i've been thinkin a lot lately about hot air balloons and rocks, and how we all get to choose which one we are.
which one are you?
when bad stuff happens, do you deal with it, rise above it and move on, or sink into the depths and let it ruin everything from that point forward?
i try as much as i can to be a hot air balloon.
it's funny that i've been thinking about this a lot lately, and then on the drive in to work this morning i heard on npr that a movie's been made of push by sapphire. they named the movie precious, so be on the lookout.
i read push about 10 years ago, i'm not sure how i found it - i think it just looked like a badass book cover, which is how i tend to end up reading any of the books i don't previously know about. it's a semi-autobiographical story along the lines of i know why the caged bird sings - a story about an illiterate teen in new york from a seriously effed up family and all of the horrible aspects of her life. and how she eventually overcame it.
like a hot air balloon.
it is not the feel-good story of the year for sure, but it spoke volumes to me when i read it. i am really glad it got made into a movie, mostly because i'm not sure how many people know about the book and it's one of my favorite reads ever.
this was a bit of a serious post. tune in tomorrow, when we talk about the best way to sneak swear words into your graphic design projects!
hearts and laserbeams book report: confessions of a shopaholic
ok i picked this book up at the las vegas airport on the way home from... vegas! shocking! gayle and i went out there last summer for a few days and had a blasty - when we were heading home there were big chunks of time on the horizon and i had left omnivore's dilemma in my suitcase instead of throwing it in my purse.
honestly i picked this one because i knew it'd be an easy read, something i could read for a few hours on the way home and then put on a shelf until i'd finished omnivore, the kind of book where you could pick right back up where you left off like a month or two later and not feel lost because everything about reading it is just so easy. plus, i hadn't seen the movie yet and i always dig reading the book before seeing the movie. and with that, i give you:
hearts and laserbeams book report: confessions of a shopaholic by sophie kinsella
ok I LOVED THIS BOOK. super fun read, super fast read, and before you know it you're done reading! the main character rebecca is just so flighty and lighthearted, just la la la la la shop shop shop hooray!
but the weirdest thing started happening as i was reading this - while i was having the time of my life reading about her shoppy adventures, as a chick who's pretty non-shoppy and has lots of living paycheck to paycheck experience, this shopaholic girl was seriously stressing me out!! i'd be reading about her going deeper and deeper into debt, and throwing away late notices and my inner old-lady monologue would scream things like, "YOU'RE RUINING YOUR CREDIT RATING!"
which is a completely uncharacteristically absurd thing for me to think while reading anything. but seriously, girl was freaking me out. other things my brain screamed while i was having a grand ol' time reading this book:
omg you did not just lie on your resume and say you're fluent in finnish!! they're gonna check that!
omg you're poor why are you buying coffee at a coffee house every day! make that shit at home!
omg you did not just do that on your date what is your major malfunction!
omg no you did not just blow off the meeting with the bank when you're gonna start sorting your shit out!
basically, i think part of the fun reading this book was how much it made my practical side sweat. i'll probably pick up another one in the series sometime soon when i need another fluffy feel-good read! (me thinks that may be the case after my next book report selection, the bell jar by sylvia plath. yup, i'm back on the high school reading list stuff!
ratings: hearts: 4 hearts - really fantastically fun read, well written and funny! farts: 1 fart for keeping my inner monologue yelling at me throughout the 350 pages.
***
so it's giveaway time! you want my copy of confessions of a shopaholic to check out for yourself? it's easy, just leave a comment here about anything at all before monday, october 19 at midnight and you'll automatically be entered to win! one entry per person, suckas!
this weekend is gonna be jam-packed with awesomeness, here's what josh and i have on tap:
kickball championships on saturday - it's the last games of the season, and it's almost unnecessary to play the games because i know exactly how it's gonna turn out... there's 3 games being played. #1 top team will play the #4 bottom team, the #2 (us!) and the #3 team will play each other, and then the winners of those two games will play each other.
so basically, #1 team will win and we will win (cuz we've beat the #3 team twice before), then we'll play the #1 team and they will kill us because apparently they're amazing. but it'll be good times and there's gauranteed snacks!
after that josh gayle and i are gonna go to the sneak preview showing of whip it at the long beach towne center. i don't know if i've mentioned before... but i'm crazy about roller derby. if i'd discovered it like 10 years ago when i didn't have things like a sometimes-angry knee, and i had the money and time, i would so join a league! but alas, for all the reasons stated above, i must be content to sit and drink my beer from the sidelines.
