countdown

books/essays that most influenced my life in 2008

siddhartha
the year of magical thinking
the myth of sisyphus
the paris review interviews
the long loneliness
self-reliance
the wild iris

sects and the city

well, i watched the series premiere of 'the city'. i liked it. an interesting article about olivia palermo (whitney's co-worker/socialite who is a big time name dropper and is declawed but still venemous):

http://nymag.com/news/people/31555/

my favorite quote: "i may be a young girl...but behind every young girl is a powerful father." awesome!!!

i won

yesterday i went to dallas to drop off my sister and to celebrate kristine's birthday.

while i was there, i went to saks to retrieve a pair of discounted loeffler randall pumps that had been haunting me. while being rung up, i started a conversation:

rk: "it is so sad when beautiful things go on sale. i know i'm taking advantage of it now, but it's still sad."
sa: "you should have been here last month! prada, miu miu, everything was on sale!!"
rk:"did you just hear what i said?"
sa: "yeah, but you still would have liked it."

that guy needs to get out of retail.

the shoes in question:

i also came away with marimekko kitchen towels and a french rolling pin, in case you were wondering.

to the highest bidder

"context, context, context" is the new "location, location, location". voila!

in old verona, where our story begins

i feel leary of guys who wear white-washed t shirts, the hanes beefy tee that you buy pre-washed with a cast of white over a real color (usually hunter green, burgundy or navy blue). really thick, rigid cotton with a boxy shape. i suppose it is supposed to imply this down to earth, rugged, non-vain appearance. but the truth is, people who are attracted to those sorts of t shirts are none of those things. and let's face it, the only places that these sorts of shirts are sold are the ritz carlton at half moon bay or a ski resort in vail. of course, they don't buy these tees with this consciousness, but that's why it's so telling. the most intriguing thing about these t shirts is that no matter how thin a guy is, you seem to always be able to see the outline of his belly button.

example (notice it's extra faded around the collar and sleeves):


it's the same with guys who are attracted to jeans with pre-made holes. but usually, these guys are on the other end of the spectrum - guys who are so vain and so self-absorbed that they have to have the holey jeans in hopes to soften the truth of just how much time they really took getting dressed. it's sort of like the george michael effect - perfectly coiffed hair, supima cotton wife beater, italian sports jacket, designer sunglasses, lots of bling, neck scarf, holey jeans. "i am pretty, but i'm tough, just look at how many holes i have in my designer jeans. just try and steal my fendi wallet and see what i do to you."

he definitely owns at least 3 pairs of holey jeans:


it's a bit pretentious, really, thinking they can fool girls.

i'm not into it.

day 4

i am sick. i've never been sick before - with a severe cold, the flu, not even a sinus infection. and now i'm on day 4 of some crazy stomach thing, unable to go more than 100 feet from the bathroom, armed with broth, tucks and popsicles. i don't have much energy because i haven't eaten/properly digested anything in some time, but other than that, i don't have any other symptoms. no fever or cramps or body aches. just the runs every 15 minutes. gross. and sad.

clockwork orange juice

i really love orange foods. right now, i am obsessed with carrots. sometimes i eat them twice a day. raw carrots, carrot smoothies, carrot soup, carrot juice, carrot cake. right this second i am enjoying pureed carrots with apple, raisin and walnuts. for the last month, my obsession was with sweet potato and in october, pumpkin.

here is one carrot i am not crazy for:

so i went out last night. . .

full metal jacket is the worst thing that happened to asian women since binding feet.

happy thanksgiving, bradley!

yesterday i heard kingsley bark. he and bradley sounded very similar. . .made me think of him and i missed him a lot. this picture is from 2006 - marcy and i tried for a while to try and get him to pose for a family christmas portrait. it didn't happen, but here is one of us trying.

dysfunction junction, what's your function

the title is not related to my post, whatsoever. mimi sang it this morning as if it were the original schoolhouse rock lyrics. hilarious. . .

i just wanted to say happy thanksgiving, i'll be traveling today and tomorrow so i wanted to get this out there before it was too late. i would assume that not many people are going to be pushing back from the table to check email on t-day anyway.

a whole lot to be thankful for, but not thankful that the white man took land away from the indians and massacred them later. not thankful for that, just to confirm. still my favorite holiday by far.

