when life hands you rainstorms, make shoe purchases...

i had all of these plans for the weekend... that included a solid round of LIC exploration, self portrait practice, and general artistic kickassery (or something). and then the heavens opened and dumped about forty-seven million gallons of water on the planet. i don't know if you know this about me, but when there's that much water outside, i feel absolutely no need to get out of my jams. so in my jams i stayed. i even skipped the sia show that night. martha - gasp. katie - gasp. tara - gasp. yes, i missed the sia show. i even tried to get on craigslist last minute and get rid of my tickets (wish i'd thought of that the day before....bygones), but no one emailed me back. i watched seven movies in one day instead.

so yesterday, when i woke up to a beautiful sunny sky, and semi decent temperatures... i made sure that my "day of shopping with the girls" was extra-awesome. my friend S works for the parent company that owns nine west... and they were having an employee 50% off discount weekend. ummm yes S, i WILL go shoe shopping with you this weekend. thank youuuuuuu. and in honor of all things awesome, here is what i purchased:

black sunglasses


these sunglasses in the brown/tan option... very aspen. and i feel rather badass in them, because... well obviously they're just rather badass.


these next two shoes are for work and were purchased at nine west (at half price):




and the next two are from dsw (god i love that store), and are steve madden and calvin klein respectively...
(can't find the actual picture of the shoe... but it's sort of like this in red)




and then of course i spent all night prancing about in my jams with these shoes on... cleaned out my closet, got rid of about 15 pairs of shoes that i haven't worn in a long time (aka i don't like anymore).. and made room for my new boxes.

it's important, when one is feeling not very feminine or girly, to buy an inordinate amount of new shoes. just to balance everything out.

next up: skirts.

little did he know it was one avocado...

do you ever find yourself saying things... funny things (that only your closest friends would ever get)... to complete strangers? i do that all the time. inside joke phrases that only certain people know. i'll just blurt them out, and then have to backtrack with "it's funny to some people".

one of my best friends was in town this weekend, and we had such a blast. she got in late thursday evening and after canoodling for a few brief moments, got ready and hit the town. that night we hit five bars, ended up dancing with a bunch of europeans (i ended up stealing one of their passports and have no idea how to get it back to him... poor francisco), falling in the snow three times total (i have bruises everywhere), and stumbling home at 5 in the morning.

friday, we got out of bed at 2pm and spent part of the day shopping and wandering around the city. it was torture for me, jasean was somehow feeling just fine. came back home, got ready, and went out to dinner at STK and enjoyed one of the BEST meals i've eaten in my entire life. make note... if you come to visit, this is where we will dine. i thought i'd died and gone to heaven... seriously. then we went to naima to meet up with legendary house producer Jay-J, to celebrate his birthday and hear him play some great records. i danced my tooshie off. if you need to find it, it's on the floor somewhere at naima.

saturday, we got up a little earlier and headed to the Met to get us some of that darn culture stuff. jasean and i are similar when it comes to appreciating art. we like and dislike the same things... don't linger toooo long, and really only care about the impressionists. so we saved that wing for last and spent a good thirty minutes drooling over my favie monets.

she wanted to make sure that she saw ground zero and the statue of liberty, so we hauled it downtown as the sun was going down. the lady is not that exciting from the financial district in the dark. by this time, she wasn't feeling well and i was tired, so we went back home to rest before another night out.

except, we never got out of bed. she had become puking sick and my head was hurting so badly that i could barely see. that lasted until she left the next afternoon, and now i'm sicker than i've been all year. poor things. we still had a stellar weekend and it was so great to spend quality time with her... but now i feel like death, so excuse me while i slurp down some soup.

carry on.

traffic, shopping, and comparisons...

i find it painfully amusing (read not that amusing at all, but slightly interesting in my bizarre little mind) that you can jaywalk to the high heavens in new york city, but you can't turn right on a red light. i'm sure these two are correlated, but still. i'm all for pedestrian right of way (which they don't actually have), and yet a part of me is still that seattle driver that would want you to wait for ME and my bright, shiny bumper.

i've noticed recently that i pay a large amount of attention to what other people are picking up in a store when i'm there. or, more to the point, i pay attention to what OTHER people are also picking up the same items that i am. i have a thing about shopping in large bargain stores like H&M, because i really don't want to be caught on the subway wearing the same thing as some frumpy woman with 80s bangs. is that bad?

here's my amazing seque from comparison shopping to 'comparison shopping'... i slay me really. i notice that i worry too much about what other people are creating. i tend to comparison shop my talent. not 'shop FOR talent' or put my talent up for shopping, in a highway 99 ripped stocking, i'll give you a treat for twenty dollars kind of way (holy tangent). i mean that i look at what my peers are putting out (photographically speaking) and compare my work. one really shouldn't do that when talking about art and creation... but i still tend to do it. i compare myself... like i have every day of my life in most categories. learning, sports, popularity, life success... and now photography. it's hard not to do... but i know that a good number of them are comparing themselves to me too, which is so silly.

i don't have any actual conclusions about the above... i suppose i'd rather hear YOUR interpretation about why we feel the need to compare ourselves in general. i mean... who really cares?

well... besides me of course. carry on.