secret tongues.

big news. (BIG)

2012-01-29T03:56:00.000-06:00

my sweet sweet heart of a little brother, vaughan, graduated from his air force bootcamp friday. and then guess what he did right after?
HE GOT MARRIED!
i am so happy to have josey as my new sister-in-law..or as i shall call it, my new sister.
i could not ask for a better young lady to marry my brother. they are certainly perfect for each other.
and now that it has been officially announced to the family, i can let you guys know that they are going to have a little BOY in august!

oh my, oh my.
my heart is so full and i am so proud that i can hardly talk about this without tearing up. i have really turned into pile of mush over the years, huh? pretty soon i will be just like my mamow. who, during the graduation ceremony, was bawling while a guy was just up there talking. imagine what happened when they played a song...puddles.

they had to do a quicky wedding that was literally last minute. so last minute, they didn't even know they were going to do it until 2 hours before it happened. and there was no way i could get there in time! 90 miles away in friday traffic? and i wasn't even dressed. i was completely heartbroken that i missed their god damned wedding. i feel like that is a moment in time i can never go back and change. it's something i will never get back. but i have decided that this is not about me. they needed to do it right away so josey could get on vaughan's insurance. they are going to have another ceremony with all of the family there probably around may.

i met up with them today in san antonio to hang since vaughan had an off-base pass for the day. we hung around the riverwalk for most of the day. my brother ian and his girlfriend emily drove down from dallas and we all had a lovely day. (<---can someone please tell me how to properly use commas in the above sentence. i should know this but it seemed like too many so i took them all out BECAUSE I CAN)

prepare for a million pictures..

(i think this is my favorite picture)

my brothers are SO CUTE!

(vaughan with josey's nephew raley)

really happy, you guys. i love nephews and i love my family. i'm so happy my family is growing and getting even more awesome.
cannot contain myself right now.

xo

making things...

2012-01-26T20:18:00.001-06:00

today i made a homemade little twig and twine oil diffuser.
it turned out pretty darn cute, in my opinion.
you can read about it and see more pictures over on the sugartowne blog.

Bon Jovier

2012-01-23T13:14:00.000-06:00

this made me laugh

wishes..

2012-01-23T03:50:00.000-06:00

welp, taxes are filed and because my life is so simple (read: poor with no money to invest and no school/kids/crap) it took me about 15 minutes with the free turbo tax thingy. i am not getting back as much as last year but it should help me catch up on some bills. i think another thing that might help me catch up on bills is if i won the lottery. i've been playing and playing and NOTHING. it's so goddamn frustrating. for the past few months, i've been off on thurs-saturday. so three days off and a boring life means i watch too much tv. is it weird that i like to have the tv on mute almost all of the time when i am home? i will be on the computer with headphones on and the tv on mute. maybe i am just way too american and wasteful. anyway, this show came on about lottery winners and how their lives changed etc. and one lady said she told her boss the day before that she might not be in the next day because she was going to win the lottery and she actually did. so the next day she called and told him she was not coming in and he thought she was kidding but she was like "NO I'M NOT LYING!!!!, I'M RICH BITCH!!!" (something like that) so now when i play, instead of thinking i will jinx myself by telling people i will win, i just tell everyone. "hey, homeless man, sorry about your rough life, but i'm fixin to be RICH!!" just everyone. so just to let you all know, i am going to win the lottery this week.

but for real, one day we will all be rich enough to buy all the things in our amazon.com carts.

but back to my boring life. i'm sure i have spoken about it before but i have major major anxiety and it flares up from time to time but i think i have been dealing with this batch for almost a year now. it's totally awful and crippling and life ruining. it mostly happens in the car or when i feel totally trapped somewhere with no escape (like the bank line, or the grocery store line, or when someone is talking to me and i reeeeaaallly don't want to talk to them, or when i can't get off the phone with someone, or when everyone is counting on me to do something or be somewhere and they are all waiting for ME..but mostly in the car). i have no idea why and i hate it. my heart beats fast and my stomach drops and it feels like everything is closing in on me. it doesn't matter if i'm out on an open road, it still happens. but it is the absolute worst when there is any kind of traffic. i feel trapped and there is literally not a single thing i can do. if you take the anxiety out of the equation, i have no issue with driving. when i was younger and i was having a bad day, i would hop in the car and just drive around with the windows down and the radio up. i would drive for hours sometimes. i would drive out to the lake and sit by the water. driving just made me feel better. and i'm certainly not scared of driving, i'm not scared of crashing or other people. in fact, i'm a fairly aggressive driver; i speed a little bit and i yell at people out of the window when they are being ridiculous. so why the panic in the car? i don't know. but it is so built up at this point that i would have a panic attack almost every day on the way to work and the way home. i live 15 miles from my work, which is quite the difference from the old location which was 1.5 miles away. it takes me about 25 minutes with traffic lights to get there and about the same to get back. so now when i am about to go to work or about to leave i am waiting for it to happen. i know i am making it happen. i know all of that. but i still cant make it stop. i've gotten on medication before and i HATE the way it makes me feel. it's not an all-the-time problem but there is not medicine i can take every time i get in the car that will wear off a half-hour later. it just doesn't exist.

i have really been thinking a lot lately about how much this problem has changed me this year. i see my friends much less and i have to make excuses to take my own car. because the only thing worse than driving right now is driving with someone else in the car or GOD FORBID, someone else driving me. from what i have read about this, that stems from the fear of having a complete panic attack in front of someone else and having them think you are crazy. which i get. but also if someone else is driving me, i have zero control of where the car is going and what the car is doing. no way can that happen. i was thinking a couple weeks ago that if this keeps up, i will end up missing out on tons of stuff in my life because of it. i could never imagine having a kid and needing to rush them to the hospital for something and not being able to drive. or getting married? how could i ever live through the ceremony? or what if i went on a honeymoon? how would i fly? yes, these are the things i think about when i am falling asleep.

so i've been digging around on the internet looking for vitamins that might help and apparently vitamin B is a good one for anxiety. i went out and bought a ton of B vitamins; b complex and some others i thought i needed more of. i read on several websites (i am too lazy to find and link them right now) that your body does not store vitamin B and you only get it from food you eat each day. also, alcohol and nicotine deplete what you've got, so...i'm fucked with that. but i've been taking it for about a week and a half now and i swear to god- i literally do not care if it is giving me some kind of placebo effect, i do not care at all. but i feel like my entire mood is different. i feel like i have tons of energy and a different mind almost. in a week and a half, i feel so totally different, it's so bizarre. does anyone know if this is possible? actually, please don't tell me if it's not. i need this. i was driving home from work tonight and i just took a deep breath, let out a sigh i have been waiting to sigh for a year and i just smiled and i felt happy. because i was not flipping out and i was even letting my mind wander to OTHER things besides panicking. it felt so...normal. and that is something i have not felt for a long time. i am not ruling out never having a panic attack again, and i am not saying i am cured. but i have had a week and a half of peace. and that is the best present i could have ever gotten, even more than winning the lottery. i would choose to never have a panic attack again over winning the lottery. even though i would have to really think about that for a while.
thank you vitamin B. thank you so fucking much.
i haven't told anyone about how much better i feel because i didn't want to jinx it. i am probably too superstitious, but oh well. i hope it keeps working. i would be really grateful if it did.

xo

p.s. justin vernon (bon iver) retweeted my finger emoji tweet today. i love that pretty much every encounter i have with him on twitter is ridiculous.

psst..

