Westward, With Mikey D

A week driving through big skies and red rocks out west with Mikey D. Some highlights: big skies, red rock formations and all-you-can-eat crab legs. For today, just pics of the first two.

Thanks Michael Borders!

Spent yesterday afternoon at Michael Borders' apt on Central Park. Swanky! He was shooting some new pieces of mine and I was playing "art director." I think it went well!

This is my vessel necklace, which I've been selling for a while now, but haven't gotten around to photographing till now. It's up on my Etsy page now, btw.

Michael also had the cool idea to do a shoot with broken light bulbs:

Isn't Borders the best?! Check out his website here.

This is what happens when i try to declutter: Instead I end up getting even more attached to some things, thus ensuring that I'll never, ever get rid of them. As I went through my books, trying to find a stack I could justify tossing, I soon became distracted and started dividing them by color.

I did eventually come up with a bunch to give away, but i didnt photograph them in case i got too attached in the process.

Check out a great giveaway going on at Concrete and Nailpolish: the lucky winner is gonna be able to pick any item under $40 from my Etsy shop. Be sure to enter!

Hey, remember how awesome this movie was/is? I think I'll watch it this week:

Sunday

So I originally began this blog post about Bikram Yoga. I've been doing it for the past few weeks and I'm feeling a little self-righteous about my new status as a new age, healthy, at-peace practitioner of this Eastern discipline.

But then as I began going through recent photos to add an image to this post, I found myself scrolling through shots from Sunday night's Pizza Making Extravaganza. After seeing pic after pic of my friends stuffing themselves with pizza and dancing around with big mugs of beer in their hands, I thought, "Who am I kidding?" So I bagged the Bikram post.

In it's place, I'm happy to share a few shots that include cheese, dancing, and assorted alcoholic beverages. And not a Standing Eagle pose in sight!

  Ang on dough-making duty. 

 TOPPINGS!!

A classic Collin pose:Weeping into his food. 

Makes no sense, but I laugh every time.

Seriously, a mountain of toppings.

This creation belonged to Carrie.

Mikey's dancing cleared the kitchen.

Sometimes, pride is overrated.

Ang with one of her "goblets" of wine. 

I love that in the background are remnants from two previous parties: 

The map from our NYC party and the paper chain from Gal-entines Day. 

Taylor and Megan, attempting a serious pose 

but they can't stop laughing.

Breakfast of Champions

I headed out for an early morning breakfast at Sanford's. Egg white western omlette with feta cheese, homefries, coffee, juice, 7 grain toast. $5.44. Another reason to love Astoria.

Sufficiently stuffed, I headed home. Just reaching the intersection by my apartment, I looked down and saw this:

I am completely mystified by this  -- it's not litter, not in the least. First of all, the coffee was a full, still steaming cup. It wasn't thrown down, it was set there. Secondly, the cigar was carefully laid on top of the coffee lid, to keep it from touching the street. It appeared as if someone had plopped themselves down on the curb for a little caffeine/nicotine breakfast, and then vanished. I did  a little surveillance, but there was no one in site. Regardless of the hows and whys, I loved this strange little still life. Who says there's no art in Astoria?

Baltimore - I Survived!

So last week was consumed by the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore. 700 artists, all of them the top in their craft. And somehow, Queens Metal was allowed to rub elbows with these awesome, talented individuals. We were part of the "Emerging Artists" section, where we got to take in the swirl of the show and get some experience selling and participating in a show of this scale.

Four looooong days of selling. Four nights at the Rodeway Inn, where I frantically soldered jewelry on the bathroom floor every night, trying to keep my inventory stocked up. Four mornings of free wafflese at the Rodeway, (where we seemed to be the only guests) then walking a mile to the Baltimore Convention Center, trying to keep the budget in check. My parents came in on Saturday, which was wonderful. A few other highlights:

We arrived on Wednesday via Amtrak. My last minute decision to cancel the rental car proved to be a good one -- we saved hundreds of dollars. The train station had gorgeous stained glass ceilings:

 

My display was looking pretty good.

Love these little stud earrings:

And my nest rings were selling, as Ang would say, "like crack."

Angela was a saint. By the end of the show we were both totally exhausted:

We managed to leave B'more in even less style than how we arrived: The $17 9pm Bolt bus back to NYC. Actually, it was a great, quick ride. Plus I got this cool pic while waiting to board:

Day 2

American craft council show - two days down, two days to go! Fun, exhausted, fun, exhausted, repeat repeat repeat.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Blonde on a train

Ang sleeping on our way to Baltimore. Fun and excitement, what more can I say?!
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But I Love My Pink Ballet Slippers

I love when I stumble upon a good documentary!

