Dirty Laundry boots
Black boots I just got for my birthday with slight heel and straps and buckles. They are comfy and look dang adorable with skinny jeans but also work under my work pants.

Glittery silver peep toes
They make me about 5 inches taller and are by some voodoo still comfortable and walkable. How can they not be a favorite?

Fake chucks
Black faker converse from Target back in the day, they run wider than the legit ones and thus fit my feet better and they are all loved and worn in now. Gotta love chucks.

Those who know me at all know I'm a shoe girl. I adore heels of many shapes and sizes, but especially round toe ones with unique details, fun patterns, and or eye-catching colors. Since I have sort of short lil legs and a long torso, high heels are my friend, they balance me out a bit. Not that I don't love me some adorable skull-covered hipster or skater-ish flats too.

The thing is I have received these genes that make me break out in hives if I try to spend more than $40-50 on a pair, though that limit is raised a bit for boots, maybe to about $75-80. Though the prices sometimes make me hyperventilate, I loooooooove looking at shoes at Nordstrom and either oohing and ahhing or making coughing-up-hairball sort of noises depending on my opinion of the styles. I enjoy making fun of the ugly ones almost more than finding cute ones, since either way I can't bring myself to buy any.

I sometimes indulge my shoe love online as well, but when I finally worked up the nerve to look at the Choo's, well, the price tags made me start gasping and coughing and seeing stars. I informed my friend that I could NEVER in good conscience spend that much on something like shoes even if I had the means. She said she could if she was "Oprah-rich" and I shook my head and said no, not even then.

It's too bad that I'm craving a very specific boot...something that is brown, suede, slouchy, has some strappy bits around the ankle, and a moderate heel. Everything I look at is missing one of those elements, except for a $500 pair. Sigh. Target? Can you get on this please?

Dancing! One hundred percent, no hesitation, the thing I love best about weddings is the chance to dance the night away.

I'm not a fan of clubs and the awkwardness of drunk middle aged strangers hitting on me. Generally at weddings people are on slightly better behavior, and you're with friends and family that you can ham it up with with YMCA inevitably plays.

Cake? I don't really like it...I prefer ice cream or brownies or cookies.
The ceremony? Often beautiful and touching, sure.
The toasts? I have seen so many epically bad ones that I cringe at the word.
Pictures? Gah they are fun to look at later but take so long to pose for, my cheeks always hurt.
Dressing up? Ok this is my second favorite part, I admit I love nothing more than an excuse to dress up.

Still, nothin makes me happier than getting my groove on to cheesy music with people I love. :-)

*sings* "The glove compartment isn't accurately named and everybody knows it, so I'm proposing a swift orderly change 'cause behind its door there's nothin to keep my fingers warm."

I can't really state it more poetically than Death Cab, but I actually do like inaccurate names that are holdovers from the past, when things really WERE for that. And hey, someone out there has to still keep gloves there and not just their manual and proof of insurance. Proof of insurance compartment is just awkward.

While we're at it why don't we just call all clothespins "chip bag clips"? Maybe because not everything can be as utilitarian as a "garage door opener" and we need a little bit of history and nostalgia in our lives. :-P

Sleek, classic, versatile, I'm going to go with black, and let me tell ya with my current wardrobe I could pull it off. I have black tees, tanks, button downs, pants, shorts, skirts, dresses, socks, tights, underthings, coats, sneakers, heels, flats, boots, flip flops, jewelry, purses, swimsuits... Every texture and level of formality, enough for every occasion.

Hell I already tend to end up in all black/grey outfits anyway...

I'm going to assume white is still allowed, or silver accents on the jewelry, and if it's not well too bad I'd do it.

I would almost try it out for a month to see how creative I could be, except I have this fabulous new red coat that I'd hate to give up at the moment. :-P

Southwest, got little gold stick on wings, wore a teal-ish little sweatshirt and had messy bangs and crooked little kid teeth. The picture my Mom snapped is blurry but I remember getting the window seat and being glued to it. Free coke? How exciting! Chewing gum to make my ears pop? Intriguing! Getting to Disneyland and seeing all my family without a day long car ride? Aaaawwwwweeeeesssssooooommmmeeee.

I was lucky enough to get to go to a Sounders game with my brother Josh who has season tickets. He sits with a couple friends and we all had a blast with a flag, megaphones, waving our scarves and sporting our jerseys. Seattle fans can't be beat and the crowd makes this inaugural season a great one with all the songs and chants everyone pulls together to belt out.