2012-01-22T13:53:00.003-06:00

i've been, and will be, posting WAY more over here (sugartowne.blogspot.com). I've decided to consolidate my internet usage in a way. between this blog, pinterest, tumblr, facebook, etsy and my ridiculous-sized google reader (and countless other things i read and update) i felt i could make better use of my time by posting the lovely things all in one spot. sugartowne will be full of stuff i make myself, but mostly it will be a collection of awesome diy projects, flickr finds, art, design, decor, recipes i make myself and recipes i find.
i spend a great deal of time as it is browsing on the internet so why not put it all together.
so if any of that interests you, check it out. and if you hate it, let me know too.

p.s. i am making every effort to use proper capitalization on sugartowne. so you might want to check it out just to see that, something you thought would never happen.

p.p.ss..p..s i will continue to update this blog with more personal-type posts so it's not dead or dying or going away.

xo

this is not a nail polish blog: water-marbling edition..

2012-01-17T03:36:00.000-06:00

well guys, i have officially taken my nail polish crush to a new level. i learned about this technique called water marbling from pinterest and i have to say, when i saw how this is done my eyes widened and my jaw literally dropped. how did i not know about this? does everyone already know about this? AM I THE LAST TO KNOW?

*please ignore that spot that i didn't clean up yet near my thumb cuticle. it's really bothering me that i took a picture before i cleaned that up and i probably wont be able to sleep tonight because it's in the picture.

i was going to take pictures of the step by step method but i needed two hands for that and i was nervous i was going to get nail polish on my camera or drop it in the water so i only have pictures of the first and last steps.

everything you need:
a cup you don't care about- filled with room temperature, filtered (or not) water, colorful (or not) nail polish, scotch tape, a stick (i used the opposite end of a paint brush or you can use a q-tip..anything you don't mind getting covered in nail polish), nail polish remover for clean-up and touch-up.

it's really best to just watch a you-tube tutorial but i will write down the steps anyway..

step one: use the scotch tape to tape around your fingernail so the nail polish doesn't get on your skin. get it as close to your cuticle and the sides of your fingers because the better job you do of taping, the less clean-up you will have to do.

step two: while holding the nail polish brush very close to the water, drip one drop of your first color into the water (if you drop from too hight up it will fall into the water and not spread across the top like you want it to). continue dropping one drop of each color into the center of the last drop. it should spread out and create a "bullseye" shape. put as little or as many colors as you want.

step three: when you are happy with the colors dropped into the water, hover your nail over the water where you want the design to transfer onto your nail and push it down and hold it submerged in the water. with your other hand use the stick to "grab" the excess polish out of the water. it sticks to the stick and pulls out quite easily. the reason you do this is so when you pull your nail out of the water, you don't get any of the excess polish on your new design because it will mess it up and you will be pissed. PISSED.

step four: pull your finger out of the water and carefully take the tape off from around your finger. wait for the polish to dry and paint a top coat/no chip coat.

step five: use a q-tip dipped in water to clean up and messes around your cuticles or the sides of your fingers. but, like i said, if you do a good job taping, there should be no mess really.

the end.
i had to endure a bit of trial and error with this method but after a few tries, i think i am practically a pro. there are an infinite amount of designs you can do with this method by dragging the stick (or a thin needle) through the bullseye which is evident by the number of videos about them on youtube.
here are a couple that might help you..

to me, all that craze swirling is tacky, and to be really honest, what i have on my nails right now it bordering on tacky too. but i am going to ignore all of that and rock the shit out of these nails because i think doing your nails in water is genius and amazing and i cannot believe that it comes out so cool!
if you decide to do your nails too, send me a link to a picture of them in the comments! i want to see what you come up with!
xo
em

UPDATE: apparently if you use vaseline around your fingers it is easier than tape. haven't tried it though.

moonrise kingdom

2012-01-15T01:33:00.001-06:00

the new wes anderson movie, moonrise kingdom, is supposed to be out on may 25th.
i can't get enough of these films. it's like one after another is exactly the same and i am 100% ok with that.

xo

a lovely friday (the 13th)...

2012-01-13T17:36:00.000-06:00

this morning i had the pleasure of hanging out with a lovely little lady named panda. my sister saved her from certain death, running across lamar blvd. near 12th street. she dropped her off with me because she had to go back to work and we posted a craigslist ad since she didn't have tags. i was trying not to get too attached since i knew her owner would probably call (which he did). but even though i tried not to crush too hard, and even though i was only with her for a few hours, it was so hard to let her go when he called. i probably would have kept her. actually, i would have for sure.

the pictures don't really show how big she was. i was guessing at least 80 pounds. and she would give you a big lick on the face if you asked for a kiss. ugh! so cute!

i've been slowly dipping my toes in the pond looking for a new dog. i have been to austin pets alive and austin animal shelter once each and i've browsed a bit on craigslist. through facebook i found this little 9week old girl, through a friend of a friend. i was scheduled to meet her last week.

she is SO cute! but before meeting her and after thinking it over for a night, i decided against even meeting her. i cannot handle a puppy that small right now. it's just too much work and i need to maybe have some doors in my house before i take on such a task. and lets face it, i have far too many vulnerable shoes to have a puppy. plus the lady said the vet told her that she might have some chow in her. and i have some bad memories of a chow from when i was younger. my neighbor had the meanest one i've ever seen. of course it was always tied up in the yard so that's probably why. but i know the right dog will come along. ideally i would like a male dog around 1 1/2-2 years old. old enough to be out of the puppy stage but young enough that we can spend many years together before i ever have to go through the horror of last summer. my heart just cannot take it. but there is a huge void in my life right now. and if for no other reason, it would be nice to have a little guard dog watching out for me. for now, i am just keeping my eyes open.

my sister made me these adorable sugar scrubs for christmas and last week i finally remembered to put them in my shower. and now... i am obsessed. i love the way they smell and i love the way my skin feels after i use them and i love the oils in them that leave my skin feeling and looking moisturized. perfect for your dry and thirsty winter skin. i have a feeling i am going to need a larger supply. we have been talking about making some more of these and maybe selling them. we will see how that pans out but for now i am going to start testing out new kinds to see what i like best.

sarah's recipe:

1 cup of white sugar
2 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar
1/2 cup of mixed oils-
(sweet almond oil, avocado oil, sesame oil)
a couple splashes of organic vanilla.

of course you can basically sub any of this stuff out with other oils or scents. but keep it natural and, if possible, keep it organic.

xo

the increasingly poor decisions of emily...

2012-01-12T06:58:00.005-06:00

i havent been blogging much lately, and i don't really have a good reason. i just don't feel like i have any funny stories to tell. or any news that isnt awful or sad. sometimes i feel like i only ever write sad shit on here. maybe it's easier to pour your heart out to strangers when something bad happens as opposed to when i eat a donut. but speaking of sad. this is what i have been dealing with since new years:

http://www.myfoxaustin.com//dpp/video/Victim-Says-Flasher%2C-Serial-Attacker-Is-Same-Man20120105-ktbcw#axzz1jFNZLKHW

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/austin/police-talk-to-neighbors-about-murder

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2012-01-13/excited-about-life/

i didn't know esme personally, but several of my friends were very close to her and it seems that almost all of austin knew her well. her story literally hits home for me because, well, it happened very near my neighborhood. and since it was such a random act, it makes you feel like it could happen to you, or it could happen to anyone-at any time. this whole thing was making it hard for me to sleep so i had to go out and buy some pepper spray. i keep it on me at all times and it has been making me feel somewhat better. i basically do nothing but read about this on the internet and think about it, i even attended a neighborhood meeting with the austin police department in an attempt to gain some peace (to no avail). but that's all i am going to say about this for now. because it really makes my anxiety shoot through the roof.

so, to change the subject...

i've been listening to a lot of the war on drugs lately. and maybe, just maybe, you guys might like it.
to me, it's a mix of kurt vile and bruce springsteen with a dash of bob dylan in some songs.

i've also been making my way through season one of the increasingly poor decisions of todd margaret.

