It's "Intervention" Meets "Obsessed"

I blames the internet for my ever increasing shoe lust. Perusing various fashion-related blogs over the past couple of months has culminated in me dreaming up an AWESOMELY NONEXISTENT shoe (wood wedge, high ankle, strappy but not slutty, etc. etc.) that has and will continue to elude me. Hence, the following:

1. Dollhouse, 2. Pour La Victoire

Since, for some reason, my dreams won't come true I shelled out some dough for these two sandals and said to myself, This better make this Mama Bear happy. Okay. No. CREEPY. I didn't say that. I swear. Those Pour La Victoire's? Total heartbreaker. I wanted them for so long only to have to return them. Because seriously, who needs cankleitis?

"Don't be a dick, be a DUDE!" The 101's jab to the jugular.

This past weekend, Jaya and I tried to make it out of the city to go up north for a impromptu daytrip.

OOHHHHHH the possibilities!!! Up to Gilroy for the Garlic Festival! Or to Santa Barbara for whatevs! Or to Solvang for aebleskivers! But the 101 was unrelenting and, after 2+ hrs. in my '96 Corolla (aka Cooper Nielsen), we only got as far as Camarillo and Oxnard. DAAMMMNNS YOUSE, FREEWAY, DAMMMNNNS YOUSE! I'm shaking BOTH OF MY FISTS at you! FISTS IN THE AIR! SHAKING LAZILY!!!!

All right.

Camarillo was a bit of a bust. We hit up the outlet stores but only came away with a bra and some chocolates (aside: J's boobs and my sweet tooth are in better shape). We did manage to find a tiny thrift store (called Thrift Store?) were we found an avocado green hardware drawer (with tiny comparments) that reminded me of this giant drawer we saw at the Fairfax Flea Market.

My "new" drawer v. one of my many, MANY dream drawers.

---

We then trucked on to Oxnard where we happened upon the Salsa Festival and another thrift store. We made a quick stop at the festival were stuffed our faces with tacos, macho nachos, and churros, but strangely enough, not that much salsa. A festival of LIES - joking, but I (I mean Jaya) ain't gonna pay $$ to taste "Salsas of the WORLD." Bogus.

At the "Mission Bargain Center Thrift Store," we had some gooood picture time and my car was a couple of lbs. heavier with the purchases of a wool coat and an olde-tyme Chinese whet stone.

PICCCTTTURE TIMMMMME!!

Paling around the Salsa Festival.

Picked up some salt water taffy.


Jaya spotted it blocks away from the festival. GOOOOD eye.

On left: What J came with; On middle & right: Goldilocks & the 3 Bears + Little Red Ridinghood. BOOOM.

Mama Bear with zazzzzy glasses.

Years of taking yearbook photos have taught me NOTHING.

Har har, AS ALWAYS.

"Once is a Coincidence, Twice is a Lifestyle."

I hate computers. Ehhhhhh, LIES. Actually, I'm scared of them. They're shysty. They're unruly. "It's not like regular hate. It's so much more black. If [it was] a street gang I'd fucking go to war with [it] with bottles and chains." It's that brutal. For eons and eons, computers, to me, were only good for writing papers, checking email, buying big lady shoes, and ignoring friends and acquaintances who've passed my "2 years are enough to get to know you" life rule. ANYWAY, a couple of months ago, with a "gentle" push from Jaya, I took a college course to learn some rudimentary InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator skills, and to learn to get over my hatredy/fear of electroni-ie things. And so I'll stop asking Jaya to do computer-y things for me. My teacher told the class the only way to learn (and to continue learning) is to constantly fiddle around with the the programs and that is what I've been doing. HAHAHAHAHAH COMPUTER. I WIN THIS ROUND. So far, I've made the header for this thing (scroll allllll the way to the top) and this thing below for my Etsy shop:

Yes, yes. I like desaturated and muted colors. TheKMonstrosity is where I be selling somethings.

Well, the other day, Jaya sends me this fantastic picture by way of the Definatalie blog and I'm thinking, "Hmmmm, Did I forget what I was looking at BEFORE I made my header? Jebus, maybe! Nice work, lady."