This week, I watched Random Lunacy, which is available on Hulu.com (for FREE!)

It's the story of Poppa Neutrino, a man who basically made the conscious decision to shun all material possessions and avoid any kind of traditional lifestyle. He ended up raising his family as a traveling band of street musicians, then as circus performers. For extended periods of time, the family lived on boats that they built.



I had heard about Poppa Neutrino because his daughter, Ingrid Lucia, (now an adult) is a musician in New Orleans. She has a beautiful voice and i love seeing her perform.



But the Random Lunacy doc was amazing in and of itself. It was really an odd coincidence that I happened upon a story about shedding material possessions, because that's what I've been trying to do for the last weeks. (Not to the Poppa Neutrino extreme, but in my own little way).

It's pretty ridiculous, all the things that we keep and carry with us every time we move. Sometimes the things we keep take on some special meaning for no reason other than we've had them for a long time. I've got lot's of stuff like that -- things that I think SHOULD be "important" because of where I got it, or who got it for me, but the truth is, i don't even really care much for the thing I'm keeping -- just the symbolism I've attached to it. So this week, I'm working on filling a few bags for the Salvation Army.

Why I Love Astoria: Reason #683

There's been a lot of talk in the past few years about the benefits of eating locally grown foods. The idea being that you not only support local businesses, but also that --theoretically-- you have more control over what you're consuming, because you have access to information such as how the fruits/veges were grown, and under what sort of conditions the animals were raised.

Today, the concept of "locavore" was taken to a whole new level when I had lunch in Astoria.

Mikey D and I decided on an impromptu beer-and-dumplings lunch at Zlata Praha, the Czech-Slovak restaurant under the 30th Ave subway stop. There's something really satisfying about drinking beer at 2pm on a cold February day. I ordered a sweet and delicious BrouCzech, one of my all time favorite beers.

Perusing the menu, it quickly became apparent that we'd picked a good week to go to Zlata Praha -- it was "Venison Week" meaning that the menu was packed with a variety of venison dishes. Chatting with the bartender, we were told that the owner had just returned from a hunting trip and had caught rabbits, deer, a boar (thus, Vension Week).  Wowza. We decided on venison in wine sauce, pickled herring, and dumplings.

Soon, we were snarfing down hearty Czech food and washing it down with swigs of beer. We were so busy feasting that we were suprised to see the bartender standing over us, holding what, at first glance, I thought was a dart. I soon realized that in fact, it was the ARROW THAT HAD KILLED THE DEER WE WERE EATING AT THAT VERY MOMENT.

I don't know if I should have been horrified, but my reaction was pure intrigue. The arrow was really beautiful. I've never seem an arrow like that up close before -- it reminded me of a very sharp tulip bulb. I even got a picture of it:

At the far right, you can see where the arrow was snapped in half when removed from the deer. We soon realized that the guy waving to us from the other end of the bar was the owner, and he was the one who shot our lunch.

I guess there's probably a lot of people out there who'd be pretty horrified to be presented with an arrow while trying to enjoy lunch. But I'm not one of those people.

Aftermath

How come in December it's called a Winter Wonderland and in February it's just a reminder that spring is really, really, really far away?

I really love this pic of my parents. Took it on their anniversary this year. Mom's crying cause she just got Springsteen tickets. Dad's glowing cause he knows, in the World Series of gift giving, he just scored a home run.

The Feb 14th Edition

Dare I point out that Valentines Day is right around the corner?  I dare.

I guess, as a girl who has been single for a while now, Valentines Day should be a holiday where I feel a little bummed out about not having someone to shower me with flowers and little stuffed creatures. Honestly though, the reality is the complete opposite -- I look forward to my single-girl Valentines Days.

I've passed plenty of Feb 14ths in committed relationships, which leads me to believe that I must have celebrated the holiday at some point with someone who i cared somewhat about. But, as much I've wracked my brain, I cannot remember a single Valentines Day that involved dinner at a nice restaurant or a box of chocolates. In fact, I can't remember a V Day spent with a boyfriend.

What I do remember, however, are all the Valentine's Days I spent with my friends. I remember the year that a bunch of my girls and i went downtown and saw Ryan Montbleau play at the Knitting Factory. And the year that my roomies and  I all made up excuses to go in to work late, then cooked a huge V Day brunch with mimosas, chocolates, and LOTS of bacon.

 
In college, my roomie and I decided to participate in that feminist/Valentines Day/college tradition: The Vagina Monologues. It was a great experience, though I walked away firmer than ever in my belief that the stage was one place I was definitely NOT meant to be. Also, I realized that red was NOT my color:

Then there was the year that I decided to follow Assembly of Dust through four dates of their Northeast tour, which happened to fall over Valentines weekend. The guy I was dating at the time was pretty unhappy that I was leaving town, but, hey it's AOD! I spent Feb 14th in Northhampton, MA at the Pearl Street Music Hall. The band covered Van Morrison that night. And after the show, I remember driving for-ev-er looking for a hotel room, because every place I stopped at was booked with couples on romantic weekend getaways.