the cat-bit reminds me of what i leave for my cat when i am gone 2-3 days.
i looove david cross and the cast brings back some fond arrested development memories too.
(speaking of, and as you probably know, the arrested development movie is supposed to come out this year..oh my)
(and to continue talking in parenthesis, there is going to be a party down movie too!)
the whole todd margaret first season is on netflix instant too. yay! now go ruin your weekend by watching them all and getting couch cramps from not moving. the new season starts on friday so you have exactly one day to watch all of these actually.

and if you havent seen party down either, the first two (and only) seasons are also on netflix instant. your weekend is screwed now..
sorry!
or... you're welcome!

i don't really feel like digging up pictures of the colors of my walls in my little garage apartment, but believe me when i tell you they are bright and bold. my bedroom is grass green, the kitchen/big room thingy is mustard yellow, the living room is eggplant and the bathroom is orange. you are probably thinking "WTF?" but the whole house used to be bright blue, red, canary yellow and orange. so it is somewhat of an improvement. but i am sick to death of all these colors. i've been doing an excellent job of de-cluttering and it really helps with keeping my house clean. but yet i yearn for a simple home. that sounds like a white-whine. "oh i have too much stuff...UGGH." but you know what i mean. i will never be a girl with only two pairs of shoes but maybe i can start with some nice white walls. i will try to get some pics up of my place and maybe you guys can help me figure out where to start. more on that later.

and...uh. um.
see, i cannot remember all the things i know i wanted to write.
i think i have less to blog about because i already blab on about shit on twitter too much. so i feel like most of my stories have already been told. but i promise you (with every intention of following though on said promise) that i will do my very best to update this blog more. i know you all are just sitting around waiting for me to post something. (yeah..right)

that's all for now.
hug your friends. hug your family.
xo
em

also...

2012-01-05T05:29:00.001-06:00

happy new year!

don't forget to tell people that are important to you that you love them. hug them tight and don't take anything for granted. this is our year. we aren't going to let anyone hold us back from getting to where we are headed. let's roll, you guys.

xo

a lot of rambling about paper...

2012-01-05T05:25:00.000-06:00

over the past few years i have become increasingly passionate about cooking.
it's fun for me and i think i am fairly decent at it. i have a huge folder on my computer toolbar packed full with bookmarks of recipes to try (or that i have tried). i love wasting an afternoon on gojee.com coming up with new and interesting things to try. i even have an adorable little 4x6 wooden recipe box that i have been trying to build up for a while now. i reserve the recipe box for two things: recipes i have tried and perfected, and recipes that have been passed on to me from my family. one year my sister and i passed around blank recipe cards to my aunts and had them fill out their favorite recipes for us to keep; something i need to be more diligent about because it was awesome!

i have one slight problem, the recipe cards i have are so ugly. ok, i have two slight problems, actually, let's face it...i have a slew of them. the cards are ugly. if i make the slightest mistake in my handwriting or wording of an ingredient, the card goes straight in the trash. someone dared to use a purple pen? oh help me... now they don't match. you see, i am a bit OCD. these things prevent me from sleeping properly at night. i like things to be simple, well-designed and functional. at least that's how i want my recipe box.

if you're still with me i will quickly get to the point...

i was scouring etsy for some new, simple, pretty, nicely-designed recipe cards and i was really bummed out at the selection. i couldn't believe people charge upwards of $12 for 10 blank recipe cards. TEN? i need at least three to get one perfect. then you add shipping and the paper is costing more than the recipe would cost to make. but some were cute. like these. or these. (look how fucking stupid these are) and i am not sure if you guys are aware but people charge for a PDF so you can PRINT YOUR OWN. you have got to be kidding me. if you have a printer and thick card-stock (or whatever you would use), then make your own! don't buy a PDF, you idiot! (i am very animated when i talk and i use my hands so this entire paragraph might be better read if you picture some wildly flailing arms and over-exaggerated facial expressions)

it goes without saying that etsy was ruled out. i checked target and scrolled for at least a half hour on pinterest with no luck. (side-note: please do not pin things straight from google image search. holy shit, at least put the website from where you found it or WHAT IS THE POINT) so last night while i was drifting off to sleep the thought crossed my mind to just make my own. i had the exact perfect recipe cards all figured out in my head. i even sat up and set an alarm on my phone to remind myself to buy 4x6 unruled index cards in the morning. is it weird that i drift off to sleep while thinking about recipe cards? no? ok good.

so...these are what i made today:

i'm pretty much in love with them. and i successfully transferred all of my old (ugly) cards onto these. i have enough to last me a pretty long time. i think i am going to make some more to pass around to my sister and mom and whoever else wants them. if i get crazy enough, maybe i will do one of those give-aways like all the other fancy bloggers do!
all of the images are from google image search. so, obviously i cannot sell them. they will just have to be for personal use. wait..can you do a give-away with something that has a stolen image on it? it wouldn't be for profit, so who knows?
if not i will wait until i make my own designs. or i will forget and never think of it again..

this whole thing cost me $5.49 total, which was solely for the index cards. (side note: not sure why staples needs to sell index cards in only 500-count packs. jesus. i will have these forever) i am thinking of making my own little designs and blowing the lid of the etsy market. maybe even sell twenty cards for $12. the other sellers will quickly be put out of business with my bargain-basement pricing.

anyway, this might be the longest post in history about recipe cards and i'm going to go to bed.
goodnight and sweet dreaming.

xo

making clouds...

2011-12-07T19:17:00.001-06:00

i got back in from corpus christi this afternoon. i would have stayed longer but it is SO COLD in texas right now. i looked yesterday and it was about 15 degrees warmer in new york. that's some bullshit.
the beach house/condo i stayed in had NO heat. not even a little bit. cold air was blowing out of the vents. i guess no one ever stays there in the winter. and even if they did, it's not normally 35 degrees in the winter in texas. i had to sleep with a hoodie on, with the hood on my head. the thermostat read 56 degrees inside when i woke up this morning. so i just packed up all my shit and left. it was too cold to really go to the beach so i only stopped by one time for a few minutes. the beach house was located in the canals just off the beach. it was about a 1/2 mile to get to the ocean. the house was really nice though. i am still very thankful i was able to stay there, even if i almost had to make a bonfire in the shower.

my view from the upstairs balcony. it's like streets made of water.

(more dead animals..sorry)

this sad little sea turtle almost got stepped on by me. i was standing on the beach and i started to walk and looked down and it was just lying there.
i had noticed a sign on the beach entrance that said to call 1-800-turtles if any sea turtles were spotted. i was thinking that was a great phone number, but i was unsure if they meant to call about dead ones. after i left i felt badly for not calling. especially since this turtle might have been tagged and could have possibly provided helpful info to someone. oopsies.

oddly specific sign for this "bump". i feel like i run over bumps like this all of the time with no warning. seemed very considerate.

i want this house. (this is not the house i stayed in). i love the pink. everything except the rock yard. fuck a rock yard.

beach birds.

the funeral was tuesday. and monday night i met up with adam and noah at a bar called "the texan" we got there at around 7:00pm and left at almost 2:00am. the jameson was $3.00 so we were pretty done-for. it was hard to be around them at times. they would go from joking and laughing to serious and sad with only moments separating the two. noah had his pad and pen at the table and was finishing up writing the eulogy for his sister. it was good to be with them again; all of us together. it felt like old times, but with slightly more grown-up versions of ourselves. it was raw at times. especially when i was driving them back to the house they were staying at. they were discussing where their nephews would live. i was staring out the window while we sat at a light in the middle of the night, and they were trying to figure out the fate of those two boys futures. it was surreal.