happy thanksgiving, safe travels if you are leaving, see you when we are all back.

ps. claire is 27lbs exactly, right on track for swimsuit season. . .
pps. my new do, i cut it again.


ppps. if you are confused, the lyrics go "conjunction junction, how's that function"

by the weigh. . .

well, i took claire for her weekly weigh in. she is now at her pre-adoption weight. back to 29lbs. i'm not exactly sure what's going on, her eating habits and exercise haven't changed. lesley thinks that gastric bypass or counseling is the next step. betty thinks it is definitely muscle judging by her performance on the cameron park hills. i think she might have some extra water weight today since we ran this morning. in any case, she looks sort of sad; she had a skip in her step and a glint in her eye on the way in to petsmart and seemed to carry her little head so low on the way out.

poor claire, all she ever wanted in life was dainty ankles.

members only

i have always been very strict about my boundaries with animals. i feel less able to draw these same boundaries with claire. i am smitten by her chubby forearms, by her giant rump, by her eyes, she's for sure a sweet one.

she is nuts about riding in the car. if i even open the door slightly, she bounds in and will not get out, and if i try to pick her up, she rolls over and goes limp.

this is a picture of her after she climbed in as i was loading up the car. i kept calling her name inside the house and she was nowhere to be found. she had been sitting in the car for at least 15 minutes, motionless, ready for action. she reminded me of one of those over-eager kids, sitting in the car, buckled up, repeating the spellings of words, even before the key was in the ignition. yes, like me.

a curious map

from the times. . .


larger version here

quarter pound with cheese

this week, claire lost .25lbs. she is now under the big 2-9. last night, i swear i almost felt a rib! this is what she looks like after we run. so cute.

a plea

please do not use the term "recessionista" or "recession chic". these sorts of ridiculous neologisms cheapen the english language. i have had a permanent furrow in my mental brow since i first read about it. for my sake, and for the sake of our linguistic destiny, please refrain.

who let the dogs out?

well, today, i returned the "small" collar, whose ends didn't even make contact, and bought a "medium" harness. on the way to petco, i thought about how preposterous the canine sizing guidelines were, given that my dog is clearly "small". turns out, my little dumpling is lucky that she is an "M". the harness barely fit when set at the very biggest setting. after i took it off, i could see an indention left where a fat roll folded over the harness strap.

in addition to being portly, miss claire is very submissive. tonight she rolled over for two stuffed animals, the wizard and moo the three legged cow.

i am very obviously drawn to dogs with self esteem issues. lucky for me, i am also not introspective.

a new member of the club

meet claire. she is a dachshund that i adopted from the humane society yesterday. i wasn't really even looking to get a dog and the breed really entered my consciousness only this past thursday (long story), but we really had a "moment". she is very calm, affectionate and obedient. in addition, she is so submissive that to greet you, she walks up to you and rolls over. she has perma-wrinkles on her chubby ankles/wrists, which are really what won me over.

there is one problem. she is ten pounds overweight. that doesn't seem like a lot, i realize, but she's 29 pounds so that's roughly 1/3 of her body weight. she is still pretty agile for a dog that would be considered morbidly obese but does have some trouble with some of the more complex body maneuvers. when she rolls over, she rolls the front half first and then the back half plops over like a really slow sling shot after a little while. she also has trouble keeping balance sometimes when she's trying to reach around to scratch an itch above the base of her tail. her (giant) butt jiggles when she walks.

so we're going to have our own biggest loser (blake said he would be "bob" the trainer and i would be "gillian") and see if we can't get this little lump of sugar to take some weight off. i'm going to try and get her down to 20-22lbs. until then, i will be calling her "eclair", which is, roughly what her body looks like right now. this afternoon, she told me that she didn't know if she was fat because she was sad or sad because she was fat. it broke my heart.

and in case you are wondering, i am still planning on getting a dane, i thought claire and paul could be friends.

in case. . .

you're as crazy for pots and pans as i am, a great article by the curious cook:

new york times

black like me

i spent the weekend in dallas. i bought black lip gloss and it's awesome (i actually mean that i'm kind of awesome for buying it). i have shades close to black but they all have crimson or eggplant undertones. this true black is a limited edition shade by ysl and is inspired by their fall collection. in my perfect world, all androids and robots (which is what i refer to as people) would look like this. since it's not my world nor is it perfect, i guess i will fake it by taking style cues from this femme fatale automata for a while.

