Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

In circa 1974, long before I was conceived  my Mom bought some mauve meets lavender crepe silk.  Well, we think it was '74, as it was before she met and married my Dad (in a whirlwind of 1975), and I came along a year later (so, yes, I was planned).  So, 1974 it is.   The silk, with the floral sidekick and two spools of matching thread, sat on my Momma's shelf for years.  As a kid I would see that white plastic bag, peek inside, hear her scream "Don't touch that!," and I'd always say "When you gonna make that?" In the summer of 2013 she asked me to help her organize a fraction of her sewing abyss.  In doing that, among the scraps of fabric that I use for muslins, the fabric neither of us know where it came from (or why someone would make or buy it) that is also muslin central for me, she relinquished and gave me her 30+ year old silk.   I greedily grinned and promptly ducked it in my suitcase, so she couldn't take it back.  I the...

Since I've been down for the long haul, well a week really, I have not done much but sleep like a comma patient, sleep some more, and oh sway from a now fading vertigo in the waking hours.  So, I haven't completed my silk lined, herringbone wool, leather elbow patch, silver metal button blazer.  Oh, I will.  Trust me.  Perhaps this weekend I'll be up for tinkering at the sewing machine and iron, pressing the last of the interfacing, sewing the taping, refining and catch stitching seam allowances . . . in some ways that sounds romantic. It is.  In my mind, at least. That being said, an ear infection in my dirty thirties came with a side of vertigo.  Yea, the prolonged recovery is mostly due to the Lupus that makes me mend so very long, but in all reality the infection and vertigo are not Lupus per se.  That aside, I've been on the sofa a bit, watching television (a bad variety, I won't lie), and knitting. Knitting.  A lowering of blood pressu...

So, I'm the type of gal to wear pearls with blue jeans.  Yes, that is true.  Really, if you've read anything on here then it shouldn't be a shock.  Thus, my saying I made a Jackie O style coat . . . well, before you raise your eyebrow and say "Hey, that ain't what you normally wear," remember the pearls and jeans.   Thus, I made a Jackie O.  And I wore it with jeans.  Faded, should be retired, jeans.  And Converse kicks.  And a wool knit tee.   Yea. I redefine classy.   That was me on an Instagram shot.  Snazzy, I know.   I mean, look at that . . . isn't she a beauty? That coat, fits like a dream.  Of course, I wore it open all day as it was almost too warm for it . . . but it being NYC and fall, well . . . yea, coat one minute, the next half naked.  Repeat all day.   My hair decided to go '90s retro and pretend my grunge days of Nirvana love were in town.  Ignore the unruly man...

Things I did this week: 1. On Friday I went and saw my long time friend debut in his first off-off Broadway play. Our paths have traversed since our college days involving copious amounts of beer and cheap vodka (okay, I was the connoisseur of pure rot gut cherry vodka and Pepsi (we were a Pepsi campus) and he was the consumer of Natty Light . . . and yes, Natty Light trumps the swill cherry vodka I poured down my throat for nastiest of the super-fly po man's brews.   Hands down.  Sorry.  Not Sorry.).  We realized after the show that for the first time in our decades plus evolution I got to watch him on stage and didn't have to do anything back stage. Yea, twisted not-so little secret . . . I was theater tech back in the day.  Haven't done anything with it since some point in my mid 20s I'd guess. Like a jackass, I forget to get a pic of our mugs but rest assured . . . The Actor's Theater held a great three-day run of Exodus's first play Murder...

Because summer left before it really came, and now fall is here . . . Back in May I made a knit dress, from viscose and donned it nearly all summer. May, from May Me Made in my NYC park.  That Moneta is what I still call my Parisian Dreamer.  A nary month later I made a maxi version on a smaller pattern.  Yup.   I was very excited to get my bourbon tee, can't ya tell? June . . . in Louisville.   That bourbon trail: you can get a passport at the visitor's center or (and AND) use the app on your phone.  The passport is stamped, and it is pretty nifty.  You know you want one . . .   Le sigh, of all the travels this year me and my Parisian Dreamer did not make it to Paris.  In two years I turn 40.  I'm going to India that year, and on the way back I think I will stop in Paris for a few days  . . . Perhaps.  India when I am 40, for certain though.   Another one . . . I wore this one s...

Since it has been sometime since I posted lackadaisical nonsense . . . okay, not that long , but since the valley of life has thrown me to the weeds in a long, and an undeniable shitstorm of power and persuasion, I escape and release myself through fantasy and humor . . . and as we all know sewing.  Today, enjoy a sewing diversion of sorts. When I am 80 . . . indeed.  Just as I have a to-do list of things for today (like grade, write a letter, pay a bill, finish a lingering article, walk the dog, grade, grade some more, work on another lingering article, read a book for review . . . yawn stretch, are you tired yet?) I have a list of things to do when I am 80.  My bestie and I conference a few times a year, meeting around the globe in airports and hotels, to meet, relax, give talks, make articles, and plot the next one . . . and drink wine and eat chocolate of good quality and seek each city's epic sushi spot (in Amsterdam . . . we found a place, on a side street, that t...

A twenty dollar bet, and a bottle of wine, led to a discussion--well persuasion--that I launch a pattern or two.  I snorted.  Then, the conversation again, that I should launch a bag since I make them in my sleep it seems.  A few supporters later, and I give you the first of #ivebeensewinganddrinking (yes, the hashtag is the umbrella of the pattern(s) I've been hashing . . . because, why not?!). And . . . since every good bag and piece of clothing becomes loved with a story and purpose, I give you one here.   Yoga is like candy.  At some point nearly everyone looks at it with glee and wonder, lots try it, and scores  in love with it.  Though, yoga gets a bad rap.  Connotations of new wave touchy feely types, with little understanding of grounded life and nature, often fill the popular mind.  Eh.  Here’s the deal: Yoga does everything from center breathing, tone muscles, maintain healthy weights, help loose weight, tone for running, ...