the funeral was the next day at 7:00pm. i waited to drive into cinton (the small town where she was killed and where the funeral was) until around 5:00pm. i wanted to give them plenty of time with their families. i wanted to make sure i stayed in the background for everything. i just wanted to be supportive. when i arrived, i met their parents. their mother took me into the chapel and introduced me to the entire room one by one. she even walked me up to the casket and introduced me to their sister, amy. i was so unbelievably uncomfortable. but i figured if she could hold it together, so would i. amy's youngest son, jacob, is six years old. during the two hours i was there before the service, he had to be carried outside at least five times. he would go from playing and laughing to screaming and crying "mommy" from down the hall. i'm not sure if it's cruel or helpful the way our minds work. you can seem normal for a minute because your mind lets everything slip away for a minute and then it all rushes back and you have to deal with it again and again...and again. hearing him call for her was haunting and it sent a chill through my body. everyone looked on with their hands over their mouths. he had to be taken out during the service as well. i think that was probably for the best. i don't know what was going on in his little mind. maybe he knew his whole life would never be the same. maybe he just wanted his mommy back. either way..

during the service a lady went up and did a rosary. i didn't even know what that was until i tapped noah's girlfriends shoulder during the second round of "hail-mary's", and asked her what was going on. they just kept saying the same thing over and over. she told me it was a rosary and noah had told her about it once. i had to google and see how many "mysteries" there were going to be, because it was making me very uncomfortable. it was very repetitive and kind of scary to me. it seemed very methodical and somewhat creepy. the large chapel room was spilling over with people and it seemed like every single person knew exactly what to do and say. it felt like a dream.

when it was over i slipped outside. adam jumped in a car with his roommates to head back home and noah was hanging around talking to his family. i feel so terrible for both of those guys and everyone in their family and amy's friends, all of them. i cannot imagine what they are feeling right now. i do know what it feels like to experience and great loss and nothing can really be done or said. it just takes time. but even time can be cruel and unforgiving. i have found that losing someone is something that changes you. things just never go back to the way they were before. if you think otherwise, you are wrong. nothing will stay the same. you are forever changed.

a city made of stars: the oils refineries in corpus. i think everyone used to think these are how clouds were made.

these birds passed over me near san antonio. i stopped the car. there were so many and there were so many small 'v' formations that it was really stunning. sometimes you have to just stop the car to watch something like this. because it's the little beautiful things that make everything worth it to me.

xo

someone you'd admire..

2011-12-05T02:40:00.001-06:00

i can listen to this song forever, still.

xo

not a great start...

2011-12-05T02:12:00.001-06:00

two of my oldest friends, adam and noah, whom i have known for almost 10 years got some bad news on friday. their sister (adam's twin), amy, was killed on friday morning. she was 32 years old. the circumstances are pretty awful seeing as she was actually murdered.

you can read about it here but basically, she was shot in the head and put into the trunk of her own car. the police found her shortly after and she was still alive, but died on the way to the hospital. friday morning there was a stand-off between the police and her boyfriend (the father of one of her two children). they apprehended him and he was cooperating, but maintaining his innocence. apparently they found a lot of stuff in his apartment, where the actual shooting happened, that throws a wrench in his story. he is currently being held without bail and being charged with murder.

FUCK THIS SHIT FOREVER.

i have no idea what to say to either of these guys. just no idea. where do i start? i feel like such a jerk on the phone with them because i just keep saying "i am so sorry". there really isn't anything else to say. it's just absolutely horrific.

i've known adam since i moved back from florida when i was 21. i had transferred to a chilis in north austin and we became fast friends. he had a huge afro for such a skinny white boy and his sense of humor was not lost on me. i remember staying up to all hours of the morning drinking beer and playing skip-bo, just the two of us. him with his 18pack and me with my 12pack. gosh, we sure could drink a lot in our early 20's. his brother noah lived down in mcallen texas and would come visit often. when noah was in town we would all camp out and sleep in adam's living room. when we woke up, before we had our first pee, we were cracking open beers and starting all over again. as the years went on, noah moved to austin and adam moved back to mcallen. so i ended up hanging out with noah all the time. i hired him at my work just to see him more. those boys are the kind of friends i will never lose touch with. and no matter how many times they fuck up or do dumb shit, we will always be friends. i feel so fucking awful that this has happened to them and their family. it seems so unfair.

i am heading down to corpus in the early afternoon tomorrow. i am not sure what i am going to do or say to them but the only reason i am driving down there is to hug them both SO HARD. the funeral is tuesday evening so i am going to stick around for that. luckily my week of vacation at work starts now so i have plenty of time to just do whatever.

a friend of mine has a beach house down in corpus that their family shares. luckily i snagged the keys and i have a free place to stay for a couple days. so even though i am starting my vacation with a funeral, at least i will have a nice beach house all to myself to make up for it.

joe, adam and me at a bowling alley in 2003
(please excuse my pink sunglasses and wretched orange hair)

noah and i at the sonic youth concert last year.

see you guys soon.

xo

where are you?

2011-12-01T05:16:00.001-06:00

i sure am stupid when it comes to men.
i never seem to meet anyone even remotely close to what i see for myself.
and maybe that is my fault. i am so BEYOND picky.
but in my mind, what i want is soooo simple.
just really simple:

i want someone who can make me laugh hard.
i want someone who doesn't complain all of the time.
and if you are going to complain, at least make a joke of it.
someone who is happy with themselves before they meet me.
someone who works hard.
someone who has a light in their eyes.
someone who isn't just going through the motions.
likes to cook and just hang out. or go dancing and drink beers.
someone who gets along with my friends.
maybe someone who actually cares about what it is that i want. and asks me.
someone who can hold their own in a conversation.
someone who doesn't have shit-tons of baggage or things they want to cry about.
someone who doesn't get angry or like to pick fights.
no dramatic idiots.
or liars. definitely no liars. not even about little things.
preferably tall and a bit on the rugged side.
someone who doesn't walk on their tippy-toes.
someone who doesn't talk about their ex-girlfriends and/or ex-wives all the live-long day.
someone who doesn't disappear without a word.
someone who can grow a beard and chop wood like a real man (or at least fix the TV or something)
someone who dresses fairly nice but doesn't put gel or some crap in their hair.
a man who doesn't want me to be his mother.
someone who will pay for the first date and maybe even the second. i've got the next two.
someone who can kiss me like they mean it.
someone who isn't sick all of the time.
or moody.
or mean.
someone who knows at least a little about what is going on in the world.
someone who is not religious, or worse...a republican. *gasp*
someone who would make a good dad one day.
someone who likes dogs and would never ever think of giving their dog away because they moved into a new apartment that doesn't allow them.
someone who wears nice shoes and doesn't dress like an idiot.
(preferably wears some nice plaids and some good denim)
i mean, i don't want some kind of metro-sexual asswipe but how hard is it to dress somewhat stylishly?
someone who has a big heart but not a giant pussy.
someone that has all these things and is still willing to put up with someone like me.

does this exist?
if you have ever heard of anyone like this please let me know and i will not give up hope.
but i don't want to keep holding out for this person if they are not real; if it will never be close.
i just hate the idea of settling.
that seems so sad and i feel like i know a lot of people who did just that.
and when i am hanging out with someone and i have to start crossing things off this list one-by-one, i start to wonder if i am just being too hard on people or if i should just move on and wait for this mysterious person i have in my head that i am waiting for.
so i end up hanging around because there is really nothing better going on. but i can't fully be present with that person because i know it's not right.
i just know.
but i am 31 and i have never really felt like i have met this person. well, one time i thought i came pretty close. but i ended up being really wrong about that in the end.

i am moving to the fucking mountains to meet a real man. is that where they are hiding?

so...if you know anyone like this, please send them my way.
otherwise i am just going to give up and move to lubbock with amy and sit on the porch and drink wine and listen to records for the rest of our lives.

xo

still don't know what love means..

2011-12-01T05:10:00.001-06:00

it doesn't mean a thing to me..