i have worn a diluted version for my family and then full on for lesley. she didn't have a remark, just a gasp. i guess that's cool. right now, with my hair shaped as a birds nest, the addition of the black gloss and time of year makes it read more like halloween kitsch rather than goth android chic. may have to push the launch date to mid-november. off to tweak, don't stare, it's not nice.

pirates booties

here's an opinion for you on the cresting trend of boots this season, if you are interested.

i consider shoes right now at a low point in fashion (on a macro level i think it's an important time, but right this second i'm writhing). i'm sure most everybody disagrees. i hate the current exploitation of the ankle boot. it has always been to me an advanced silhouette - or at worst, one that could not sustain general mainstream appeal because of their inborn character (they are not flattering on 9 out of 10 people, they take more thought to wear, and they teeter between beautiful and contrived depending on the wearer) - so i hate the trend because all of that just seems defused now, dumbed down. nothing is safe from consumerism i guess. and with how crazy all of the shapes and colors are, the boots seem like an act of desperation, which ever side of the fence you're on. the word strident comes to mind. my opinion is obviously not circumspect.

that said, i still think some of the boots/booties are very pretty. and that the high point and progress of the style has been conveyed this season with the increasing attention to the idea of of cut outs. since i feel like a charlaton when i stray too far from my minimalist aesthetic, i feel drawn to the version from loeffler randall, rupert sanderson and even marni. here are some of my favorite boots from my least favorite trend.

help me help you

i feel at odds with the phrase "save the earth". the term was definitely created by an american because only we are THAT consumed with heroes and heroines. i don't think the earth needs rescuing. if we are bad enough to it, it will overtake us. the earth will win in the end, if we fight it as we do. put your money on it!

please look at this child. . .

have you ever seen anything this cute? way to go, mimi, you made a cute one.

sauerkraut no more

the germans have surpassed the spanish as the new gastronomic trailblazers of europe. they don't want to be put in a box with sauerkraut, sausage and oversized mugs of foamy beer anymore. so says the new york times. this post is for all of my germanic homies in central texas. . .

some photos of brad

labor daze

a weekend worth mentioning.

bradley passed away on sunday morning. i've been trying to come up with a more cushioned version for the last couple of days but there's just not much that will soften the news. i'm not sure what happened except that he was fine around 530a and by 730a he was laying in the grass, on his side, gone. i don't question what happened, it doesn't matter because it doesn't change his life. it is a very sad time for so many people, and for those who were lucky enough to be around him a lot, we are heartbroken but filled with gratitude for his life.

my lovely friend, kateigh, came in from LA over the weekend. we had a great time in town meeting friends and in austin on saturday, where we scoured the city for makeup and handbags (came up short on both accounts). i did find flatware, which was great.

and on sunday night, i ran in the nike+ human race 10k with 15,000 other people in austin. my running time wasn't great (1:01) but i had fun. well, fun isn't the right word. it was enriching.

the olympic flaming lips

i'm sort of bummed that the olympics are over. i got used to turning on the tv during lunchtime and seeing trampoline or archery or something. i hope china gets busted on the underage gymnasts.

wedding belles

here's a great photo of paul and kristine (on their wedding day, yes).

life and casualty

up until today, i had never lost a body part. today i lost my right pinky toenail. it looks disgusting, so i had to show you.

when it's over, i'll let you know

i think if you ever are tired of life and want to go insane, the fastest way to go is by deciding that you want new flatware.

if you find a shape you like, it's only offered in the brushed nickel or mirror finish, whichever one you didn't want. if you like the way a spoon is shaped, the handle is contrived. if the handle is nice, the neck of the fork is too narrow. if you want something more contemporary, the spoons all look like they are anorexic. the knives that need that bevel around the handle don't, the ones that don't, do. why do the prongs on the forks have to be THAT long? is it necessary for the spoon to be THAT big? maybe that's why we're all overweight. our silverware transports too much food.

once, i saw a handle that i loved and did not allow my eyes to make their way up; too scared.

i can't even stand it. poor me, dawg, poor me.

cracking sculls

man, i really like watching the women's quadruple sculls. it's so cool the way their ponytails flick in perfect synchronization during each stroke. we don't need bows or perfume or bustiers, femininity can never be hidden.

