a weekend in pictures

...a work party with friends...

see entire work party album here:


GregoryWorkParty

seattle storm opening game with
my good friend jolee



the ballard farmer's market on sunday



see entire farmer's market album:

Farmers Market

we took joel's mom and dad on our 2nd annual mday/fday picnic


see entire album here

Mday.Fday Picnic

and that doesn't even include the spontaneous party that happened friday night.

candace may or may not have had way too much to drink that night.

una suprisa - revealed








it's suppposed to be platinum blonde too, but i guess i have to wait for my natural hair color to grow out. gross. so in July, just before my 30th, i will be the blonde bell again.

can i pull off bombshell?

i am beginning to think: hell yes. it's time i stopped taking myself so seriously anyway.


so here she is.

the child is out of the bag.

una suprisa

i have never been able to keep a secret.

as a child, my parents decided that because i was willing - i would wrap everyone's christmas presents. i therefore knew what my brother and sisters were all getting every year.

i didn't realize how UN-MAGICAL this was

until one
f
a
t
eful year.


my sister teresa had a bday and i think she wrenched every single one of her presents out of my gift-wrapped hands (included in the list o'presents was the infamous pair of LA Gear that i am pretty sure she gave me and she's pretty sure i stole). but i digress.


that entire birthday was a drag for both her and me.


so when i get presents for people - golly, kids... it's a discipline to keep it inside.

(unless you have a bosom friend who sneaks (aka - accidentally pretends to find while accidentally showing her other friend my profile) her gifts from my feedback on etsy - why do they have to show pictures there?!)


but alas, i didn't buy anything or wrap anything from someone else for you.
this secret of mine? it's a present entirely for me. para mí. pour moi.


but just to tantalize you - it will include before/after pictures.
(nope. guessed wrong. not a boob job. i had to write this because i am very juvenile)


In FACT. just because you are behaving so nicely today, i will include the before picture.
(which, by the way, the taking of made me entirely miss the autobus this morning. i had to (gasp) WALK to work for the first time since i moved and was still 5min late. good thing jesus had shined his eyes upon seattle today with the freaking 84degree weather. seattleites are going to come apart at the seams. i really mean it. some of the freakiest outfits and strangest behavior happens on the first days of summery seattle).

(it's 7:37 and I have to leave at 7:40. in this shot, i am sans shoes, earrings, wedding ring, socks, breakfast, lunch, cellphone, and hair being done - it got curled. i think i ran out the door at 7:47. i still look pretty calm, eh?)

so, catch the after pictures tonight at 11pm!

magical tragical self-ery



I have recently been moaning about the loss of reading time once graciously given me by the commute to and from work.

(truth: I used to read for 15 min before the lull of the bus put me to sleep anyway – so actually I spent about 45 min a day sleeping in public).

But still.

This reading time is now spent getting up later in the morning and returning earlier in the evenings, so it hasn’t been a huge complaint, but as my life seems to demand more and more analysis of my vocational conundrum (wtf am I doing with my life?!!), I ache and long to be lost in someone else’s words: their story, their love interest, their family, their outfits, their melancholy– even if just to feel connected again.

You see, I feel entirely isolated.

Or perhaps trapped is a better word.

I know there is something out there for me – it presses on me and I am ever closer to it, but I cannot move into that realization just yet. It is not time. I am in the dream stage still – and my dear, imagination and I have never been comrades.
I tried her as a playmate a little while back, but she will have none of it. So I keep tiptoeing around her screen door, my hair stringy-wet with summer sprinklers, my lip stained with purple soda, my skin dewy with hope.

Sometimes she speaks through the screen door…lazily sighing of things we could do.
Jumproap? Hopscotch? Lemonade stand?

But alas, off I go to collect our roller-skates – full of her whispery inspiration, afraid to embrace the relief of boredom – and I come back, and she’s gone.

I can hear the TV through her screen door, her mother shuffling in the kitchen, but I am on the outside.

So I was right in that word choice, I guess.
Isolated. Left.

my kitty cats, independence is a bitch.

matthew arnold and i, on the other hand, are dear old cronies. Despite not having time to read (aka I don’t feel like any corner of my new place is screaming as a reading spot – and this must needs be fixed, dove – it’s imperative), I realized that a 10 minute bus ride is the perfect amount of time for a POEM!!!

You see, my new cyber crush (I love this girl!) has got me thinking about poetry again. She is a gifted poet, and because my writing style is more prose – I forget how much I love the lyricism of poetry..that is, until plume reminded me. she seems to be reminding me of a lot lately.

poetry. It can capture and preserve me all at the same time.

So I felt found again today…thank you Matthew Arnold.




Self-Dependence

Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel’s prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o’er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire
O’er the sea and to the stars I send:
“Ye who from my childhood up have calm’d me,
Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

“Ah, once more,” I cried, “ye stars, ye waters,
On my heart your mighty charm renew;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!”

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,
Over the lit sea’s unquiet way,
In the rustling night-air came the answer:
“Wouldst though be as these are? Live as they.

“Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

“And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon-silver’d roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

“Bounded by themselves and unregardful
In what state God’s other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.”

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:
“Resolve to be thyself; and know that he,
Who finds himself, loses his misery!”


for her

in an effort to reacquaint myself with me today (i've been so busy, dear hearts), i irresponsibly ditched my job today (i am SOO out of PTO), and took a day just to be.

that day turned into errands, but dears - the errands were just what this gal needed. i sold off some old booklings - and discovered two new ones for my family.

you know, the internet made me forget that i don't actually own any Matthew Arnold. Matthew Arnold, the Victorian poet, wrote one of the poems that was read aloud at my wedding, but i didn't realize that i didn't own the book (gasp) until i came across it at the store. if i need to read the buried life i usually just look it up online. (if you take time to read it, please especially note lines 12-29..which were the lines read aloud at my nuptials). .


i am proud to say that i have corrected this grievous error



after i did that, i had to run to our old place for some things, and i realized how ugly it was. :) don't get me wrong, i knew it then, but it was my home - and i made it just that. now that i have moved on and grieved appropriately, i feel so enchanted with my lovely new home. see below for the before/after affect.

(old place)

(new place)
pretty amazing transformation, eh? just call me Houdini.


(me in front of new place- in the park across the street)



I also checked out my local branch of the public library. I am a very avid user of the Seattle public library system - it's my own personal netflix. I walked to the Capitol Hill branch today, and boy was I pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the building. Damn, Seattle...you just keep taking the breath out of me.


i have some poems inkling around my brain...thanks to the creative energy felt at tice and niki's. i leave there feeling like the next generation of creative collaborators. i ask you - are my dreams possible?

whether or not you discover me; whether or not you pay me...i will write. it is not my choice. it is my destiny.



also, i leave you with this thought.
(bff. you move my aches to joy)