2011-11-28T23:27:00.001-06:00

i walked into the battle blind
it happens almost all the time
the yard is kinda overgrown
and all those happy times are gone.

but it doesn't mean a thing to me.

saturday/off..

2011-11-26T21:41:00.001-06:00

thanksgiving at mimi's.
football/way too much food/games that involve shouting words or phrases/business as usual.

xo

giving thanks...

2011-11-26T01:02:00.001-06:00

i hope you all had a nice thanksgiving.
i hope you ate too much and no one got punched in the face by your aunt rita.
as for me, i don't really do anything with my family on thanksgiving day. that's what friday and saturday are for. so i was left to hang out at my friend stephen's house for an orphan thanksgiving feast.
and...
THE LONGHORNS WON!!

i don't think in all of my life i have ever had such an amazing thanksgiving meal. i guess it's always been business as usual; stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, etc. but stephen's girlfriend, danielle went way over the top.. i mean, they didn't even have canned green beans. crazy!
they had baked brie wrapped in filo dough with a pumpkin chutney, pumpkin-chipotle soup topped with roasted pumpkin seeds and feta, pumpkin infused vodka, swiss chard from their garden with butternut squash slivers, baby portabella mushroom gravy (which i helped make! well, i washed the mushrooms.) among other awesome things.
someone stole a pie off the table. it was there, then it was gone. we still have not figured out if it was the couple who left earlier or a person off the street who broke in and stole the pie. WHERE IS THE PIE?
all of my best guys were there and eric was even in town from new york.
late into the night we started a bonfire in the backyard and i think i went got around 3:30am.

anthony.

(the now missing pie)

marcel cut all of his hair off!

anthony and his to-go plate and eric playing the "tiny untuned guitar"

i took down two bottles of red wine and a healthy amount of jameson on the rocks after the wine was gone. so needless to say i was not feeling very well today. when i got home i smelled so awful (or good) of smoke and bonfire-ness. i was also drunk and according to twitter i went up to the front house and threw everything i was wearing into the washing machine and ran through the backyard to my house in just my bra and unders. glad it was late and hopefully no one saw that.

so today i headed out to smithville to visit with my grandparents at their ranch.

i have not driven out through bastrop since the crazy wildfires. the damage is still very visible and very breathtaking.

i bet your grandparents don't have a full size dancehall room in their house, do they?

we went to dinner at a little place in winchester. they had huge steaks and (luckily) an awesome salad bar. i was so hungover and i am still not really speaking to my father so at times, it was hard to get through. i wish i had not gone so overboard last night so i could have been a little more present. (although i can't say that i regret last night)

vaughan and his girlfriend, josey.
my little brother, vaughan, is shipping out to BOOTCAMP for the air-force on monday. i cannot believe it. i started to cry when i said goodbye to him. he is feeling very nervous about it. he doesn't really know what to expect. none of us really do. i can't believe that this is really happening. he has the best heart of anyone i know. and i am not just saying that because he is my brother. he has been that way since he was a little curly headed boy in his stinky cowboy boots. i sure am proud of him. i hope he is happy and i hope it all works out how he wants. and most of all, i hope he will be safe. i get to see him in eight weeks at his bootcamp graduation. can't wait.

more pictures from around the ranch today:

(the old house that sits uninhabited on their land) it has an eerie feel to it that i find beautiful. i guess that's why i always take pictures of it.

i found this bottle of some type of hair preparation product.

my mamow joan. DOING WORK.

the wind was wild and crazy today. i was sitting out in a pasture while everyone else went to feed the cows so i attempted to capture what was happening to my hair.

and here are a few more from my camera in menard the other weekend (as promised)

that is the end of the dead animal posts. i promise.

xo

up in the air...

2011-11-24T02:37:00.001-06:00

things people have said to me this week:
"my belly button is a direct portal to my butthole."
"stay away from that young boy. he's horny."
(voicemail) katie singing the ghostbuster song.
"i can drink ten-times more than this and still drive."

things i learned this week:
-pizza is a vegetable.

things i saw this week:
-the movie melancholia. (very good. can't stop thinking about it.)
-a grown woman try to start a fight with a waitress in the middle of my dinner shift.
-a commercial for a diet dr. pepper that is only for men.

pandora stations i added this week:
-en vogue
-the judds

things i invented this week:
nachos made with cheese-its instead of tortilla chips. (no field testing done on this yet-will get back to you)

dreams i had this week:
-i was on a cruise ship with my friend marc and his bandmates. we were smoking pot out of one of those oscar meyer wiener whistles.
-a grizzly bear with it's face painted like a juggalo was trying to kill me in my old highschool. i had to make bombs and hide bombs in orange nike shoe boxes.

the crush...

2011-11-17T19:51:00.001-06:00

i am borderline obsessed with this website i came across today.
the photographer is charles bergquist and his work is breathtaking.

it's like this person has seen into the depths of my mind and created everything they knew i would find lovely. it's so perfect to me. everything i wish i was but will never be.

really, truly, perfect.

deer head horns...

2011-11-14T13:03:00.001-06:00

so we went back out to menard, texas this weekend and, as always, it was fun and quiet and awesome.
my brother's girlfriend's parents were out of town so we didn't have to camp (thank god) and i never knew a twin bed could be so comfortable.
here is a load of pics, once again.

we had the record player spinning just about the whole time. lots of emmy lou harris and bruce springstein. you know...all the records that your parents have too.

their cat, brutus. he has some kinda virus from a plant out there that makes his skin itch and he pulls chunks of his own hair out and sits around pretty miserable all of the time. what is supposed to be his meow, just sounds like a low growl. it's kinda sad, actually. but he just chills.

ed says his feet are not photogenic. he says they look much better in person.

found items: tiny turtle shell, turkey feather and an antler (which i actually just found on their porch) i also kept calling the antler a "deer head horn". that's ok because ian has called a cupcake a "chocolate cake muffin" and a vest a "chest-jacket" so i think i am ok.

i took the golf-cart out to explore the area for a while on saturday and i could NOT believe how many dead animals i saw. it was pretty alarming. this tiny set of vertebrae i actually took him with me. it's about the size of a quarter. i am not sure why i was so fascinated with all the death and bones, but i have never seen anything like that before. i am an 8+ year vegetarian so i probably should have been more freaked out. sadly, most of them probably were hit by cars. apparently the drought brings the animals closer to the road for the grass out there. i wish they would just stay back in the fields. when i was driving in, it was at night and i had to go really slow. i probably saw 80 deer in the three-hour drive. i didn't hit any, but i was yelling at them out the window to "get out of the road!!" they didn't listen.
turn away now if you don't want to see dead animals...

dead javelina.

a dead beaver.
i didn't realize how HUGE these animals were. the internet says they are 100 pounds. i thought they were small like a cat or something. this thing had maggots all inside. (i have better pictures i will upload later from my real camera...because i know you are dying to see them). the rest of the animals were done decomposing but this one smelled awful. you could smell that giant beaver from 30 feet away. (pun intended)

this armadillo was unlike the 14 others i saw because it had a sort-of cow-print to it. the rest were brown. i tried to find something on the internet about it's unique coloring but i couldn't find anything. has anyone ever heard of one being these colors?
and no, it was not because it was dead. because the rest, which were more and less-dead were brown-ish.

i found three of these next to the javelina. i was thinking they were vultures or buzzards because they had a sort of chicken skin on them. the paddle on the end of their arms must be for their wings.

ian and the sunset.

i went in the paddle boat to watch the sunset. pretty peaceful out there.

the deer would come right up to the porch at night. i was sitting there in the dark waiting for some to come up and i didn't hear one sneak up. i don't think he heard me either because all of the sudden, he did. and he made this terrible noise and jerked and ran off. it scared the SHIT out of me because he was about 7 feet away from me. ed and i laughed pretty hard for a while after that.

ian and emily.

i headed back down i-10 to go to wurstfest in new braunfels. the speed limit is 80 on i-10. that is awesome because everyone goes 90. fantastic.

wurstfest is a big german sausage festival in new braunfels, texas. i have a big german family so we have gone there every year since i can remember. they have rides and tons of food. i can't really eat a lot of it since most of it has meat in it. but i did have some fried "bloomin' onion" and a soft pretzel and that was enough to make me feel sick.

if you've never done the chicken dance in a big circle with your whole family, you are missing out.
the old men in the band all have their lederhosen on. actually, a good amount of people just walking around the festival are decked out in their german outfits.

my aunt kerry and my mom (debbie). sassy ladies.

i took a picture similar to this last year with my real camera.

so that's it. i will maybe post some more pictures when i get home from work off of my real camera. i was so tired from this weekend that i slept almost 12 hours last night. wtf?
anyway, i hope all of you are doing well.

and p.s. i really wish i wouldn't rely on my cameraphone so much. but it is just SO much easier because i always have it. i will try harder to keep my actual camera around.

xo

pinterest...

