Today on this fine Sunday I tried to do something fun, since I had the rare day off from work. I'd been looking forward to the Riverside To-Do at Fairmount Park and the promise of different interesting little workshops like baking, bicycle maintenance, composting, crafting, live music, etc. But when we got there, it ended up being a few sad tents and a dj along with a small scattering of people.
My friend/photographer really wanted to attend the bike workshop and I was all about the baking and crafting, but alas, we had to improvise and instead went swinging at the playground and then took a paddle boat for a spin around the lake in the middle of the park, which turned out to be fun aside from being super hot out on the lake! It seemed really tiny at first-- or I was expecting it to be, but it ended up being pretty big; and from the pictures, it seemed very Jurassic Park-ish. :) Also, there were some cute birds and friendly people out.
All in all, it turned out to be quite fun in the end!
I also got to make use of my new favorite dress from Reformed. I love the sleeves, and the cutout in the back (you can kind of see the back in the second to last picture), and the pleated detailing on the skirt, and the neckline. Pretty much everything about it! It was really sunny and my eyes are very sensitive to the light, so that's why I've got my sunglasses on. They're just some cheapies from Forever 21. Anthropologie headband. Black shoes from Kimchi & Blue. (I also have the creme ones).
I loved this movie from Adam Elliot so much! It was adorable and sad and depressing and wonderful. I'm obsessed with writing obviously and I love writing letters and getting postcards and little packages in the mail. The premise of this movie is so strange and whimsical and I wish I had thought of it, because it could go in so many directions. Especially since I've been wanting to write more on the strange side, a la Flannery O'Connor, one of my most favorite of influential writers.
The movie centers around Mary, a lonely little girl who decides to find a friend by choosing a name and address at random and begins a penpal relationship with a lonely old man, Max J. Horovitz. I really like the weirdness of it, above all.
Voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette respectively.
It's all in claymation, and pressing questions like "Do you have a favorite-sounding word?" or "Have you ever been a communist?" and "Have you ever been attacked by a crow or similar large bird?" are answered. If you haven't already done so, rent, buy, just watch this movie.
And if anyone wants a penpal, I'm in. I just bought the cutest stationery set from Anthropologie. We can send little trinkets and pictures and if we go travel somewhere we can send each other postcards from our adventures. I collect postacards. Here are just a few of the more recent ones from my modest collection from friends who've travelled much more exciting places than I've been so far.
Just send me your address at melissasonico@gmail.com. :)
At American Apparel, the music we play is through a site called Viva Radio, and it's filled with ads that run in the midst of the music. My favorite one (I usually get mildly annoyed at the ads, but I love this particular one) is the one with this guy with a southern sort of twangy accent, talking about "ruffling in the sun" with the petticoat or packing the twist scarf in a lunch. Anyway, that's a boring little sidenote that explains the title of this post, as well as what me and two of my coworkers did on our day off yesterday in Venice Beach. There were so many weird wonderful people there that I wanted to take outfit pictures of but I was shy. (My top is from Anthropologie on sale for $9.95!! I also bought some cute bottoms there for the same price. I'll post those up another time. I lovelovelove finding steals there because it's so very rare).
Afterwards, we went to Guppy Tea House in Cerritos for some shaved ice with strawberries and mangoes, butter coconut brick toast, and popcorn chicken, along with some Thai iced tea. Yum. I hadn't been there in so long and now I want to go back already! (I forgot to take pictures I was so hungry, so these are from yelp, but it's what we ordered anyway). Enjoy!
"There's no point to any of this. It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter becomes a cackle... and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt. " --Reality Bites
Today is graduation day.
I don't feel any different, or as if I've accomplished anything and that is why I didn't want to walk, or draw attention to myself. As usual. I don't even know anyone I'm walking with. I'll be bringing a book with me. Etgar Keret's The Nimrod Flip Out. Maybe when I get my M.F.A. and have a publish-worthy book of my own, I can say differently, but right now, I'm still a writer whose last class in her schooling career was an earthquake class. Le suck.
I'm not expecting anyone to get me any graduation presents or greetings-- aside from the obligatory monetary donations from relatives whose names I don't really know, or know how to pronounce-- and it's okay because I'm used to it. I mean, it's not like I'm Quinn Morgendorffer or anything. Definitely more of a Daria. I don't really have many friends to get/make me anything anyway. If anything, I expect this whole graduation thing to pass by as hardly a mere blip on the radar. Like my life. :) I really don't mind. I guess.
And so, a present to me. From me. In the form of LOLcats. And Ghost World.
Also I'm making myself a gift of a headband/crown of flowers (like this one on Anna Karina). Crafty handmade gifts are always best. I'm really excited about it. I'm trying to work out how not to make it too big and garish and overpowering, but delicate and pretty while still having it stand out. I think a lot of pulling off the look has to do with wearing kind of understated things with it, too.
edit:: So I actually got some congrats from my dollface of a coworker via Facebook (disguised in a demand for more baked goods):: Aaliyah Eitapence: Congratulations on graduating! You are a shining star in the sky! And make me cookies!♥ Isn't she a cute little baby? This is all American Apparel wear, by the by. ;)
I was really going to be somebody by the time I was 23. Honey, all you have to be by the time you're 23 is yourself. --Reality Bites
I know "Hallelujah" is most likely Leonard Cohen's masterpiece, but I've always always had a soft spot for "Suzanne". I think it had something to do with it being the first song of his that I'd heard (besides Hallelujah, of course) and oh! the lyrics just blow me away. Like a great song should, it makes you sort of not able to breathe-- catatonic in a good way-- if that even makes sense. Oranges and tea from China. I don't know how to explain it. Anyway, this playlist started off as one revolving around really great lyrics, and then it evolved into character sketches, and then it just kind of got away from me and became its own thing. Enjoy.