By Natalie P. @ Definatalie. It IS a funny story.

This Natalie gal writes, however, how she was inspired by SOMEBODY ELSE. Woka woka. There ain't a person who hasn't copped this style. This one is by f_letter on Flickr.

Nicely said f_letter.

WITH THAT BEING SAID: On one of my last projects for my computer class I used Picasso's Guernica painting for a background, but I inverted the blacks and whites and fooled around with the size. My teacher fumbled around for a moment, trying to remember a quote. Finally, he looked at me and said, "I think it was Picasso who said something like, 'You're a genius if you can steal another artist's work.'" But then he shook his head saying, "Ignore me. I don't know what I'm talking about." I shrugged my shoulders at him and said, "I think you're calling me A GENIUS." Crickets in the room. I TOTALLLY KILLED IT.

I Think This World Is Upside Down...

Because I'm currently wearing a romper. A ROMPER. I'm just saying. The perfect song to romp around in? I don't think one thing has to do with the other, but I never said that I liked to make sense.

I DO do (some kind of) WORK.

So, this is what I spend time doing: RE-RE-ARRANGING SONGS. It's alll types of fun. This is the playlist that I'm sending my mixtape buddies on Last.fm. Mixtape 07.09: Schweaty Messes Summer '09: 01 To Hell With Good Intentions: McLusky 02 O Shot: The Gay Blades 03 Light of the Morning: Band of Skulls 04 Sleepyhead: Passion Pit 05 Ghetto Love: Spinnerette 06 Teen Creep: No Age 07 Daylight: Matt & Kim 08 In For the Kill (Skream's Let's Get Ravey Remix): La Roux 09 It Get's Your Body Movin': Suckers 10 Skinny Love: Bon Iver 11 Some Things Last A Long Time: Daniel Johnston 12 Honest James: Thurston Moore 13 Cold Fame: Band of Skulls 14 The Wolves (Bon Iver Cover Song): Ellie Goulding 15 The Dillion Family Dancers: The Red Neck Manifesto OBLIGATORY PICTURE POST SO I DON'TS FORGETS (this is some kind of crude memory-jogging therapy):

It do, it do. Saw this at the PCC Flea Market back in 11.06. Time traveling!

Just Another Playlist.

This mixtape was sent to me by landmarcattack via The Monthly Mixtape on Last.fm. It is eclectic and strange; the first mixtape (yep yep it's a twofer!) is a bit 90s/college rock-ish, while the latter is screamo/emo/punk rock. What the what, am I right? Here's the list: Mixtape #1: Crybaby Pussyfaces 1) Br00tal – Drag The River 2) How To Live Here – Good Luck 3) Mess Me Up – Nobunny 4) Titus Andronicus – Titus Andronicus 5) Darwin Was A Baptist – Ninja Gun 6) Fire On Peshtigo – O’Death 7) Kingdom of Ice – Woven Hand 8) The Gardner – The Tallest Man On Earth 9) Black Pear Tree – The Mountain Goats & Kaki King 10) Sin – Chuck Ragan & Austin Lucas 11) Motivational Song – Algernon Cadwallader 12) Teenage Timebomb – The Okmoniks 13) Small Talk (blah blah blah) – The Max Levine Ensemble 14) Night Owls – Bridge And Tunnel 15) The Minimum Wage Song – This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb 16) Jus’ Folks – The Bananas 17) Say I Won’t (Recognize) – The Gaslight Anthem 18) Summer Grof – The Spinto Band 19) Toadvine – Ben Nichols 20) The Purgatory Line – Drive-By Truckers 21) Guilt: The Song – Andrew Jackson Jihad 22) Infamous Apology – Halo Fauna 23) Motion in the Ocean – Nana Grizol Mixtape #2: Meathead Doodbrahs 1) Trilogy 3 (Fall Days) – Loma Prieta 2) Letter of Resignation – Transistor Transistor 3) Awaken – Racebannon 4) The Shape of Punk that Never Came – United Nations 5) Dropping Cylinders – Mouthbreather 6) Retro Abortion – Double Negative 7) A. News Rips Through The Community – Jason Crumer 8) (My Head) – Times new Viking 9) Self Checkout – Off With Their Heads 10) I hate myself but I don’t want to die – Down In the Dumps 11) Lost – Jonesin’ 12) Fair Well – Young Livers 13) A Place To Die – Osceola 14) For Medications Only – Trainwreck 15) Speed of the Nail – Torche 16) I Hope The Ghosts Of the Dead Haunt Yr Soul Forever –Valient Thorr 17) Chapter 2, 3 – Verse 18) 体脂肪と戦う - Killie 19) Hounds – Cruel Hand 20) Not Your Choice – Wetnurse 21) Germ Freak (I Ain’t No) – Annihilation Time 22) Gotta Get The Gist – Shorebirds 23) Bridge above the Water – Ghostlimb And because every GOOD post should be accompanied by pictures, here are a couple of photos from a daytrip Jaya and I took to Solvang , CA (the home of wooden toys, craz-zaizie white folk, and ableskevers) back in the summer of 2007.