2011-11-11T00:58:00.001-06:00

annnddd...if you have a pinterest account, you can follow me here (and i can follow you if you promise not to pin crafts that involve jelly bean candle holders or popsicle stick bird houses)

if you need an invite to pinterest just leave your email in the comments and i will hook you up.

i am pretty obsessed with it lately. it's just so simple to take everything i love on the internet and put it all into one place.

so...there's that.

xo

this and that and some other stuffs....

2011-11-11T00:32:00.001-06:00

i went to the UT game again last weekend with my sister and her boyfriend. this time they played texas tech and destroyed them 52-20. which is awesome because tech beat OU, who we lost to, so in my mind that means we are technically better than OU (jk haha)

they had sky divers fly onto the field just before the game. twas pretty cool.

some other miscellaneous pictures from last week:

i'm heading out of town tomorrow, back to menard, texas. (which i was going to link to my blog post about it but i don't see it...which means i didn't write one, i guess.)....
soooo...here are some pictures from the last time we went out there at the beginning of october for my brother's birthday. his girlfriend's parents live out there and it is awesome. like some kind of magic wonderland. the monarchs were migrating through and it was CRAZE.

there was a dead hummingbird hanging upside-down on some garden wire, with it's legs still gripped, swinging. it was sad, yes, but still very beautiful to me.

we camped and it was REALLY cold. like 58 degrees. that probably sounds like summer to you folks up north but i was all by my lonesome in my tent and there was no one to steal body heat from. i don't love camping, for the record. i much prefer cabin-ing. hopefully that doesn't make me sound too much like a diva.

and they have a little spring-fed stream running down by their house. we boated out at night and you could see the entire milky way reflecting onto the still water.

i hate driving, but it was really pretty on the way so i didn't even really mind. it is about three hours west of austin so it isn't too much of a hassle.

i am FUCKING TERRIBLE at taking star pictures (or maybe i can just blame my camera) but here is a blurry pic that kinda gives you an idea of how many stars you can see out there.

my brother ian, and his girlfriend emily (yes..another emily)

anyway, THERE, now you know where i am going and what i am doing and where i have been. i will try to be a better blogger from here on out but i cannot make any promises.

xo

p.s. if you have an iphone and you want to follow me on instagram, my name is thuglifeforevs

murmuration.

2011-11-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

this is so beautiful, it took my breath away.
i would love to see this in scotland one day.
it has been officially added to my list of things to see before i die.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

from lightbox:

"No one knows why they do it. Yet each fall, thousands of starlings dance in the twilight above Gretna, Scotland. The birds gather in magical shape-shifting flocks called murmurations, having migrated in the millions from Russia and Scandinavia to escape winter’s bite. Scientists aren’t sure how they do it, either. Even complex algorithmic models haven’t yet explained the starlings’ acrobatics, which rely on the tiny bird’s quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds to avoid aerial collisions—and predators—in the giant flock. Despite their show of force in the dusky sky, starlings have declined significantly in the UK in recent years, perhaps because of a drop in nesting sites. The birds still roost in several of Britain’s rural pastures, however, settling down to sleep (and chatter) after the evening’s ballet."

motherfucking free ice cream sandwiches!!!

2011-11-03T05:40:00.000-05:00

after one hell of a week at work i am off for the next three days.
THREE DAYS.

i don't have much planned except for the UT game on saturday. i am going with my sister and i am really excited for the longhorns to beat texas tech.
which they will.
last weekend my friend cassandra gave me her tickets to the UT-kansas game. i took my friend marc and we were shocked at how nice the tickets were. it was in the UT club. they had longhorn carpet and it was catered and the chefs were wearing those tall hats and they had food everywhere and a full ice cream bar and fruit salad, all FREE. we felt very out of place in our pearl snap shirts. and neither of us have any plastic surgery or blown up lips so we probably looked out of place too. i'm not really sure how she has those season tickets but i am sure glad she did. it was awesome. texas won 43-0 (kansas sucks pretty bad this year so it wasn't some big thing).

right before we got a safety.

i don't know...

darrell k royal stadium.

longhorn carpets.

marc!

motherfucking free ice cream sandwiches!!!

what was even weirder, after the game i met my brother and his girlfriend to watch my mom and my aunts and uncles go disco dancing at the iron cactus. it was HILARIOUS. they go almost every saturday but this was our first time ~~watching them~~ making fun of them. they were so cute. we could not pull them out of there. they had costumes on. it was really weird, like some sort of haven for middle-aged people letting loose. i wish any of the pictures i took turned out. but they were groovin' too hard and it was dark in there. sad. next time!

here are some more random pictures from last weekend..

ian at torchy's.

henry.

stephen's cat, danger.

leon.

stephen.

the yellow roses my mom planted in a garden over denver's grave. <3

xo

i won't let you in my heart,

2011-11-03T04:06:00.000-05:00

but you are always on my mind.

one more from this woman that does not exist to me still.

this was her first song when she opened for bon iver back in september.
my brother did some digging and figured out the name. (thanks, ian.)

you know what i wish?
it was just you and me.
sitting in this corner bar
you could tell me how you are
but i'm not going to lie
or anything
you don't even have to speak
if you keep looking at me

and i could go all night
but they're turning off the lights
it would be so easy
to do or say anything
and i'm not going to lie
i'm not looking for love
i won't let you in my heart
but you are always on my mind.

xo

lily and maddison

2011-10-28T01:55:00.001-05:00

i swear to god, i cannot even handle this shit....

from here: Lily is a Great Dane that has been blind since a bizarre medical condition required that she have both eyes removed. For the last 5 years, Maddison, another Great Dane, has been her sight. The two are, of course, inseparable.

i mean, this is just about the best thing i have ever seen.
just...ever.

xo

change the sheets.

2011-10-23T13:59:00.000-05:00

as much as it pains me to like anything kathleen edwards has done, this song gets stuck in my head pretty bad. it's a bit country-ish but i like it. and although i still refuse to acknowledge that she is dating justin vernon, it's pretty good stuff.

also, i find it annoying that the title of this video says the song was on grey's anatomy because i hate that show. it sucks and let's admit it.

i am so effing hungover today. i am probably about to die over here. that ranger's game was terrible yesterday so a few extra shots of whiskey got poured. now i have to go to work and i may not survive it.

also, today is three months. november 9th would have been his birthday marking 10 years together. i just need to get through that and i think my head might start to clear up about it. but i'm missing him a lot today. everyday, really.

so, i'm ever..