Last year, my girls and I decided to go to Costa Rica. Angela and I spent Valentines Day on a crisis-filled journey from Queens to Miami to Fort Lauderdale to San Jose. The two of us celebrated the holiday with a lunch (comped by the fantasically crappy Spirit Airlines) at a Chili's in the Miami airport. Our Valentines Day dinner was a granola bar in the San Jose hotel room at midnight. Still, it was one of the most joyful V Days I can remember, because we were so happy to have finally arrived in Costa Rica.

This year, I will once again be celebrating a single-girl Valentines Day. And, once again, I'm looking forward to it. If Ang can avoid another airline crisis, she'll be arriving from Michigan on the 14th. There may be a dance party. And not a pajama-gram or stuffed farm animal in sight.

Nest Ring and Stuff

A good Sunday usually involves banana chocolate chip pancakes. Today was a good Sunday. Brunch with some of the Astoria girls and then lots of photographing pieces that shoulda been photographed six months ago.

Heres a fave:

 
It's for sale on Etsy if you're interested in getting one of your very own.

Now heading out to Lil C's place for some Superbowl-goodness. There will be ribs. And beer. And, I think, football.

_____

PS  I'm starting to have nightmares about the American Craft Council show in Baltimore, which I'll be selling at during the last weekend in Feb. Last night, the nightmare involved realizing in the 11th hour that all my displays were still in Michigan with Elsie Q.  Whoops!

Doppelganger

Today, my postman told me i look like a singer from the 60's who I'd never heard of: Melanie Safka. So I had to do a little googling:

 

Separated at birth??  To bad this pic of me is 8 years old. I still have that awesome turquoise necklace though.

What a Long Strange Trip it's Been...

So today I informed my parents that I'm concocting a marathon, multi-month backpacking adventure, kicking off in Jan, 2011. As expected, their response was pretty unenthusiastic.

Suddenly, I felt like i was 21 again, sitting at my parents kitchen table and informing them that I planned on living in a VW Bus and driving around the country. They were equal parts horrified and angry.

In retrospect, the VW Bus plan was pretty ridiculous. And, not surprisingly, it never came to fruition.

But this time, I am locked on to my plan of a backpacking adventure. It's something that I've wanted to do ever since I studied abroad at the age of 20, and my then-boyfriend and I would meet people in hostels who'd been traveling for months -- or even years.

My father made the point to me that I already do a pretty significant amount of traveling. It's true: my once or twice annual jaunts to far off places have allowed me to rack up quite a few stamps on my passport. And my job allows me to travel quite a bit in the country too.

But a week or a couple of weeks in a foreign country is a vacation. It's not "traveling." Certainly, there are obstacles, challenges. There is a new culture to confront, new customs to learn. There's a lot of picture taking and restaurant hopping. But the whole experience is very temporary. I'm just a transient visitor, in this weird limbo where I'm far from home, but still not completely immersed in another culture.

I enjoy my trips, and I always return with a new perspective. But I want more. I want to linger in a city for weeks. I want to get to know local people. I want to become a regular at a bar, establish a routine, have a home base. I want time to read, and write and reflect, rather than just tearing from one city to the next, frantically recording everything I saw and did because otherwise it will just become a fleeting memory.

I struggle to do the things that I used to enjoy. In New York, it's impossible for my brain to focus. Too many distractions, too many people, too much everything. I used to write -- a lot. Every day, in fact. And I used to read voraciously. Piles of books. Now, there's too many other things I have to do. When in reality, the things I have to do just leave me stressed and always, always, always anxious.

I run through the accomplishments of my twenties: moved to New York, got my Bachelors, then my Masters, started a business and watched it grow into a success. Lots of traveling, lots of friends, lots of fantastic memories and good times. I've had lots of luck and lots to be proud of too. But I know that I need to keep moving my life forward. Continuing to push myself and find out what more I can do.

If I had to pick an ideal time to go on an adventure like this, the time would be now. As my lease ends, and my NYC friends scatter, I know that it's time for me to move on too. I have no boyfriend or husband keeping me in one place. My jewelry business can be put on hold for a few months without completely disintegrating. Basically, if this journey doesn't happen now, it could very well never happen.

I'm not the type of person who believes in "living every moment to the fullest." But I do FULLY BELIEVE in taking advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. And the opportunity is now presenting itself. So I need to take the leap. Onward!