My one beef with Qwest field is a very odd one...now, I'm 23. And here in Washington your license is printed vertical before 21, horizontal after. Your license also generally expires on your 21st. You cannot buy alcohol with an expired license. Catching on to the dilemma? Unless you sit at the DMV on your STINKING BIRTHDAY you have to renew your license before then to drink on the day. That means I still have a vertical license. Why renew again until it expires or I change my name? Why pay extra? No place has ever had a problem taking my vertical license. Until Qwest.

I didn't even want a beer. My bro was just gonna snag one for himself and his two buddies. One person can only carry two cups. I had to show ID to carry the third. The gals freaked, "Oh no, oh no no no we can't take vertical. Qwest policy. We could get in big trouble." My bro and I were aghast. "What? But....I'm 23...they don't trust you to read?"

The ladies then proceeded to tell us that alcohol enforcement agents were all over Qwest and if they caught me carrying a beer with a vertical license they would dump out all our beers and give me a ticket.

This is such bull that I cannot even express it. What could they possibly ticket me for? I am of age with a legal valid unexpired license. Gah.

Aside from that weirdness, had a absolutely wonderful time, lol.

Ah Cup Noodle....so cheap, so chock full of sodium, so easy to pack for lunch for work since we have one of those steaming-hot water faucets. My trunk is full of these, granola bars, and applesauce, and that's the lunch I pack. Pathetic.

So there is this dust covered thing just lurking on my nightstand...it's green and filled with mysteriously liquid with glitter magically suspended in it. It's kinda like a lava lamp, but the glitter just swirls around and cast sparkly little green-tinged reflections all over the wall. It is a giant crayon glitter lamp and while I love the idea of it and admire it when it does get turned on, it almost NEVER does. I have no real need of it, I have a can light on a dimmer over the head of my bed thanks to a construction-savvy Dad, so there it sits, collecting dust and looking wildly out of place. Still, I kinda like it.

It's not even so much the clothes as, well.... let's put it this way:

If I bothered to put on eyeliner, I'm probably trying to impress someone, or at least consciously trying to look extra good. It's annoying, I usually poke myself and start tearing up, but something about glamming up my eyes goes a long way in making me feel more sexy, put together, and ready to take on a hostile world.

After I left school in Chicago to come home to the Northwest, as much as I suck at keeping in touch, I knew that one Ms. Gabbie Potts was going to be my friend forever. She's not Potts anymore, I recently went to her wedding in Cali (gorgeous, and such a good choice of groom ;-) ), but no matter where either of us are or how long we go between talking, we have that sort of friendship where it always picks back up where it left off with no awkwardness and tons of love. We know each other extremely well, I'd say she's one of the people who knows me best and I can tell her anything in our marathon phone calls. I love my Gabbers!

There are other friendships and even a romance that I kept up over those same 2000+ miles, but they are all the ones that I came home to after a short while, not the one that I've been far from for years now. That kind of friendship is something special. :-)

The sort of Russian/Persian cuisine that my Baba (Grandma) makes... I would be a happy camper for a year with yummy borscht, galupsi, kulyich, syrny paska, lapsha, varenky, shashlik, and a million other treats that I would butcher just as badly trying to spell in English...I can say most of them but they're sure hard to type. Just make sure you give me a good supply of sour cream, and can I bend the rules to include my Mom's "green borscht" which is spinach soup we chop up hardboiled eggs in? I was never entirely sure where that soup's origins really lay...

I could never get sick of all the lamb and cabbage and butter filled goodness, heck I even like the Russian candies my Deda (Grandpa) keeps around though none of my cousins do. My mouth is watering already.

A little girl, tucked into bed, Daddy reading confidently from a book with a soft green cover, always knowing what all the words meant and how to say them and how to shift his tone as he read for the dwarves, that mysterious wizard, and poor poor Mr. Baggins who was so imposed upon when they scratched his pretty green door, tramped into his house, and dragged him on an adventure. It was years before I would pick up "the sequel" Lord of the Rings that my Daddy said I needed to be older to read, in the three pretty red-bound volumes on that high shelf. I loved Tolkien's world and I loved the bedtime ritual, stories from Daddy and songs from Mommy and all my stuffed animals tucked around me sleepy-eyed and relaxed as we dreamed of dragons and magic rings and floating down a river in barrels.

Hmmm maybe I need to pick this one up again. :-)

So round about the age of oh, 16 and a half, during the summer when kids can only get up to no good, I found myself bound and determined to get kissed. There were oh so many "good" reasons, wonder and a bit of envy at a best friend with an amiable boyfriend, being in the midst of stupid drama and half rejection with another boy I thought it would be fun to make jealous, and just feeling I was too old to not have managed it.