2011-09-28T05:14:00.000-05:00

if you don't like this song, we probably can't be friends.

on an unrelated note, i think something died in my kitchen.
i thought it was the guacamole in the trash but five hours after i took the trash out i have determined that something is indeed dead. and i think it's in the wall because i don't know where else it could be. so i need a sledgehammer or what? and what i am i supposed to do with all of these groceries i bought? i can't cook in there right now.
and what is worse than something being dead in your kitchen?...
getting used to the smell.
that is by-far worse.

i need a man around here.

xo

is it ever gonna not be so hard to see you around?

2011-09-25T04:37:00.000-05:00

am i really really really really gonna have to really gonna have to really have to leave town?
i mean i called upon a bunch of angels calling angels ain't you supposed to come and take away these blues?
i mean we came upon a bunch of rabies and there is nothing all us little animals can do.
all five kinds of reins, all nine kinds of thunderings and
eighteen white horses who will not ever come to me!
don't plant no more feet, love, in that garden of blame.
don't break me no more, love; i'm already tame.

this entire album is perfection.
and this song...
my god.
i could go on and on.

p.s. i've been drinking.

xo

sweet corn tamales

2011-09-22T01:00:00.000-05:00

i made tamales today!

but they were kind of..modified.
the recipe called for the masa, pork-broth and lard.
since i don't eat meat and i forgot to buy vegetarian broth and shortening, i had to improvise. so i used water and a TON of spices and olive oil. so i was pretty nervous if they would turn out at all. i also didn't have a super huge pot or a steamer. but i have made tamales at work before and i was determined to do this no matter what. (you are probably thinking, why didn't you just go back to the grocery store? it's only 3/4 of a mile away and you had to soak the husks for TWO HOURS so you could have easily gone to get what you needed. and that is a valid point. the answer is because i am lazy)

so set my colander into the largest pot i had and i made a foil lid that went over the edges to steam them. it worked out pretty well.

they were supposed to take an hour to steam but it was more like two. i think they were a bit watery even though i added less liquid than it even said. but i stuck it out and crossed my fingers and they turned out really awesome!

since i kind of winged it i don't really have a recipe to hand out and you can probably find an easier recipe online but here is what i used:

3 cups masa
3.5 cups water
spices (just tons of them): cumin, cayenne, salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder.
1/3 cup olive oil.
(just so you know i made about 15 tamales and i tossed out most of the rest of the batter so get a bigger steaming pot and you can be less wasteful)

the filling was super simple. i just used sweet corn sprinkled with cumin.
i topped them off with salsa, cilanto and queso fresco (the latter two are not pictured because i was too hungry at this point).

anyway..

xo

all through the night..

2011-09-21T05:37:00.001-05:00

just so yall know, this song has been in my head for two days.

but i really have an issue with the lyrics "all through the night stray cat is crying so stray cat sings back"

what does that even mean?

i'm gonna give you everything

2011-09-18T00:54:00.000-05:00

m. ward
poison cup
((on repeat))

***
one/one/one
one or two won't do
'cause i want it all

and a sip/a sip
a sip or a spoonful won't do
no, i want it all

and i hope/i hope
hope you know what i'm thinking of
i want all of your love
i need all of your love

she said
"if love/if love
is a poison cup
then drink it up

'cause a sip/a sip
or a spoonful won't do
won't do nothing for you
except mess you up,"

and i hope/i hope
hope you know what this means
i'm gonna give you everything
i'm gonna give you everything
***

xo

and you were here..

2011-09-16T03:24:00.000-05:00

today i woke up really early so i ended up taking an hour nap before i went in to work.
anytime i sleep during the day i have really vivid, sometimes crazy, dreams..
but in this particular one, i found six kittens in the yard and i was trying to get them all in the house when the door swung open and denver ran in. i was on the floor and i was hugging him and asking him where he had been and if he was really back or if it was just for a little while, or a dream.
i don't remember anything else but i remember every little part of him. his ears were still soft and he was smiling and wagging his tail as i held onto him for dear life.
and that was it.
and i am really glad i had that dream. it was the second one i had with denver even though i beg to have a dream about him before i fall asleep each night.
i just really miss him.
and as the time passes some things are getting easier, but really i am just scared to talk about him anymore. like i might be bumming people out at this point. and each time he is brought into a conversation it just goes to everyone feeling sorry for me and i can tell and i start to cry. so i just don't say anything. and that makes it easier for everyone.
and with all these displaced animals with the fire, i feel like i am supposed to go get one because i can. but i don't want to.
because none of them will be denver.
and i am still really struggling with the fact that he isn't going to come back. i still hear him and i still look for him. it has been almost two months now and i still think he is going to be there when i open the door. but i wonder if i am ever going to really get to where i am at peace with it. because i feel like i am so far from that. i am really mad still that he left me. not at him, just at everything that happened. and as i learn to cover it all up by not talking about it and distracting myself so i don't cry, i realize that it is not helping the real problem. i don't think anything will. because i'm just getting better at lying instead of getting over it.
on monday i was sweeping under this kitchen shelf and there was kind of a lot of dog hair shoved way in the back of it. i can't begin to explain how difficult that was. to just put it all in the trash. it was like i was sweeping up ghosts. and just throwing it all away. and as time goes by there is less and less dog hair around, something i thought would never be possible to get rid of. even emptying the lint trap in the dryer is difficult for me. because normally there would be a half inch of dog hair...
and i didn't even want to post another blog about this because, like i said, it just bums everyone out. but my point of this post was the dream i had and how special it was. but it also made me sad because he can't be here with me when i wake up. but i will take him in my dreams any day than not here at all. and i am glad i got to hug him and see him again. and that's it.

goodnight.
xo

bon iver, bon iver.

2011-09-15T09:35:00.000-05:00

tuesday night bon iver played in austin at the long center.
i probably don't need to tell you how excited i was...
it ended up being the most amazing show ever ever.
i got to shoot the 2nd, 3rd and 4th songs but not from the pit (since there wasn't a pit), but instead, from the back of house. i was stationed over to the right on the low balcony. it was kind of annoying since it was pretty far away and i was zoomed allll the way in for most of the shots. but i was still happy to be able to shoot at all.
i was shooting for austin bloggy limits and they should have a post up some time today with some shots.

here are the rest if you want to take a look.

xo

years: one and thirty-one.

2011-09-12T04:13:00.000-05:00

tuesday is my nephew/love/sugarbear, eli's, birthday.
one whole year old.
!!!

wow, i cannot believe how quick that flew by. he is just so special and amazing and i am so proud that he is part of my family. we had his party sunday afternoon (since his aunts and one uncle will all be at bon iver on tuesday). i guess you never know how a kid that little will react to a house full of people, but he was so funny and awesome the whole time. he walks everywhere and does whatever he wants now. if you put on some music with a good beat his little butt starts shaking and he throws one hand in the air, kind of like a fist-pump. it makes me laugh so hard!

and with piles of presents, his absolute favorite was this little mini dirt-devil vacuum. he was plowing around the whole house making people life their feet so he could truck on by with the thing. he would grab it and clench his body tight and growl, as if he could not STAND it how awesome this toy was. so hilar. it's funny how kids can just make your whole heart swell up with the tiniest little smile. i just think he is the greatest thing to ever hit this world. and i am so proud of him for being just who he is.

my grandmother brought over some ash that she has scattered all over her land from the bastrop fires. luckily their land remains safe, but it sure is scary to see how much is blowing around out there. it doesn't seem safe to even breathe to me.

we haven't had a drought this bad since 1895 and, with la nina's return, it's likely that we may not get relief until next year. the wildfires in bastrop are 50% contained right now but that aint shit. at least 1554 homes are gone and 170, 686 acres have burned. i know everyone is doing everything they can to help but it's really heartbreaking to think of losing everything in a puff of smoke. i sincerely hope that we can get things back to good around here as soon as possible. times are tough and no one deserves this. and i continue to be grateful that my grandparents land is safe.