This place is the reason I LOVELOVELVEO windmills and turbine energy.

Ohhhh, an OG Pancake "Haus".

You Will Cry Yourself to Sleep After You See This

Get a grip on yourselves people because what I'm about to show you is like whoa. Meet my necklace charm -- THE CA-CLAW!: (actually, 3/4 of the actual size) Made from spent bullet casings (so says the nice toothless(ish) man who made it) this mini behemoth is the size of a baby's fist and weighs as much as a hatchback Honda Civic. This is #4 of my Creepy (And a Little Dangerous to Wear) Talons necklace collection. I'm pumping iron so that I don't wimp out while wearing this necklace. Until someone (The Yarpist (aka Kaya)) gets their grubby hands off my camera, photographic evidence of my other not-nearly-as-awesome talon necklaces will have to wait.

It pays not to plan ahead.

With Jaya, it seems like we rarely get to where we're trying to "get" to. EFFFFS TO YOU, beach. I didn't want to tan my chesties anyway. Instead, we managed to find the Alpine Village Swap Meet off the 91 fwy and we each spent a $1 to basically sweat like baby piggies in a blanket.

"Repeat-er Disease": It should really be recognized by the AMA. Yarp. Oooohhhhh double dang!

As much as I hatesss bikers/bicyclists on the road (DREAM: to clip a indie-looking hipster on the elbow on York Blvd. GENTRIFICATION! Fist shaking in the air!!), I LOVELOVELOVE the 90s and this bike is screaming, "Coolness." THANK YOU Parker Lewis.

Jaya is trying to fill the navajo-inspired-pouch-necklace-sized hole that's been haunting her DREAMS. Woka woka!

--- After losing 9042399 lbs. in sweat, we moved on to the Memory Lanes Thrift Store Mall in Torrance where we made out like BANDITS. But not really. Somebody bust out the world's tiniest violin for the following items that we, regrettably, didn't buy (but we were self-hating enough to taking pictures of). BOOM.

A deer-with-antlers brass goblet. SLAMMIN', but not for $160. At that price, I better be drinking gold.

In my mind, Jaya had to be jealous (JEALOUS.) of this eskmino doll's dreamy hirsute jacket (with matching pant).

Collectively, the two of us have amassed enough "funny" mugs to, I don't know, feed a small nation? I'm a little low on "I own too many mugs" jokes, so allls I'm gonna says is, "I'm good."

The best red jacket that she will NEVER buy.

Goals ACTUALIZED. Maybe. Ehhh, soon? BOOM.

Evidence of my janky-ass handwriting (aka AWESOME) and my love of lists. HOOLLLLA.