SO EXCITED FOR THIS MOVIE! josh and i have been waiting for it to come out for months. and if you go to the sneak preview they're givin out free tshirts! they're showin it at more places than long beach town center, check out moviefone.com or fandango.com and you can find the theater near you!
also, sunday morning josh and i are starting a 4 week long sailing class - i don't know why this terrifies me... but i'm kinda freaked out by the idea of driving a boat. i'm pretty sure i know why, but it's a stupid reason so hopefully i'll be able to put that behind me and kick some watery ass!
and then mixed in there will be the usual weekend web design class homework and some writing for the next week's oc weekly blog posts. and painting a commission. aaaaaand what else. sleeping i hope! i definitely hope there'll be some sleeping in there.
like i said, this weekend's gonna be chock full of awesome! will hopefully get a post up this weekend with an update on our backyard garden - our plants have completely BLOWN UP!!!
all right dude by now it's old news, but patrick swayze passed away today. i'm really sad about it - that guy made both the best and the worst movies ever and now you gotta sit there and listen to me talk about it!
number one, like most preteen girls in the 80s i LOVED the dirty dancing movie. had the soundtrack, had the second soundtrack, saw the movie about 8 billion times between the ages of 10 and 32. (lemme share with you that in the back of my head, i always thought it was kinda weird that johnny and baby hooked up because it was like the gabrielle carteris thing in 90210 - i could not get past the fact that swayze looked way older than the early 20s or so character he was playing)
yeah, i liked ghost all right when it came out. (SAM WHEAT!!!) but for me, it was all about coming out - one of my fave swayze movies ever was to wong foo, thanks for everything, julie newmar. PURE COMEDY GOLD.
no wait, what's better - patrick swayze as a drag queen or patrick swayze doing chippendales dancing with chris farley(r.i.p.) ?!? crap. this may take some thinking.
while i still haven't seen point break or roadhouse all the way through, i did get to see a chunk of roadhouse once a couple of years ago, and one of the best lines ever is "you're too stupid to have a good time". also, a couple of years ago the huzzz and his brother introduced me to the classic red dawn. that shit is intense and fully awesome so you should probably rent it. rumor has it they're working on a remake. rumor also has it they suck.
so back to swayze! true story, a couple of halloweens ago josh and i went out to south carolina to see our savannah friends for halloween, and when we got there our buddy trav had carefully placed a huge dirty dancing poster on our bed, complete with fake autograph from johnny castle himself saying "thanks for the great time at kellermans this year! i truly was the time of my life".
i think it was shortly after that, that josh and i found his older than dirt typewriter. we started writing random silly letters to the savannah kids. i don't know who got our patrick swayze letter, but it started as a fan letter to patrick swayze, and then slowly devolved into creepy fanness, and then joking anger that he may have pushed jerry orbach (r.i.p.) down the stairs. and i think it was the last line of the letter where we wrote "i hate you johnny castle".
which we later made into a shirt design that we sold via hearts and laserbeams for a long while.
also, one year for our anniversary i spent about 10 seconds photoshopping (badly) josh and i's faces onto the dirty dancing poster.
that's not all the reasons i love johnny castle, patrick swayze, vida boheme, the whole kit n kaboodle, but it's a lot of em. and that's all the reasons i'm wishin i had a watermelon to carry in mourning.
yesterday i found out that my art school savannah college of art and design was looking for people that went there to contribute paintings for an upcoming project. so i email the gent, and send him to the paintings section of my etsy shop. he wrote back telling me that my flipping bird painting would be perfect and could i get it out to new york by next tuesday?
um, yes please thank you! even more so when i asked for more details about the project. apparently, scad's working on revamping studio 54 and will be styling a dressing room for an upcoming carrie fisher 1 woman show. and my painting will be in her dressing room.
my painting.
will be in her dressing room.
carrie fisher.