jenny from the block

well, if you didn't know, i have a twin sister. we're alike in every way except that she has curly hair. too bad she's only in town for the weekend; otherwise i would have introduced her to every one of you. . .

happy birthday to me, i live in a zoo...

well, i turned 30 this past saturday. what a thrill to live an honest life. i started telling people i was 30 in january. i did it once as a little social experiment (also a lying experiment) and couldn't stop myself from that point. anyway, about 17 of us had dinner at the green room grille on saturday night. a really lovely time. my favorite part of birthdays is seeing the same people at your party who were there for it the year before. here are some pictures from dinner. . .

in the beginning, there was hydrogen

well, last week was interesting. my brother got hitched and marcy and i spent the week hiking the colorado trail. marcy "mid top" faircloth is a real deal outdoorsman, believe me. you can read her detailed version here

bradley is pretty exhausted too, i think he's upped his daily sleep time from 18 hours to 22. just thinking about us backpacking must have worn that poor guy out!

this saturday is my birthday. i am turning 30. i have been telling people since january that i'd already turned the corner, and the remarks are always the same: "you definitely don't LOOK like you're 30". i mean, what's wrong with looking like you're 30? i don't need to be consoled. to be honest, i can't wait until i'm 45, i think that's the magic number. the magic number is actually 45 and hot, which is how i aim to be. youth is overrated. and i'd rather be wise than young. not that they're opposites.

maybe i ought to do some push ups.

total gym 2000

please put your weights up. the absolute worst thing at the gym is when i want to use dumbbells or a machine and i either can't find the ones i want or the machine is stacked with four 45lb plates on each side. and yes, it's never the people (like me) who do this. it is the creatine crazed, mark maguire wannabe assholes who put the 40lb dumbbells in the 10lb slots or leave every 45lb plate in the gym on one machine.

even worse, it is the same people who -- when a scrawny chick is trying to lift these off and put them back in their proper place -- are too mesmerized by their bulging muscles and shrinking balls to even help.

that's enough. put them away. please.

she's a lovely girl, hubbell. . .

marcy and i watched "the way we were" this weekend, starring barbra streisand and robert redford.

it was so good, man. the movie was about the mccarthy era witch hunt of the film industry in the 1950s. katie had a day job but seemed to be some sort of professional protester (anti war, anti atom bomb, pro free speech, etc) and hubbell is an aspiring screenwriter. it's about love and times of passion in love and times of passion.

brad pitt and robert redford have such similar facial expressions, it's uncanny. i think someone said that about me and luke perry once. carrie bradshaw is certainly based off of katie - maybe half katie and half elizabeth bennet. er, 1/3 katie, 1/3 elizabeth bennet and 1/3 annie hall.

barbra has these crazy long fingers/hands, it makes every body gesture seem so grand and dramatic. in this movie, her fingernails are very long and very red, like you see in the windows of nail salons.

everyone ends up happy in the end, not in nostalgic or cinematic tradition, but in their own way. marcy said that it didn't matter what robert redford did, she'd never leave him with his hot bod. i agree, he has a hot bod and hot face and hot hair (the one and only blonde man i've ever been attracted to).

some women can't be tamed (rawwwr!); katie surely could not be. maybe that's my problem, maybe i can't be tamed either. yeah, not really getting into that here.



less than two weeks until paul is married, which also means less than two weeks until our big hiking trip. no boots yet, just buliding an appetite for lentils and granola. . .actually, i'm already eating like i'm hiking.

and to that tune, marcy got me a food dehydrator for my birthday, it's being shipped. preserve those enzymes, people!

happy freaking birthday, man.

today is bradley's fifth birthday. given the life-expectancy handicap of great danes, we give him 12 human years for every dog year. this puts him at 60, just a few years away from joining aarp. we decided to make him some very special cupcakes, chocolate with peanut butter frosting, and so we made them with care, and set them to cool.

and it is on this day that we finally realized why bradley is always depressed. he has a way of ruining everything. today he ruined his birthday by swiping four cupcakes off of the counter. so instead of bradley getting one big cupcake with frosting swirled on it, he has four frostless cupcakes with spiderman wrapper in his stomach.

here, a detailed photographic depiction of this evening's events.


happy birthday, brad, the biggest one is in the middle and it's for you!

