self pleasure

One of my favorite indulgences is taking myself out on dates. I've always been a bit of a loner, going to cafes, restaurants, movies and even house parties by myself. I used to treat these events like regular ol' things: a simple preference, some quality time to myself, a matter of convenience. But recently, soon after I discovered the things that pleased me most -- the tomatoes, the wine, the patent leather heels, the chunky bracelets, the pink eyeshadow, the silk and the cotton -- and developed my taste in and knowledge of those things, I decided to give them back to myself.

So, some nights, especially after a particularly harrowing work week or hectic weekend, I put on one of my favorite dresses. Pair it with terribly insensible heels, jewelry that flashes even the night time. I pluck my eyebrows, rub lemon lotion from head to toe, even top it off with a thick, sopping handful of body oil. It's on these occasions I put on lipstick, it never makes sense any other time: not when I'm kissing someone, or teaching, or trying to gulp down lunch in the 20 minutes before or in the middle of classes. Lipstick, like cool, is one of those I put on but seems to slide off me five minutes later.

But for myself, I'll entertain the notion.

I even put on my best draw's. Not for some half hope of what good I might stumble into on the way to dinner or sitting at the restaurant bar, but because I firmly believe in my own goodness. That goody-goody gumdrop feeling made possible by bright yellow dresses that catch the night wind in their hems, or towering heels that add their own beat to the concrete syncopation. That magic that comes when the flight in your step threatens to eat up every horizon God dared to paint.

I dress myself up for that feeling, from the inside out. I soak myself in that feeling, from the inside out. And when I'm done soaked up full of the food I love and the music that grooves me and the thoughts and books that send me home in the middle of this strange city, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the twinkling windows of Saigon, I just get so happy that I got the privilege of taking her home with me.

extraordinarily ordinary

"In probing the common standards of normality, Wood has made a surprising discovery: Being normal is actually extraordinary. It's an unusual combination of specific traits that all have to do with being extra likable. The people who see themselves as most normal (and are seen that way by others) are much less neurotic than the average person, uncommonly easy to get along with, unusually respectful of propriety, and highly responsible.

Normal people may be nicer than average, but they also have character traits that aren't universally appealing. They're not adventurous. They're not above average in intelligence, nor are they outgoing. Truth be told, a lot of our best qualities are unusual. A sense for music like Mozart's is certainly exceptional. So is the ability to speak six languages, or the courage to leap onto the subway tracks to save a stranger's life."

Psychology Today

Wow, just think, now we'll be able to tell our daughters, "you can grow up and be anything you want to be. Why, you could even be some old-windbag's-strategic-womb-carrying-ploy-designed-to-siphon-votes-from-enbittered-Clinton-supporters-and-disgruntled-and/or-undecided white-women-everywhere!

Or, an astronaut!"

anticipation

I haven't posted a video in a while, and in the building anticipation for what Obama has to say tomorrow morning (or tonight, for those of you on the other side of the international date line) it seems fitting.

An oldie in internet time, but a damn amusing video nonetheless.

the last pages

I finished Isabel Allende's memoir, "My Invented Country," last week, but was hesitant to place the book on my shelf -- out of reach of my attention -- because I still wanted to linger on the last couple pages. As anyone who has fell in love with books knows, there is nothing quite so satisfying as a really, really good ending.

I really took to this book, as I mentioned earlier, because it honed in on two central themes of my life thus far: writing and home.

The last two pages tie up those two themes in a way that I found neither forced nor overly sentimental, but poignant and perfect satiating. Probably, because she had spoken so directly to my experiences and my own world view. Of course, we can't help but be drawn to the things that so eloquently articulate us and what we know:

In the slow practice of writing, I have fought with my demons and obsessions, I have explored the corners of my memory, I have dredged up stories and people from oblivion, I have stolen others' lives, and from all this raw material I have constructed a land that I call my country. That is where I come from.

&

I am a writer because I was born with a good ear for stories, and I was lucky enough to have an eccentric family and the destiny of a wanderer. The profession of literature has defined me. Word by word I have created the person I am and the invented country in which I live.

Did TLC teach you NATHIN, Rihanna?

Rihanna reportedly fired her business manager after discovering she only has
$20,000 left in her bank account.