there's talk that hgtv will be covering this project and that us weekly, usa today and other press outlets have made inquiries, and that is awesome. but i'm completely bowled over by it being for CARRIE EFFING FISHER!!!
in other exciting news, my candy corn party fabric design is part of this week's spoonflower halloween contest - i am currently getting my butt kicked by another cute design so please PLEASE consider a vote for hearts and laserbeams! if i win there'll be a great big sale to celebrate!
i saw secret life of bees last weekend without the boy - i generally don't make him take me to chick flicks unless it looks like something that maybe he might be into - like the baxter, that movie ended up being one of our favorites ever. anyhow, he went out hunting last weekend so i went and checked out the latest oprah recommendation. and it was really, really good, loved every minute of it. if you get a chance, totally go. my favorite part was that the movie sort of had a honey-tinged gold color to it. i don't know why i liked that so much; it was just really pretty and subtle and oh dear lord all the scenery in the south is gorgeous. it's a little weird seeing dakota fanning grow up.
sunday night we rented no country for old men, and i know it got really high marks and all that last year but holy crap could not get into this movie. like to josh and i, it pretty much just flat out stunk. and then the next day we ended up at the $3 theater and saw house bunny, which may be the worst movie of all time, but still better than no country for old men. is that possible?
2) one of my photos is on it's way to being in a book!
i got an email from the fabulous folks at www.wefeelfine.org last week, asking permission to use a photo from my blog in an upcoming book of theirs. they scour blogs on the internets and find blog entries that talk about feelings and things, and found my blog entry about when i bought my current printer last summer, and how much i effing love my printer and want to make out with it.
and i had posted a pic of what i did to try out the copier function:
i love love love that this is the photo they want to use. here's the entry they found on livejournal - aside from my own website, i post my blog to myspace, livejournal, facebook, and so on to increase readership and i guess it worked so hooray!!
3) i ordered a photo studio kit off of ebay today so i can take cooler photos of my artstuffs for the shop, so i can't wait for it to get here!
4) i'm hungry
5) you should make me a hamburger!
6) i haven't done a book report in a while; i'm currently reading a marketing book and it's slow going because non-fiction honestly isn't as fun but i'm still gonna finish it and report back. after that it's back to good-ol fiction!
7) i'm still hungry
8)josh's mom sent us a bunch of halloween candy today and i plan on eating every bit of it tonight!
ok kids i have a seriously awesome movie recommendation for you!
whether you know or not, the art theater around the corner from josh and i closed down back in march or april, i think it was. it was a total bummer, cuz number 1 it was within 5 minutes walking distance, and number 2 it was just a really cool old theater with a couple of cool old dudes runnin it.
it was touch and go for a while - we had heard the last time we were there that it was closing for renovations, and then there was a "thanks for the memories" type message on the marquee right after it closed up shop and we were all WAIT THAT LOOKS VERY FINAL!!! and then a month or two later after it had been boarded up we saw one of those public notices for a liquor license for a wine bar, with an angry message scrawled across it from a passerby about how this street doesn't need another hipster establishment bring back the art theater!
so FINALLY, this last weekend, the art theater reopened! with a wine bar AND coffee bar attached! and the place is downright gorgeous. allegedly they spent about a million bucks on renovations on this place that's been there since the 20s and it shows. effing beautiful art deconess everywhere! it has that new-car smell!
josh and i went last night and say "man on wire" (this is an indie movie house, mind you!) and we both generally HATE documentaries but this one was the bombdiggity. it was all about this dude who strung up a highwire between the twin towers in new york in the 70s, and how he spent about 45 minutes walkin on the highwire before he came down and was arrested.
everything about this movie was just really cool. listening to this dude phillipe talk about how they planned, practiced and executed the scheme was amazing. it was a lot like listening to josh's uncle donnie tell a story - it just was really really good, like life aquatic good. like a weekend without boys good. like taking your shoes off at the end of the day good.
so if you're in long beach, go see the movie at the art theater. and if you're not in long beach, you can suck it!
i just wanted to share josh and i saw the get smart movie today, and it was AWESOME!! i've been waiting for this movie like some people are waiting for the new batman flick.