happy birthday, dear braaaadleeeeey...

interesting. nine on the plate, only three on the cooling rack. four cupcakes are missing.

the evidence.

how bradley spent the rest of his birthday.

hit the road, jackie o

yesterday, i bought hiking boots -- actually make that hiking shoes. the hiking boot seemed over the top for this wilderness neophyte and the mid-top, well, let's just say that mid tops don't incite the best visual cues in my head, so i stayed away. brandon (owner of the bear mountain) also recommended some superfeet, which i got, and as of about 1130 yesterday, i thought i was acclimated.



that was until i tried on "convertible pants". they're pants until you unzip about 2/3 of the leg off and suddenly they're shorts. i should have known that something this gimmicky couldn't be a good idea. brandon handed me two pairs to try on, in different fabrics, and i went into the dressing room, ready to champion the resurgence of khaki, willing to defend the cargo pant. and then i tried them on. i burst out in laughter, not sure if i was laughing out of jest, humiliation or trauma. they were awful. i tried on the other pair and had the same reaction. it was like a terrible episode of the jetsons, guest starring jack hanna. i couldn't do it. they were 55$. i could buy two eye shadows that are guaranteed to look great for that money.

my guess is that i will end up with a pair of these. it reminds me of that movie called troop beverly hills starring shelley long.



phyllis nefler is a beverly hills socialite who ends up being the troop master for her daughter's girl scout troop. the other troops, more rough and tumble, softball and raglan sleeve shirts, more "when i grow up, i'm likely to question my sexuality", are very indignant towards them. she has her personal designer reinvent the girl scout uniforms to make them look oscar de la renta meets walden pond and invites dignitaries to fund raising events. in the end, troop beverly hills wins the paramount trophy of the year, outselling every other troop in cookie sales.

the difference between phyllis and me (well, one of the them, the other major distinction here is that i'm not married to craig t nelson) is that when facing a camping/hiking excursion, she opted to stay in a hotel. there will be none of that for me.

i told brandon that i need to come in and try them on a couple more times before i buy them. i just have to get used to them i guess.

you, me, outside.

in about three weeks, the lsat will be over, my brother will be married and i will be well into what could be the biggest mistake of my life: hiking. marcy and i decided to take a trip as our last adventure before she heads to law school. somehow, rather than choosing to rent a bungalow in st. barth's, we decided that backpacking along the colorado trail for a week was the best course of action. in total, i have slept outside for .5 nights. i am not what you would call the "outdoor type". i am lucky if i have a can of bug spray to my name. fortunate for me, marcy has two or three of everything wilderness/outdoor/roughing it related. lately, random questions have been arising, like, where do i poop? under a rock, marcy says. what if someone has already pooped there? gross. how do i wash my face? she likes to use tea bags as an astringent. yeah. what about bradley? can he come? no, that would be a long and painful death. got it. upon deplaning, will i be forced to wear a hemp necklace with a spiritual looking charm?

i do think it will be fun. a friend who we plan to meet in vail said "i think you are going to discover a whole new revekah". hopefully the new revekah will have an affinity towards cropped vests made from wolf hide. oh mon dieu, wilderness chic!

well i'm sure we'll have pictures. wish me luck on monday, i'm taking my test. i have go to college station. yeah, remind me to pack tins of copenhagen to bribe the proctor for extra pencils.

my fair ladies who lunch

i change my style, my hair, my favorite color, even my vernacular with a monomaniacal regularity. or so i thought. it was to my alarm and amazement (and horror) when i received my new license (another story, dramatic but not very interesting, so the exclusion on the blog) and my hair is the same now as it was then. that was three years ago. this new hairstyle, well, the new bangs addition, was supposed to be so fresh, so prep school girl meets joni mitchell, but i think about the last time i cut bangs and that was supposed to have been pre-gentrified my fair lady meets the ramones.

so i'm feeling a little bit cliche. and at the same time, maybe i'm hitting my sartorial and aesthetic stride. maybe same is the new new.