Don't worry, girl, there's still plenty of room for you under Chris Brown's umbrella. But please, if the gov't has to reposses anything, let that shirt be the first to go.

so, what did you think of China?

"In decades at the Post, this is the first event I've covered at which I was certain that the main point of the exercise was to co-opt the Western media, including NBC, with a splendidly pretty, sparsely attended, completely controlled sports event inside a quasi-military compound. We had little alternative but to be a conduit for happy-Olympics, progressive-China propaganda. I suspect it worked."

[full article, "They Made the Buses Run On Time" here]

Living in Vietnam, I gotta word up this article. I've seen first-hand Vietnamese reluctance to over-step bureaucracy or "chain of command." Our situation is much milder, however, because China is what Vietnam would be if the government were more efficient, had a better grasp of technology, and could funnel their resources and energy correctly. Which is a bit scary.

fashion lust...

this is a prelude to another (longer) post, that i've been wanting to write for some time. its inspirations can be credited to the blogger, style rookie, a (very) young blogger who's miles ahead of the game in terms of fashion and style. what i like the most about her, however, isn't her fashion sense (although, let's be real, she's in the 92nd percentile in terms of dopeness and she hasn't even hit her teens yet). it's her earnestness in her desire to learn more about fashion and design, and the fun she's having developing a style that is completely her own -- which really, is what style is all about.

myself, i love parsing issues that deal with creativity, particularly design and aesthetics, because they sit outside of my expertise, so discovering the sartorial me has been an enthralling and engaging turn in my life.

i have a hard time throwing out magazines, instead spending an inordinate amount of time poring over the spreads and features: the color harmonies and palettes, the styling, the silhouettes, the mood, the narrative each outfit tells. i've taken to cutting out particularly intriguing/inspiring tidbits from my favorite magazines in a large sketchbook so I can easily refer to them, and keep them for posterity. i find that simply gathering all the pieces soothes me, like aesthetic therapy.





fashion, i believe, is a practical art -- much in the same way as language. to paraphrase tim gunn, fashion IS a language of its own -- a very personal language. for this reason, i follow fashion, admire it, like it, maybe after a few drinks and a few flips through a particularly artful spread, lust after it, but i doubt that i could ever earnestly LOVE it.

fashion folly

i said i don't think i could ever love fashion, because i don't think i could take it quite so seriously. granted, fashion does have a sense of humor -- sometimes -- but the wearisome thing i see in fashion is it's tendency to take itself way too seriously.

disclaimer: though they're often used synonymously, i don't regard being fashionable equitable to being stylish. fashion is to religion as style is to faith or belief; fashion is much more regimented, me thinks.

Exhibit A:

take, for instance, the following quote from Refinery29's Interview with model, Erin Wasson. now, Erin seems like a fabulous person, really. but i just found this part of the interview absolutely ridiculous...

What fashion trend would you like to see curl up and die?
"Leggings, dude. If I see one more girl showing off her bad ankles, I'm going to vomit. It's just not cute."

Really, dude? Bad ankles?? I mean, I'm with you on the leggings -- on the basis that they're borderline hipster/20-something fashion cliche -- but bad ankles? What are those? Are they like ashy ankles? Or cankles? The cankle set (wisely) tends to veer away from leggings. Actually, for that matter, what are GOOD ankles? Do those even exist? Is there some sort of medication I can take? Has Dove come out with a therapeutic cream yet? The bad ankle miscreants of the world must know!

It's pretentiousness like this which makes you want to keep the fashion world at arm's length sometimes. Take the difference between the Facehunter and the Sartorialist. They're both style, not fashion, blogs, but the former caters to a younger, more street look than the latter. Moreover, while their expressed purpose is to highlight the stylishness of the everyman/woman the Sartorialist tends to focus on an older (one could argue, more timeless) set, and notable fashion insiders.

The difference isn't in the level of style, but the audience and the "models." What I admire about the Sartorialist is the straight-forward nature of his photos. Often, they're not wearing anything particularly amazing, new or "directional." But you always get a sense that these people are comfortable in their own skin; that they pop up in the morning looking like that, and tumble down into bed looking the same way; that it's all, in fact, effortless.

I don't always get that from the Facehunter. There are times (granted, only a few) where everything, the shot, the fashion, and especially the model, looks so contrived -- a replica of what the person thinks fashion should be. It's what fashion is, but what style should never be: forced.