while his cameo was super short, my favorite part hands down was bill murray. first off, super hilarious. number two, i get this really super nostalgic feeling when i watch movies with him in it - like he kind of reminds me of a really nice version of my dad, before i knew any better. so it's weird when i see him in movies sometimes, because he's an amazing actor and really fucking funny, but then it's sad at the same time so there are times where i just end up laughing and crying at the same time.
hey there, so punk rock drive in's date got changed to sept. 22! i won't be able to make it there now since i'd already signed up for a space at long beach city college's music and art festival, but if you go to the drive-in be sure to visit other awesome vendors like suzi boneshaker, mixed breed creations and urban construction!
don't forget to come to punk rock at the drive in on saturday!
music! movies! barbeque! awesome crafty vendors like hearts and laserbeams! suzi boneshaker! mixed breed! urban construction! lots of exclamation points! poop!
except for the poop. don't come for the poop. but stay for the pie!
unless there's no pie there. but there will be barbeque!
here's some info from the punk rock at the drive in folks:
Throughout the summer people have brought the following items to PRDI...we're sharing some of the good ideas ...
Coolers Big Red Cups Lawn Chairs Blankets Portable Radios
FINAL PRDI of the Season until next April!!!!
Bands start a little earlier AT 5pm Saturday...don't be late! Use STATE Street Entrance and mention your there for PRDI!!!!! Allow a TON of extra commute time due to the LA county Fair!
Bands: The Triggers The Disgustingtons and special guest!
~Charity raffles ~ DJ Skids ~ BBQ~ Vendors~
$9 Kids 9 and under are FREE!
Mission Tiki Drive-In 4407 State St, Montclair, CA
it's funny... any given razr phone has the same smell.
it's this weird mix of B.O. and electronics. grab someone's razr and take a whiff, that's what you'll smell.
except for mine. which now smells like coffee.
yesterday morning i get to work, sit down with my little cup of joe from the coffee machine. set it on the desk. see josh calling my cell phone. reach across the desk to get the phone and SPLOOOOOOSH!!!!! there was coffee everywhere, and i mean EVERYWHERE. one of the side buttons on my phone is iffy now, but it sorta works, which is better than nothing, which is what it was doing yesterday.
at least it smells like coffee now, that's all i gotta say about that.
and go buy yourself a copy of blades of glory, it is muy deliciouso!
etsy is a wonderful magical place. a place where i've listed all the stuff in the shop on my own site, which has gotten slim to none traffic in the shop area since it's gone online, and within 2 weeks on etsy i've sold 3 things. if you do any kinds of handmade goodies i highly reccommend the exposure etsy gives ya!
in other none-businessy news, FOOLICE TONIGHT. foo fighters. the police. dodger stadium. me sending out an s.o.s. i'm sending out a uh uh uhhhhh uh uh! ohhhhh man this is gonna be sweet - i've never been to a big fatass stadium show for a huge band.
AND! almost more exciting! (or maybe just as...) junior senior's touring the u.s. this summer! AND THEY'RE COMING TO L.A.!!! if you know me at all, you know thier first cd is one of my all-time faves, and that the junior senior show jenn and i went to in madison a few years ago was one of the most fun shows i've ever been to - just a big fat dance party is what it was, and i have been dying to see them again ever since! it'll be at the roxy, which is a smaller club again, which i'm VERY excited about - get your tix, it's gonna rock your sox off!
what else... i tooted.
annnnnnnnnd it's the weekend, which i'm very excited about. today i'm going to my first long beach craft mafia meeting. i keep hoping when i walk in they're gonna say the first thing you have to do for craft mafia is crochet a horse's head and leave it in someone's bed. i've told this story to many a folk over the past few weeks and it cracks me up every time.
