another reality

As I’ve ranted about before, we’re planning a wedding on a teeny budget, but want something that is us, and kind of seamless. Call me superficial, but I don’t want my wedding to look like it’s in a high school gym. Since decorating a large hall is not my area of expertise, sifting through online galleries & magazines was one of the first things I did. Of course, I’ve come up against this problem: though it’s rare for me to find something that I like, when I have find a dress that makes me crazy with desire it turns out to be $5-20K, which is about $4.5-19.5K out of my price range. Many magazines will say something like “You won’t believe what you can get for under $750!” & it’ll be ONE crappy David’s Bridal dress that probably was made out of something close to shower curtain liner material, just shot with a soft lens. And then, there’s Martha Stewart, whose empire is based on making women feel bad about themselves when not only do they not make their Christmas cards by hand, but can’t get to printing out the impersonal address labels until January 27^th. In spite of this, I must admit that I love ogling the fabulously scrumptious dresses of Vera Wang, Junko Yashioka, Oscar de la Renta, Reem Acra, Anna Maier/Ulla-Maija, Melissa Sweet, Claire Pettibone, Jenny Packham, Lela Rose, and on and on and on, even though it makes me a little wacky & sad all at the same time. I will never have the chance to wear something as immaculate as these:

I have to say though that this kind of lust isn’t limited to wedding related items. As a child, even though we lived in small apartments and then a tiny house with 1 bathroom (which seems crazy to most people), I'd flip through Architectural Digest & the real estate section of the Sunday Times & daydream about living in those houses. In middle school, a friend & I actually called a number of the places to have them send brochures of the estates. We’d try to put on aristocratic British-type sounding voices, so they didn’t know we were little kids with no trust funds. When I was in elementary school I apparently drew pictures of myself riding in limousines because that's just how I thought my life would turn out. As a teenager, I imagined I would eventually live in a massive loft in Soho. That's just how I roll. Come to think of it, even when I was in college, I saw that Dark Island which is home to the Singer Castle was up for sale, furnishings and all for only a few million dollars (which, honestly, was a steal). My friends & I would get baked & talk about what we’d do with all those rooms (whose themes had a very small range that included weed, rainbows and the Beastie Boys).

Okay, so as I said before, I am a materialist. However, because of my mother who made all our clothes when I was growing up, drove a white Toyota from the early 70s with gray AND orange doors and fenders well into the 80s, I have a hard time spending money. And when someone says “Oh, I like that dress!” or “Those shoes are adorable!” I have a really hard time not telling them how little I snagged them for. I also have a really hard time spending $20 on a shirt, after a life of sifting through by the pound thrift shops.

So, I take it back, maybe it's not really possible for me to be an actual materialist, per se, since I rarely get the expensive things I drool over. However, I do carry lust in my heart for many beautiful things in this world ranging from the Panton S chair to Robert Bruno’s Steel House.

Obviously I can’t or won’t have these things in this life, but I with each object I can imagine another life where I do. And so here are portals into my other lives (aka my most coveted things):

Wait, before I start I must say that this may just turn out to be a list of chairs as I love chairs & think of them as works of art. Okay, now we go:

Panton S Chair

Richard Bruno's handmade (by his hands only!) Steel House:

John Fluevogs:

Mango from iittala designed by Nancy Still in 1973:

A conversation pit:

Sofa With Arms by Shiro Kuramata for Cappellini:

More again. Sometime.

back from the world

A certain someone who has google alerts on my name recently informed me that people are reading my blog & also linking to it from their blogs. Which is kind of embarrassing since I've not posted since October. Oh well.

A lot has happened during that time. here's a partial list:

• Mina said "I love you."
• My first boyfriend & his family came to visit us from their organic farm in MN.
• I went to the Exploratorium for the first time.
• I had many boring &/or aggravating meetings.
• I hosted a reading (maybe two?) at the Oakland Art Gallery.
• Brent became obsessed with vampires.
• We changed our venue for the wedding from the Brazilian Room to the Verdi Club in the Mission.
• Mina sadly moved to a toddler bed.
  
• Brent & I went to the movies three times (& saw 1 good movie-Burn After Reading & 2 terrible ones--Rachel Getting Married & Twilight, which was at least so ridiculous it was funny).
  
• I bought 6 pairs of shoes (actually 5 & the best ones were given to me from an angel named Stella--$400 Hollywould shoes).
• I've been sick with the flu, a stomach virus & I had an ovarian cyst burst on me (yay!)
• Mina counted to 10 last week & sang the alphabet song for the first time on her own.
• We got an xmas tree.
• Oh yes, we FINALLY elected a candidate that I support!
  
• We had a dinner party that ended with me lying on the floor (oops).
  
• Halloween & Thanksgiving.
• I've watched Sesame Street more times than I can count.
• Brent turned 40.
  
• I think I've probably written one, maybe two poems.
• I wrote down every job I ever had & everyone I ever slept with.
• I did a lot of christmas shopping.
• And I realized that I'm late for Mina's check up.

More boring stuff soon. I promise.