Exhibit(s) B:

Love the color palette, the mix of stripes and florals, the proportion looks dope, but the look-away pose KILLS it for me. she ends up looking stiff in what would be a really fresh, young outfit.


Another look-away pose, with the dreaded addition of the hand-to-the-face. Seriously, they made us all do this in our garish elementary school photos, you know, the ones in front of a faux forest/bay window background ("chin up, okay now look over at the birdie, okay if you could just move your hand like...okay, grrreeaaat!"). it looked stupid then and it's not doing her any favors now.


again, this would be a really fresh look if it didn't look as though it were shot to promote a line of purses and handbags. i can almost hear the same creepy 4th grade photographer say "okay, now let's see the bag, okay... a little to the left, now tilt your head, peerrrrrfect." also, this whole pigeon-toed model pose thing has always struck me as odd when i see it in the high-fashion glossies. i've been [slightly] pigeon-toed, i've seen people who are naturally pigeon-toed, there's NATHIN haute couture about it. which begs the question, does this chick naturally turn her bubble gum-pink footsies inward (endearing) or is she mimicking something she's seen elsewhere (awkward)?

like i said before, love facehunter -- really -- and the vast majority of his shots are nothing short of fabulous. but if we can just cut the crap and be ourselves, whatever those selves may dress like, i think we can spare ourselves more than a few awkward photos.

and cover up those bad ankles.

1:45 am

eating [my favorite] korean vanilla & red bean ice cream [comes in a crispy wafer shaped like a fish, easily my favorite snack/desert food EVER], having spent a good saturday engaging & indulging my creative self.

some fruits of my efforts:



a fully updated flickr. woop woop!

a letter from Jaques Rogge

"It's one thing for the Chinese government to jail dissidents, to forge the passports of underage gymnasts, and to set up official protest zones and then arrest anyone who applied to use them. These are matters that I met with disciplined silence, or as I so adroitly put it, with 'quiet diplomacy.' But I cannot ignore Bolt's disturbing spontaneity. Him, I feel compelled to rebuke.

...'I think he should show more respect for his competitors and shake hands, give a tap on the shoulder to the other ones immediately after the finish and not make gestures like the one he made in the 100 meters,' I said.

...Some people might ask what separates Bolt from other athletes who have celebrated unselfconsciously here...How is he different, for instance, from the U.S. women's beach volleyball team, which shrieked, hugged each other, cavorted, and fell about in the sand for several minutes, before congratulating its opponents?


Isn't it obvious? They are women in bikinis."

[the full -- BRILLIANT -- article is available here]

it's friday.


!!

l'excessive

"I love America, and I love American women. But there is one thing that deeply shocks me -- American closets. I cannot believe one can dress well when you have so much."

Andree Putnam

* Myself, since coming to Vietnam and functioning on a closet that's a mere fraction of the one I have in the U.S., I've really come to relish going into my closet and gutting it out. It's incredibly gratifying and, dare I say, it's much easier to dress knowing that you love every piece you own.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this later...

manic monday

two for nostalgia

[two]


...that's how nostalgia is: a slow dance in a large circle. Memories don't organize themselves chronologically, they're like smoke, changing, ephemeral, and if they're not written down they fade into oblivion. I've tried to arrange my thoughts according to themes and periods of my life, but it's seemed artificial to me because memory twists in and out, like an endless Moebius strip.

Isabel Allende
"My Invented Country"

one for nostalgia

i thought these tucked in quite nicely to the home theme i've been running through my fingers this past week...


[one]

I often ask myself what exactly nostalgia is. In my case, it's not so much wanting to live in Chile as it is the desire to recapture the certainty i feel there. That's my home ground. Each country has its customs, its manias, its complexes. I know the idiosyncracies of mine like the palm of my hand; nothing surprises me, I can anticipate others' reactions, I understand what gestures mean, silences, formulas of courtesy, ambiguous responses. Only there do I feel comfortable socially -- despite the fact I rarely behave as I'm expected to -- because there I know how to behave and my good manners rarely fail me.

