hug please, elsa bishop!

i'm not entirely sure how this was decided yesterday or how exactly how it happened, but today i'm off to seattle via the train. above is a map of the route. i is excited! my ipod died, so no music or any catching up on this american life. ahh well...books, sketches and the site seer car shall keep me occupied.

a tantrum un-thrown

the words rattle around my head. this is just a moment, it will soon pass...but these words have become my finger prints. (you know the ones that glue me to the edge i've been dangling on for months) and though i am grateful that the grip God gave me is super and powerful, in this moment i want to let go already.

i also want to ask, "when exactly is this moment suppose to end?"

time is irrelevant in this situation, even though it's what i think i need to make it through this moment. i fantasize that time will bring me hope, will bring me the relief i am so desperately looking for. it is almost comical to put so much reliance upon time, when it is simply a tool we have created to make sense of the foreign world we find ourselves in. i look upon a tool to provide me what only a virtue can give? now, that's just straight-up silly.

i just need to trust that you weren't lying to me when you reminded me that this is just a moment and it shall soon pass. which shouldn't be hard because how often has 'Abdu'l-Baha lied to anyone? yeah, that's what i thought. learning can be so painfully-obviously-simple.

i honestly have nothing else to do. (also known as long ass post number 2)

this is my outfit today. i'm posting it because i have nothing else to do; i received no hours at work this week due to dwindling sales and me being the last person hired i get whatever hours they have left to give out (this week, apparently, there were no scraps) AND since anthropologie grabbed my heart only to throw it back in my face (at last moment they canceled an internship i could only dream to be real) i find that i'm currently floating in the realm of "what in the world do i do with myself now?"

i'm in this funk of having plety of half-way started projects (i swear brandon i'll finish those shoes someday), but no drive to finish them (beyond feeling guilty that i haven't finished them already). my creativity is still brewing even though my energy to follow through on projects is in no state to be used properly. as a way to release some of this creativity within me i've recently started to play a favorite game of mine that i have yet to name but for now will call it, "The Outfit Game" (i say that in a low, serious voice). i like this game for many reasons; one, it sometimes helps me get out of bed in the morning when i really, really rather not. two, i love creating the most when what i have to work with is limited. three, it makes me feel like i have much more clothes than i actually do and it makes me enjoy and appreciate that i already have much much more.

the rules to the game are pretty simple. match up items in your wardrobe that you have never matched up before. you can do this blindly, but for me that takes a great deal of the fun of the creativity out of it. dadaism has it's time and place and for me it is not in this game. but i encourage exploration, so try if you so wish.

the picture above is the outfit i made today. i don't usually name outfits, but with this one it just came out so naturally (and why not add a new element to the game, huh?). i call this one, "Here's Waldo." i think it captures the playfulness of the stripes and the nostalgic feeling created by the dress that resembles a jumper. i threw on some skinny jeans because it's way too dang cold not to wear a bottom layer. i wasn't feeling tights because the dress is a knit and it was still staticy from it's recent run through the drier. i'm so tired of winter that static makes me angery, since it is one of the greatest down falls of winter. i think leggings would do, especially paired with knee high socks. when i get around to buying a pair of leggings, or more specifically actually finding a pair that works, i'll get to play version 1.2 of "The Outfit Game" with "Here's Waldo." (version 1.2 is where you tweak outfits you have tried to put together with something that could possibly work better).

anyways, in hopes of turning this into a dialogue and making a lame attempt to turn this into something more, i dare to ask what do you think? to be honest i ask your opinion, not because i care what you think (i like this outfit it makes me feel happy when i wear it), but because i want to give people a place where they feel like they can practice openly and honestly saying what they think. i'm putting myself out there to practice not caring what others might think of me, to practice just being myself, so if you fear that what your opinion is might hurt me think of it this way; if it does then i get to practice letting not my heart be offended by people's differing opinions.

my mama has already casts her vote: she thinks i look cute. now it's your turn, what do you think?

inspiration (also known as one long ass post)

after having an amazingly hard emotional week last week i find myself searching for inspiration to pull me out of a week that left me within the tight and suffocating confides of the psychological torment known by the oh so fun and exciting question of, "why?" the thoughts in my head sound like a three year old trying to figure out how everything they see works. the questions start out reasonable like, "why, anthropologie, are you breaking my heart?" but as i come up with answers i also come up with more questions until finally i am left with the core of all the why's, "why am i here?"

i know the answer is found in the very first line in a prayer i say everyday: "I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee." however i ask, "why am i here?" in a more concrete way like, "why exactly am i here? what purpose do i have to fulfill, specifically? how am i suppose to be worshiping God, what is it suppose to look like? how am i going to serve humanity?"

i know that these are my questions, but they are just too big for me (and possibly anyone) to digest and get to the bottom of in one fell swoop. so instead of focusing on my ga-zillion and three questions, i tried to find what inspires me. because, it's time for me to honest with myself and there is probably good reason i am naturally drawn to certain things over others.

i have no idea where i pick this feeling up, but even though style and design excite and impact me, i often think that i am suppose to feel empty about it. i remeber clearly in third or forth grade i loved cutting up fashion ads from magazines. in my room i even hung the collages i made of the different supermodels. my mom saw all of this and commented, "maybe you should be a model when your older?" my reaction to this was so strong; i felt insulted. already at that age i had picked up (not to mention believed) that models didn't do anything important, that they were unitelligent and that it wasn't a profession one was suppose to aspire to be. after my mom made her suggestion, i took the pictures off my wall and cut myself off from the things i liked that had anything to do with the fashion industry. tied together in my head is this formula that in my interest in style and design will lead me to be vain and materialistic. except not so much lead me as the interest itself means i am materalistic. which in the end makes me feel that my interest in design and style, who i am and what i enjoy a lot is this horrible, horrible monster that breaths fire, kills puppies and would rather buy clothes than fed hungry children.

so as i sat down at my computer to find inspiration, i decided to ditch the guilt of liking what i like and decided to start at the one blog i check multiple times a day: Go Fug Yourself, the writing is hilarious and the pictures help me appreciate and enjoy the different ways people choose to express their own style. luckily for me, the website was just recently nominated for best fashion blog of the year and was encourage readers to go vote.

this all eventually lead me to my inspiration finds of the day:

The Sartorialist-pictures taken of people's outfits on different streets of cities from around the world (i really like this one)

Project Rungay-not quiet sure about this one yet, but it has pictures of collections that were shown at New York Fashion Week, so thus far i am enjoying

Simple Wardrobe-i actually found out about this site via Fiberarts Magazine while doing my magazine gazing at borders last night.

after going through these blogs and more specifically The Sartorialist, i want to get more into photography and start posting and sharing more style and design items that i find/make and start exploring the relationship between design and spirituality. we shall see where this goes, since i don't have a camera...as of yet.