Well the aforementioned best friend and her boy were glad to act as accomplices and introduce me to a nice young man. So there we are on a pseudo-double date, playing pool with a great deal of amusing banter and him none the wiser of my dubious designs on his person. I may have been anxious about the kiss itself but I was confident of my skill as a flirt even then and he certainly ate it up. Then it was back to his place for a movie or two and some lasagna, and ladies and gentlemen I STILL cannot claim to have truly seen The Fast and The Furious. The kiss was after the movie, when we were shifting around and the friend and her boy were distracted...he invited me to take a seat on the couch (the two of us had been relegated to the floor during the actual movie). Before I knew it his face was inches from mine and I'm not really sure who moved to cover the final distance but suddenly we were kissing and hey it wasn't so hard and good god was that his tongue this is all a little more wet than I had imagined!


He was a sweet kid but even then I was hopelessly complicated and probably sent him all manner of mixed signals, I mean I did to some extent simply use him to get myself kissed. When he wanted to push the physical a little further without formally asking me out...well....I pushed back. Hard. And he kinda hit a wall. And had a little hurt puppy look that made me feel a bit guilty. But hopefully that was a good lesson in "no means no"?

Douglas Adams brand of humor keeps me laughing out loud most of the time I read and of the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy (there are five books). Something about the ridiculousness of doors with feelings and a two-headed president who's merely a distraction tactic and the analysis of the last thoughts of a potted petunia... it's pretty much amazing.

As a backup, Catch 22 is pretty damn hilarious as well, who wouldn't laugh at the plight of someone named Major Major Major or how much money someone makes by NOT growing alfalfa? It makes your head spin in some parts, but despite the dizziness you'll still be laughing.

I fell in love with the beautiful Cotswolds when I traveled through England and Scotland with my parents several years ago, and not just because they are pretty much Tolkien's Shire. The picturesque little villages and beautiful gardens and estates tucked into the countryside are amazingly charming and appeal to my romantic notion of the history of Britain. I wouldn't mind being in the Oxford or London area either, but I don't think I'd want to live in town, the idea of a London flat is not as appealing as a quiet home with my own gorgeous garden and grounds. :-)

...was work. ;-)

Technically there are three places I've written poems/lyrics about, and Chicago/Wheaton is one that has actually become a recorded song, thanks to a musically talented boyfriend. I spent about a year and a half going to Wheaton College and it was quite the eventful time, I ended up coming home for a multitude of reasons but I would never regret the time I spent there and what I learned and what it all meant to me. I still don't think I've fully processed it.

Anywho, the song is Chicago Winter and was adapted from a poem that was basically about how shitty it was to leave home with an as yet undefined relationship. I've written others about Wheaton, and I can't help but write constantly about my beautiful and much beloved Seattle, and also California, the state of my birth and place where a great deal of my family resides. The California songs often include odes to road trips down the lovely I-5 corridor, while Seattle (well technically the suburbs) has been the backdrop to most of my life and just about all my teen angst.

Wheaton, though... Wheaton will always hold a unique little place in my heart, even if I do trash talk it sometimes.

"Sometimes we don't do the things we want to do because we're afraid that other people will know that we want to do them."

This line resonates with me because so much of my personality involves me hiding emotion, restraining myself, and mistrusting people...in the movie Ivy sees right through Lucius's restraint and realizes what his inaction really reveals. I was tempted to put Lucius's declaration of love to her out on the porch, but mainly because I love those moments in every love story, the enumeration of the little things that one person notices and loves about another... *girly sigh* Ok, enough of that, that's why I didn't do that one, lol.

Moist
The imagery it conjures up, the sound of it, that "oi" followed by that sibilant little "s"...ugh. It's tied in with damp, though damp isn't quite as bad. It just makes me think mold, mildew, gross, gross wetness. This word is a running joke amongst my friends, topping most of our lists of nasty words. I've been gifted with moist towelettes by giggling friends many a time.

Sweetie
Ok, so maybe some people can get away with it. But if someone you don't want calling you an endearment calls you sweetie? I dunno, just gets my hackles up, even more so than a misplaced "babe" would. Seems more condescending and infantilizing I guess.

Fanny
My requirement for words for anatomy that would be covered by swimsuits? Make it cute or make it sexy. Fanny is neither. Frankly I don't think there are any really great options for synonyms for the gluteus maximus, but I find this the worst. Especially with the whole "fanny pack" thing. Ugh.