Isabel Allende
"My Invented Country"

building home (pt 2)

a dominant question in my writing now -- and really, for the last few years --- is that of identity: who am i now, who was i then, who/what am i becoming, and what is the relationship between these three selves?

it's funny to think of what i do now, shucking and jiving for the amusement and yes, education, of these young vietnamese adults, especially when i consider the kid i used to be. i have a handful of photos from my last visit to the states that i brought back with me to vietnam, most of them photos of me as a skinny, gawky pre-pubescent girl, all knobby knees, sharp elbows, pale skin and big brown eyes.

really, i could say those painfully sharp elbows were the most expressive thing about me in those photos, because in every photo i am wearing the most absolutely vacant expression that a little girl could muster. one particularly funny one is where my brother and i are standing in front of a theme park. behind me, a giant t-rex is bursting out of the bushes, the infamous Jurassic Park jeep right underneath it's feet. While it's massive rubber head and plastic teeth loom right over my ball cap, I couldn't look more bored and resentful of the fact that this moment is being recorded for posterity.

in other pictures, my expression is slightly softer, my lips parted as if i was caught just as i was about to say something -- to ask a question maybe -- or maybe i had just finished telling a story or a joke. sadly, none of that is true; my teeth are just too big for my mouth.

i didn't learn to smile for the camera until after middle school, when i started to awkwardly come into myself. i guess this is true for all kids, but it was especially true for me, the kind of girl who lived so inwardly -- and who derived such pleasure from it.

that girl could never have predicted that i would be a cheerleader, an active member of student government in college, a performance poet (albeit not a very good one) or an english teacher at a prominent university. that girl could never fathom the kind of men i would love and who would love me, though she certainly would have been quite thrilled, closet romantic that she was.

i can say that i'm thrilled to discover that that girl is still very much alive inside of me. she's the part of me that still registers shock that anyone could desire my company. she's the part of me that writes dutifully in books, be they novels, poetry, memoirs, essays, or short stories. they are still her textbooks. she's the one who stays in on saturday nights to write in a notebook and stare at the ceiling, mulling over dreams and childish ambitions and love.

i love this part of me dearly; she may even be my favorite part. maybe this is why those who knew me back when i was that girl hold a particularly special place in my heart: my friend peter, for instance, who can recall in vivid detail some of my stranger and socially awkward exploits. maybe this is part of the definition of what "home" is...the people, the places that recall, with pleasure and without pretense, who you were when home was all you had.

Obama + Derek Lam = A Cotton Muslin Silk Screen Bag with a Purpose

"The Barack Obama campaign, which has been actively courting the fashion industry, has coordinated some 20 or so designers who are creating official merchandise for the candidate's Web site. It is the first time, as far as Seventh Avenue long-timers can recall, that a quorum of the fashion industry has organized its financial resources and creative energy around a single presidential candidate..."

[full article available here]

White America: We can't hear you, you need more people?

"In a Generation, Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority"

peep it, people.

in my place

In My Place
songs about where you from & where you at

in keeping with the home theme, this week's mux features songs about places. i quickly found out while browsing my iTunes that new york is [really] overrepresented in the song department...but for this one, each place gets just one song. well...almost...

[1] Georgia | Ray Charles
[2] Amazon | M.I.A.
[3] Chicago | Sufjan Stevens
[4] The Corner | Common feat. Kanye West & The Last Poets
[5] Amsterdam | Peter Bjorn & John
[6] Los Angeles, I'm Yours | The Decemberists
[7] LDN | Lily Allen
[8] Postcards From Italy | Beirut
[9] Brookyln | Mos Def
[10] Paris | Yael Naim
[11] America The Beautiful | Ray Charles
[12] Virginia | Clipse

building home (pt 1)

As many of you may know, i've been M.I.A. for a spell on account of going back to the U.S. for a couple weeks. I'm now back in Vietnam, where I've slipped back into the fold of work, early mornings, motorbikes, and my cozy little apartment with its cozy brown and pink bed. But I've found that, even though I'm glad to be back in the rhythm of the life I've created, I miss the life I left.

Home has occupied a good part of my waking thoughts the past three weeks. Not just in the physical sense; I've been turning over the concept of home in my head over and over again, trying to find some nuance, some definitive trait to attach to it. Having lived much of my life jumping from culture to culture, tongue to tongue, east to west, north to south, palm trees to pine trees, Roman Catholic to Agnostic to a Somewhat Baptist... home has never been a concrete, stable thing for me. And there have been plenty of times when I wish where it could something much more enduring, much more palpable and, dare I say it, inescapable.

