug at Starbucks. One of my friends loves that stuff. All through the holidays she carries around an enormous Pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks, although she only sips at it and never drinks more than a few inches of it. She found the one Starbucks in San Francisco that had still had Pumpkin Spice into February last year.

If you try See's square lollypops, definitely go for butterscotch or cafe latte. I think you could safely skip Pumpkin Spice and you'd not be missing anything.

From Harry Potter to Mary Gaitskill

I was happily reading a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when DD said he had to return it to someone at work. "You can't just take it away from me now..." I protested, but he promised to buy it for me the next day. (Cut to a full WEEK later... I still don't have the Harry Potter book...ahem.) Anyhow, I began reading a book of Mary Gaitskill's short stories which someone lent to me. The book is called Bad Behavior, and the stories are mostly about characters who are somehow getting sexually involved with each other, and their inner thoughts about each other, many of which are quite mean and unkind. I guess that's realistic. One of the stories is "Secretary", and it was the basis for the film "Secretary" starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. The original story is very interesting; it ends after the attorney spanks the young typist once, for making typing errors, and after he makes her pull up her skirt once. After those two incidents, she doesn't go back to work for him any more, and the story ends.

Barbra, Soft as an Easy Chair...

It's Barbra week here on my blog. I love Barbra Streisand. It's practically genetic-- my mother loves Barbra Streisand and I grew up thinking Barbra was the right music to clean house to, to have dinner parties to, and to take a bubble bath to! Fortunately, DD also loves Barbra Streisand, or else we probably couldn't be together!

This is my favorite Barbra Streisand style era-- when she had long, flowing hair and looked very soft. Kind of like Gisele Bundchen... except Barbra came much earlier, of course!

Of Nails

Last Friday I was getting a manicure at the end of my day, which was around 3:00 pm, and my co-worker R. came with me in order to take a break in the middle of her day, which wasn't going to end till well into the night. She wanted to get acrylic nails put on, but she didn't have an appointment and not everyone at the salon applies acrylic nails, and no one who applies them was there at the time. "Well, just get a regular manicure and get the acrylics next week," I said. But she was really bent on getting acrylic nails sometime in the very near future, like probably Saturday.

I was really surprised when she showed up Sunday afternoon at a party we were both attending-- without acrylic nails. She's a very determined person. But it turns out her boyfriend dissuaded her from getting them.

All the talk of nails made me think of this teacher I had in 8th grade for Social Studies. She made us copy the preamble to the Constitution out of our textbook while she read the newspaper. She had super long, curly nails, painted dramatic colors like metallic ruby red and purple.

Then I started thinking about this song by Lil' Kim (with Lil' Shanice) where Lil' Kim goes, something like, "Keep my hair done all the time/even got a manicurist in the booth while I rhyme". The song is "Shake Your Bum Bum" and involves diamonds like disco balls, Dolce and Gabbana flip flops, and Lil' Shanice's anus.

Briefly, I remembered Florence Griffith-Joyner, the amazing athlete known as the fastest woman ever. Now that is something-- the fastest woman ever! She was also known for her flamboyant running clothes and her long, dramatic fingernails.

Speaking of long, dramatic fingernails... last but not least, there's Barbra Streisand! Her long nails are a signature style, and they're almost always painted a natural color. They're very elegant, but sometimes they're downright distracting, like in the movie The Prince of Tides.

Hmm, maybe long nails go along with confidence and power.

Carrot and Stick Press

I got these beautiful letterpressed skull and crossbones notecards at an art store the other day. They're made by Carrot and Stick Press in Oakland, California.
The paper, or cardstock, is wonderfully thick, and they make designs ranging from sweet pink polka dots to classic candy stripes to the skulls, which are my favorite notecards ever ever EVER!

Carrot and Stick Press

Pink Pearl apple

A coworker gave me two Pink Pearl apples on Friday at work. Hers were grown by Apple Farm. I like tart apples, and Pink Pearls are very tart and crisp, like Granny Smith apples. The apples she gave me had a white and pink mottled flesh.

At the Farmers Market on Saturday I saw that De Voto Gardens, from Sebastopol, CA also had Pink Pearl apples so I bought a few pounds. Theirs are sweeter than the ones I had on Friday, with a deeper pink flesh. The Pink Pearl apple is a hybrid that was developed in the 1940's. The skin is yellow or cream colored, and you can see the blush from the flesh through the skin. The people at De Voto Gardens' stand said these apples have a very short season-- late August through mid September! They compared it to an Arkansas Black apple for density, crunch and tart flavor.

Steven Shein jewelry

Sparrows, roller skates, rainbows, skulls, butterflies, old school boomboxes, anchors, headphones and many other iconic shapes, made of wood, laminate, glittery stuff and gold-- Steven Shein's made-in-LA jewelry is wearable pop art.

The heart-shaped one that reads "break this" is my favorite piece of jewelry lately!
It's made of five candy colored layers: purple, green, orange, pink and white, and is thick and chunky, suspended from a delicate chain.

Check out the amazing array of designs here...
Steven Shein