OH SHIT AND EVEN MORE THAN THAT!!! yesterday at work, guy and stacy had us watch a couple of chunks of sesame street video, to get a better feel for what sesame workshop is all about and how much they do for underpriveledged kids all around the world. me, i'm already way on board with sesame street - it was one of my favorite shows as a kid. cuz it's just wacky-funny stuff that's slipped in there for the adults, things like colambo (a lamb dressed as columbo going around solving crimes) and the billy idol muppet singing "letter L" to the tune of "rebel yell". good good stuff. the most important thing to mention though is i'm not so into the new watered down sesame street. in a word, i'm gonna say it just flat sucks.
but apparently there's a box set of old sesame street clips from the 60s and 70s - and there's a clip on there that we watched yesterday that made me laugh so hard i had tears streaming down my face and i almost couldn't breathe. apparently it's the 1-minute bit jim henson showed pbs to get them to put sesame street on the air. i'm so mad it's not on youtube so i can just show it to you, but good god it's amazing. if you can netflix that box set, do it. and then put that pitch video on the damn youtube so i can watch it again.
sit back and get ready for a nice long update because it's been effing FOREVER since i've been on here and lots has happened!
mostly lately i've been working on the shop section of the website, gettin' all the goods i've got that were available on the old site into the new site. and that is officially sort of done! on to making new stuff! i bought a slathering of paint and et cetera yesterday because i realized i was sort of out of a lot of things...
ok so last week josh and i had the opportunity to go to a hollywood movie premiere! his mom's friends thais and jimmy had passes that they shared with us because they rock! so last tuesday we saw what love is. it was kind of a smaller movie, like it'll be one of those arty ones that's only shown in a few theaters instead of everywhere, you know? so the opening wasn't this humongous red carpet craziness - also meaning there were like no celebs we recognized in the lobby beforehand. i took some pics just in case someone was famous that i didn't recognize...
we got in the theater with our group just a few minutes before the movie started, so they ended up splitting us all up amongst the two theaters they were seating people in. josh and i were told to sit in this row where there were strangely like 5 empty seats... and as we were sitting down we saw a paper on one chair that said cuba, and one that said matthew. josh and i are freaking out, like ARE THEY SITTING NEXT TO US!!! but it turned out that usher had put us there not knowing they were cuba's and matthew's seats, meaning we were booted outta our seats for them, which was fine by us because there were like right there as we were standing in the aisle waiting for the ushers to find us other seats.
and our other seats ended up being just 4 seats away from mutual fundin' ERIK ESTRADA!!! here is a photo of the back of his head, he's the dude on the right:
as for the movie itself, it was good and i liked it a lot! it was lots and lots of monologues, very funny stuff, and that is that! when it comes out you should probably go see it, especially if you heart matthew lillard or mars callahan.
AND!!! i forgot to mention, as we were driving from the theater to the afterparty, (how very ra-sha-sha hollywood of us) we passed the much-bigger premiere of the hills have eyes 2 and saw phillip seymore hoffman on the red carpet! what else has been going on...
started going to stitch and bitch and lemme tell you it is AWESOME actually planning 2.5 hours each week to sit down and work on this sweater i'm making! in the biggest small world story since jenn and i met in wisconsin, i found out one of the girls in the group is actually my neighbor in this building! we'd never seen each other around home but then like two days after we met at stitch and bitch we ran into each other in the parking garage! craziness!
i'm having a lot of problems staying consistent with the gym; i'll go for like 3 weeks and stop for like 3 weeks and eat lots of junk food at the same time. what the eff is up with that? i can't help it if happy meals taste like god!
i can't remember what else has been going on over the past couple of weeks... but i've gotten really bad about blogging. how can i make it up to you? can i offer you some muffins?
also, jimmy i think might be hitting that special time in a puppy's life when he starts becoming a dog, and by that i mean he may be hitting puberty and by that i mean he's been a total a-hole for the past couple of days! he tried to bolt outta the house twice yesterday and once today and even told me he wished he was never born! that ingrateful beeeeeeast! fortunately he'll be 2 in a few months, i think that's when they're supposed to start calming down again.
aaaaaaaaand did i tell you i was knitting a sweater! it's like 2/3 the way done! and it doesn't look like cacadoody!
is what our ticket stubs for the movies said today. which is appropriate because we ate popcorn, girl scout cookies, punch and pie. deeelishious!
black snake moan was a really great movie and i wholeheartedly endorse this fine product! my favorite scene was when sam jackson's playin the blues in a bar, singin about a bartender and mf'ing this and mf'ing that all over the mutual fundin' place.
also, this is one of my favorite things i've worked on so far. buy like 50 of them so i get to do more!