I fantasize about taking home for granted. I sometimes envy those folks who are rooted down to a place so firmly they become part of the landscape. I long for messy, tangled, deep roots like that.

As it is, I run like water through people, places, and experiences. Of course, I'd be a fool to not recognize -- and be grateful for -- the amazing relationships, food, photos, and stories that have come as a direct result of my ability to just pick up and start over at the snap of a finger. I'm resourceful, disciplined, and fulfilled in ways I could never have imagined being as a young(er) girl. This -- this person I've become and am still becoming -- is the sort of change I've longed for for a long time.

Yet still, when thoughts wander back home, a gap forms in my head, in my mouth, and in my hands, and I can't find the words to articulate this thing I feel like I only vaguely know.

Home is something that's been molded and reformed, analyzed, broken apart and put back together again, over and over again.

Just like me, I guess.

11 things i love/hate/love about you

a [really] belated birthday present for the next big 30 year old rapper and my somewhat-best-friend,

Stone Cold Haji Paji Brown Kid "who's that guy with the hula hoop on stage?" Greyson.

***

11 Things I Love/Hate/Love About You:

1. love: you're a dirtbag (is the proper nomenclature "durrrtbag" now that you're signed??) with a heart of gold. i'm actually nothing like you, but i keep up the facade so you don't feel so lonely in your grimeyness.

2. love: you're a nerd who can't generate enough saliva when he eats, so you have to drink 5 gallons of liquids to compensate. see exhibit A:

3. love/hate: you have a conscience, you really do (i SEEN it!!). and for the most part, when you solicit me for advice, you actually already know what you SHOULD do. but morality isn't what motivates you...it's being able to have a story to tell, no matter how many gyrating hippie busses you have to escape.

4. love/hate/love: "...on my balls."
'cus as much as i tell you i'm not a 12 year old boy, i really are, and that mess is always entertaining to the likes of us.

5. HATE: "[you're] making my penis soft."
WHO SAYS SH*T LIKE THAT???! REALLY!

6. love: black and green rollerblades for christmas.

7. LOVE: that i got to witness the revelation that you had bonafide white-man blood in you. not that there's anything wrong with that America, but you shoulda seen this brown boy's soul squirming... until you realized you could get away with all sorts of racism, at which point your dirty lil soul picked itself off, brushed off its shoulders, and got its little hooves back on the ign'ant train.

8. hate: you think you're better than everyone else. including me (asshole).

9. love/hate/love: you've made out with the entire wait staff of Wilmington, NC. Three years ago.

10. love/hate: in pure ODB fashion, your many alter egos (most of which i will claim some sort of responsibility for), including but not limited to: stone cold p, the camera man, the chicken guy, lucifer, hey stoop kid (i've never heard you being called that, but i'm sure someone has), bla bla bla bla bla ...

11. love?: thundercats. HOOO!

ugh. so there really are more things i love than hate about you afterall. welp, after all we've been through, turns out you're a pretty decent best friend afterall.

for me to poop on.

the youth in asia

"Chief among the youthful indulgences ... is one that an older Chinese generation doesn't begin to grasp: the thrilling pursuit of self-discovery. It is, of course, one of the West's favorite sports, and Xiaolu Guo and Lang Lang have rightly gauged the Olympic season to be an ideal moment to showcase the struggles of Chinese neophytes in this nationally unfamiliar endeavor. The coming-of-age marathon, you could call it."

"Ready, Get Self, Go!"
Slate.com
[full article here]

merrily, merrily, merrily...

"This happens with many events and anecdotes in my life: it seems I have lived them, but when I write them down in the clear light of logic, they seem unlikely. That really doesn't disturb me, however. What does it really matter if these events happened or if I imagined them? Life is, afterall, but a dream."

Isabel Allende
"My Invented Country"

sunshine in your coffee black

i'm a huge fan of the sartorialist, and on most days, his page is one of the first i open to begin the day. so imagine my delight when i see gracing the page, none other than hip hop's premier gentleman, Andre 3000. radiant smile, radiant pants, & chucks to boot.

*swoon*

"I take my desires for reality because I believe in the reality of my desires"

anonymous graffitti
paris 1968
[via Adbusters]