Other week, when my sister and I were having a late lunch @ Ichima, she gave me this wide-eye look and said, "YOU should make a list! You know, of things you want to do and go!! Exclamation point, exclamation point!!!" She was all KINDS of excited when she handed me one of the many, many pens floating around her bag and a discarded pay stub envelope. Here is what we managed to come up with in between stuffing our faces. ENJOY:

1. Move to/(or AT LEAST) visit Helsinki, Finland.
2. Move to/(and MOST LIKELY) visit Stockholm, Sweden.
3. Hand make and hand bind a "A Big Book of Crap (aka 'stuff')". Screenprint images, cut-out construction paper animals, crudely hand-drawn patterns; all in all, another way to remember the things I love.
4. Hunt for as many thrift stores and flea markets in the Greater Southern California area. *REMINDER: Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Culver City? And OHHHH, the fabled flea markets of Yucca Valley and surrounding desert cities! Done.
5. Get my shoulder/upper sleeve tattoo DONE already. Quit crying about it and GET IT DONE (and doner).
6. Get Baboooshka tattoo; thanks-a-plenty for letting that one goooo, Jaya.
7. Do something with WOOOD; i.e. woodburning images, build-a-wooden-box, BUT NOT whittling. *REMINDER: look up that homie who does those ink relief pressings of wood grain.
8. Go BACK to Salton Sea (see: Niland), Yucca Valley (see: flea markets), 29 Palms, and Joshua Tree (see: night photography, building my future desert oasis).
9. Cook/bake more things from scratch: i.e. cookies, bread, tastier cupcakes, biscuits, smoked salmon, NUTELLA. *REMINDER: create an picture album entitled "I Can't Stop Stuffing My Face or Holding Forks and Knives in my Hands." I gots, like, 343984238 pictures. DONE.
10. Find a HOBBY.
11. Watch AS MUCH T.V. as humanly possible (and movies), via Netflix. i.e. Parker Lewis Can't Lose (half way finished!!!), The Wire, The Professional, Legend of Billie Jean (for hair cutting/bleach blonde tips).
12. MORE Waterfalls! I don't think that I've seen enough of these glorious phenomenons in my life time. *REMINDER: Niagra Falls, Eaton Canyon.
13. Get HEALTHY. But still take as many "stuffing my face/fork & knife in hand" pictures.
14. Eat breakfast. Hopefully, that doesn't negate former.
15. OHHHHH ohhhh: LOOK LESS SCOWLY-FACED. I've gotten tooooo many compliments on how "angry", "bitchy", or "ANGRY" I look in person. Me standing around = Me pissed off? Apparently.
16. Finish reading books. I can start me a book, but finishing it is a whole 'nother ordeal. *REMINDER: Lolita, American Psycho, Lamb, The Fountainhead, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, amongst others.
17. Carlsbad: go to the Painted Hills in San Diego, CA and go to the Caverns in AZ.
18. Visit Machcu Pichcu, Peru. Save up enough $$ to buy awesome masks, ponchos, beanies, and a bundle of alpacas/llamas.
19. Pare down closet, drawers, and cabinets. I gots, like, 10 jeans and 23840923842 jean shorts, but I only wear 3 of the former and 4 of the latter. I also have enough grey t-shirts to last me 20 life times. That's not good.
20. Go back to Paris and London to find thrift shops and tattoo parlors (to buy SLAMMIN' shoes and fur coats, and to get sad, ill-advised tattoos of the Eiffel Tower and Harry Potter).
21. LASTLY (for now): Learn how to write more SUCCINCTLY and CONCISELY. Ain't nobody going to read this great American novel of a post.

This Feels UNNATURAL.

Whaa?? I already forgot #1: I thought this picture was taken outside my sister's apartment. Oppps, not so much. This the beautiful clouds of San Juan Capistrano. Thanks Jaya. Soooo. This whole thing. BLOGGING. It feels counterintuitive. It just FEELS unreal to put my sad ramblings online, let alone TYPING THEM OUT. Agggh. But I need to be productive! I NEEEEDS to fool myself into believing that spending minutes upon hours on my nemesis (aka the computer) is counting towards "Time Spent Doing Something." Plus, I should reeeeallly work on my typing skills (my typing is akin to a baby banging its baby fist on a keyboard- HIT AND MISS!). So, here it is. BOOM. GOAL: TO DOCUMENT AS MANY THINGS/EVENTS/PEOPLE/PICTURES BEFORE I FORGET THEM. I have a notoriously TERRIBLE memory where it borderlines between "senior moments" to full on "where-am-I-and-how-did-I-end-up-with-a-bag-of-cheetos-on-the-110-freeway?" kind of bad.