Also, I haven't much listened to Sean Lennon's music and I think I might give it a listen sometime soon. Isn't his lady pretty though? Here are some pretty pretty pictures of Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl.
Lastly, I made a yummy concoction my best friend/former college roommate Abby and I would make all the time. We got the recipe from her older sister, who calls it Mud, but for posterity's sake we'll refer to it here as simply chocolate parfait. Super simple and easy to make.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
So I created a bloglovin' account so that I can keep track of others' blogs that I love like leibemarlene, and Little Idiot, and Style Rookie; and also so that you all can keep track of me as well. Sounds intrusive. . .
I've posted up a transcript more than once-- on my old blogs-- of this clip from "Any Given Thursday", the concert dvd of John Mayer's from years and years ago before he decided to be a media fixture/man whore. Right now I can't sleep (because I watched Paranormal Activity last night and scary movies only really really scare after they've been marinating in my mind and I'm alone in the dark), so I've put the dvd on, since I used to fall asleep to it most nights circa 2003/2004. I still think he's one of the top guitar players of our generation-- this guy's got some major axe-handling skills, you can't deny it. He's got the weird facial/body gestures that are incumbent of real talent to prove it. He's also got a real gift for storytelling/lyrical writing. I met him once in New York at Madison Square Garden at a Cream concert, after the show. It was during his long greasy jazz hair phase, and it was raining (like in his song "Covered in Rain"). Enjoy this little bit of nostalgia for me.
Though the worst part about it is that I would be free when you wanted me, if you wanted me. --"Man on the Side", John Mayer
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So I was thinkin' about relationships and about how it pertains to songs about relationships, and uh, I was trying to think.. Well, it occurred to me that the key-- I figured out the key to a relationship and how to make it work. Check it out. This is-- this is a tip from your uncle John, check it out.
When you first meet somebody, you find out they like you.. First of all, a friend of a friend of theirs say he or she really really likes you, and it kills you, floors you, sends you to the ground.. You've got to pick yourself up off the ground. Then you get their phone number and you call them up, right, and you say "Yeah, that's a really great phone conversation, can I see you some time?" And then they say this, they say, "I'd like that."Nothing feels better than, "I'd like that."
So now, your blood pressure's goin', you're six feet off the ground, you can't sleep.. because of "I'd like that." So then you hang out for a while, and you call and you talk on the phone all the time, and then you drop the bomb-- what feels like the bomb-- you say, "You know what, I've been thinkin about you a lot." And she goes, "Ahhhhhhh!" And you go, "What happened?" and she goes, "I'm sorry, I just, I just, I just-- that's... I've been thinking about you too."
Bam. Higher into the sky. But now, "I'd like that"? Tch. Done. Now you're up to "I'm thinkin' about you." Then however number of months pass, it makes you feel comfortable saying it, you say "I gotta tell you something." They go "What?" you go "I'm in love with you." And nothing in the world sounds better than "I'm in love with you." And then maybe she starts crying, or maybe she goes *gasp* And all the sudden you're like I'm in. But now, what doesn't work? "I'd like that" and "I've been thinkin' about you." Now we're at "I'm in love with you." Then maybe some day it'll move up to "I love you."
Fast forward, now you're like, "I love you a lot; I love you more than anything in life." Now "I love you" doesn't work. It's a threshold that keeps movin' up.
Fast forward, like six months, six weeks-- whatever the case may be-- now you're on like, "I want to marry you. I want to impregnate you with my love. I wanna-- I wanna just send my love to you." Damn it, words don't work anymore. And then you say this line, and you know, you KNOW you've used this line before, "I just wish they'd put a new word in the dictionary bigger than love because love just doesn't describe what I feel."
And so now he or she starts askin', "Do you love me?" and you start goin', "Of course I love you." "Well say it." And then it becomes, "Say it twice." And it goes, "Say it three times."
And then, you cross a really interesting point, where all the sudden it becomes, "I hate you, I hate you." And you go, Oh my God, she hates me. And now it's like, "I hate you more than anything." And then it's like "We're over." And then they go, "No, we're not." And you go, "Yes, we are." Now the words completely do not work at all; you're left with nothing. You're throwing punches underwater. You're done.
You know what the moral of that story is, if there is one. Never, ever, ever, ever underestimate the power of "I'd like that." _anygiventhursday_
. . . . .
Also, I've been listening to "Sugar Town" by Nancy Sinatra thanks to the mix that J made me, as well as "Packing Blankets" by the Eels. Go to his blog, Little Idiot, for more musical illumination. Nancy's look is a bit too bombshell for me, but I like her in this chunky oversized sweater number. Plus "Sugar Town" is super cute, not to mention the song "Bang Bang". Underrated, as J says. She kind of looks like Michelle Williams-- who I've always thought was cute and had a crush on because of her fashion sense and the fact that she can more than pull off short hair-- here (Not Destiny's Child Michelle Williams, but Heath Ledger/Dawson's Creek Michelle Williams, obviously).
Last thing, thanks to Samantha from Fear is a Dirty Word who gave me a sweet-- if glaringly untrue-- compliment in a comment, comparing me in my graduation dress to a modern updated version of Natalie Wood in West Side Story. The ruching at the neckline and 60s feel is quite similar. At the very least, I'm glad someone's reading my insignificant ramblings. :) She obviously knows about my love of musicals. Check out her blog, it's great!