tonight marcy and i watched sex and the city. we tried for a pre-viewing dvd marathon; marcy came up one and a half seasons short, i had two seasons left. there is one very electrifying scene, which i certainly did not expect, and it had me reeling through the rest of the movie. i don't think i even paid attention to the rest of it, and it happened toward the beginning. so, if we talk about it, i can recall, with some acumen, the first 25 minutes and for the rest of the discussion i will try to be polite and nod. i wish that big, steve and smith played a bigger part and i wish it was funnier, quippier, like the show. the fashion did not disappoint. i'm not sure how many people recognized patrick demarchalier or andre leon talley or even plum sykes; but i guess that's not the point.

it was good to see old friends again.

see food

matt lauer says that we're in the middle of soft shell crab season. i LOVE soft shell crab. does anyone want to take me out to eat these soft but firm, exotic yet familiar, seasonal yet memorable little critters? i'll bring my own bib.

the three little bears (and dogs)

amy, marcy and i went out to cameron park this past memorial day with the dogs. they all have crazy personalities (the dogs, not people) and marcy caught it all on camera. nice! check them out here

new blog, one way street

i started a blog for my shop, check it out if you have a second. it's just starting to come together, and is certainly a work in progress (WIP).

prefontaine blog

cafe au lait, cafe au late

well, i love jane austen. i don't say that much because i think it's pretty trendy to like jane austen right now, like anne hathaway trendy (yes i watched it). but at every point in my adult life, and even now, i am reading something of hers. right now, i am reading sense and sensibility, again. i feel so understood. man, i am SO elinor dashwood, i can't even believe it.

i feel so disconnected from americana sometimes, i've been watching american idol for the last two days and suddenly feel like i represent heartland america. i am the everyman. i would really like for david cook to win. there's no way that cute lil gremlin, david chubakka or whatever, can bet him. americans like mystery. trust me, i know.

this weekend, i am going to a baptism. the guy getting baptized is vegan. i wonder what they will serve for refreshments. i do wish we utilized the letter "s" more than "z" in american english. doesn't "baptised" sound a little more presentable than "baptized"? reminds me of kwik wash and donut.

business has been a little rough because of all the rain. no one feels pretty when they look like a sewer rat.

let me see what i can do

my very favorite thing to say when i'm working at BU is "let me see what i can do." i say it when i have no idea how to respond to a person, i say it when i think someone is being really demanding and i just want to get out of the situation, i say it when i need to feel empowered. today i used it twice, on two different people. i found out later that they are friends. i wonder if they will refer to me as the "let me see what i can do" girl.

bryan harrison, you're my hero

i'm so proud of you, bradley is too. he wants to give you a special treat. just come over and wear something with pockets. : )

more bangs for my buck

i cut major bangs tuesday morning. i was reading the times and there was an article on prep school kids in korea. all of the girls had these amazing long slits for eyes and no makeup with straight hair and bangs (and poreless skin with the greatest cheeks). i bee-lined for the bathroom before i even finished reading the article. i feel good about it and have decided that wearing mascara on my bottom eyelashes suits the hair. so i started that too. it all went well, except that i cut just a little too far back and now i have a few strands of bangs-length hair outside the bangs area. so basically, like a friar (desert father chic). when I first style it in the morning, it’s so ramones, which I love, by mid-day, more joni Mitchell, and by the time i sleep, it definitely resembles the unfortunate hairstyle of a certain mr. r. sambora. it's in the awkward "first-two-weeks-of-a-new-'do stage, for sure. anyway, not everyone likes it, but really, that's made me believe in it more. amy said that she makes fun of people with bangs and says things like "she's pretty, but she has bangs". she said she would try to give me a chance. thanks amy.

also, for the most part, i have abandoned the bright cheek and decided to take on a more monochromatic cosmetic palette. i've found that with heavy bangs and straight hair, adding bright cheeks makes me look like i've jumped out of a manga novel. when chad and i would go to b&n to read/study, he would he would bait me with beauty pop: "if you finish another section, i'll let you read beauty pop for 20 minutes. . ." hilarious! beauty pop is my favorite manga. a short description: "Although a truly gifted hairstylist, Kiri Koshiba has no interest in using her talent to pursue fame and fortune, unlike the three popular boys in the "Scissors Project" at school. Determined to become the best makeover team in Japan, they give showy makeovers to handpicked girls. As much as Kiri tries to shy away from the Scissors Project spotlight, she finds herself responding to beauty's call..."

the nytimes article here

beauty pop here

Garden of Eden

new pics of the garden, a grand work in progress. thanks, marcy. . .





more pics here