i found two websites yesterday that i found really touching. dearphotograph and jason e. powell on thaeger. i was introduced to them because of the 9/11 photos but the idea of the photo-in-a-photo really struck me. lucky for me, i live in the same house i grew up in so this is perfect for me. the above picture is me on the front porch steps when i was one. and thirty years later, holding it in the (almost) exact same spot. i took this (along with the rest of the photos) with my phone, so i plan on gathering lots more from around the house and re-shooting them with my actual camera. (that way i can get way OCD about it) and i think everyone should join in, if you can!

of course, i will post the pics when i get around to doing it. hopefully soon.

realllllly excited for the bon iver show on tuesday. since i got to make a complete ass of myself to justin vernon's brother nate at the nx35 thing last march ("i saw you at the noodle place") i plan on doing the same if i have the opportunity to chat with justin. i think this time i will say "i twittered about your awesome nipple".
...which i guess i should clear up for you:

last week i was drinking a four-bottle box of wine i picked up at target when i came across some shirtless pics of justin vernon (clearly i have to search for such things on a regular basis since i run a "hot-guy-tumblr-blog") and i noticed he had a quite bizarre nipple. in fact, it doesn't appear that he grows much hair on that side of his chest. now you might find this weird, but not me. i think it is pretty cool, actually. i may be blinded by his beard and witty charm, though, so don't mind me. but i twittered (tweeted?) "i am pretty into justin vernon's weird/awesome nipple. also i am a bottle of wine to the wind." so i wake up the next afternoon and i have an email letting me know that mr. justin vernon himself has "favorited" my drunken tweet. at first i was thinking that i should not ever drink and use twitter again, but actually, maybe i should. i am still not sure the lesson i learned here, folks.

but i think that i have no choice but to say "i twittered about your awesome nipple", right?
i hope i get the chance to say anything to him. cross your fingers!

xo

p.s. you can follow me on twitter @thuglifeforevs but be prepared to hear a whole lot about college football right now. you can also follow me on instagram if you've got it: thuglifeforevs

whoa...

2011-09-10T01:54:00.000-05:00

guess who got photo credentials for the tuesday bon iver show?

(hint: it's me!)

p.s. i really really hope it works out this time unlike the fleetfoxes debacle.
also, i hope to be impregnated by mr. justin vernon himself in less than a week. i will keep you posted.

xo

the push and pull..

2011-09-06T04:15:00.000-05:00

a cold front rolled in last night. the high today was 90 and tomorrow is more of the same. it is 67 degrees right now. 90 degrees and "cold front" might sound like an odd combination to some of you but that is almost 20 degrees cooler than it was last week.
and in texas, the first time you can survive comfortably without the air conditioner on is cause for celebration. but the winds that brought in the cooler weather are also literally fueling the fires that are plaguing central texas right now. in bastrop (about 40 minutes away) there are tens of thousands of acres on fire with 0% control so far. at least 500 homes have been destroyed and 2/3 of the state park is gone. my grandmother lives about 10 minutes from the fire and so far, they are in the clear. my little brother vaughan's girlfriend, josey, has family in bastrop who have lost their home and many others are not able to go back and check if they still have homes due to the evacuations. you can clearly see the fires from 40 miles away in austin:

it's all really heartbreaking and i feel so helpless. we are all just begging for it to rain. and there isn't a drop on the forecast.
with the extreme drought, everything is so dry and ready to burn with a single spark that any idiot that is flicking a cigarette out of the window at this point, deserves serious jail time. in fact, they are not ticketing people caught littering cigarette butts anymore, they are arresting them. and for good reason. someone started a fire out back at my work a couple weeks ago with a cigarette. thankfully a customer was driving by before it got too out of control. the fire department came out but we mostly had it under wraps before they came.
total idiots. throw a cigarette butt right into a pile of dead bushes and trees? genius.
so cross your fingers that they can get these fires under control soon. i hope everyone can stay safe.

in other news, i am 31 now. i am actually happy to not be 30 anymore. this past year really wore me down. it started off on the wrong foot and went downhill from there. i am really looking forward to this year. i am hoping that all this work i am putting into opening my own shop will pay off. (business plans are hard, yall.) and i hope that i can start to really head toward the things that will make me the happiest. so cheers to 31-derful! this year will be all about going after what i want with hunger and purpose. it's about time i get what i want. but now i know i have to be the one to put in the work. things don't just fall in your lap like i had been counting on for so long. i am still learning lessons, but without risks there are no rewards.
and i think i deserve a little bit of a reward after countless piles of shit, so in poker terms... i am all-in.

xo

2011-09-05T03:38:00.000-05:00

i requested a gluten-free rainbow layer cake for my birthday and my mom made that wish come true!

i am one lucky girl.
soooo good.

xo

try.

2011-08-25T07:55:00.005-05:00

hey all,
i know i have not been posting much, but i have been pretty busy lately.
but did you guys happen to see my boyfriend, ryan gosling, break up a fight in the streets of NYC?
how am i supposed to go about my day and try and forget about him when he keeps doing things that are so adorable?
and those arms? jesus. i never fancied myself into such beefcakes. but my god.

i'm up early because my mother is having a biopsy on her liver today. she has some unexplainable scarring on her liver that, for some reason, keeps getting worse despite her not drinking and doing a month-long liver detox. the doctors do not think it is alcohol related but they are unsure so they are going in to see what is going on. she is trying to make sure we don't worry too much but it's hard. i broke down last night just thinking about her being sedated for it. it's just that my mom means everything to me and nothing is allowed to happen to her. ever. but apparently this type of procedure is "very minor" and i need to "chill out". so i am going to try to do that. "try".

in other news, i have been working very hard on a business plan. or the beginnings of one, anyway. i am meeting with my cousin, dietrich, today to see where i go from here. i just figure that i will never be truly happy until i am working for myself. and i have so many ideas that i never do anything about. so i owe it to myself to at least see where this road leads me. or to at least try. of course i will keep you all posted if this turns into something. but for now i am just crunching numbers and writing down everything i can think of, in the hopes that it can one day turn into a lovely little business plan, and then one day after that, it might turn into a lovely little something real.

and i don't know about you guys but i am FUCKING DONE WITH SUMMER. texas is melting. no rain, no water. the high on friday is 110. and saturday, 109. this needs to be over now. my birthday is september 2nd and it better be a god-damned winter wonderland by then. eye-rolls.

here are some stuffs i am really into lately:

new florence and the machine. (the new, still untitled album, is due out november 7th)
what the water gave me.
(for the record, i can sing just like her when the radio is turned up loud enough that i can't hear myself...)

new james blake and bon iver collaboration:
fall creek boys choir.

if you are not familiar with james blake, which i'm sure you are, but if not..
for starters, just make sure you listen with headphones.
wilhelm scream.

p.s. it's been a month. and i am doing much better. i actually got rid of his dog food from his bowl.. not the bowls, just the actual food. and i put my bed frame back on. it's strange how guilty i felt for doing both. i miss him every day and i still get upset at least once a day. but i am miles from where i was. the only thing i really learned from all of this is that i NEVER want to feel like that again. which is stupid, because that is really unavoidable, i suppose. i guess i just hope that it is a really long time from now that i have to deal with anything like that again. my heart is just not strong enough.

xo

green pastures...

2011-08-21T17:36:00.004-05:00

one of my oldest friends, cassandra, got married yesterday. i didn't go to craze with the picture taking but the ceremony was beautiful. i may have had a bit too much red wine. but that's what weddings are for, right? getting shit-faced to celebrate with your friends?
i did learn a very important lesson though.
peacocks roost in trees at night.
so the next time you are peeing by your car in a quiet parking lot after a wedding LOOK OUT for the fucking peacocks because shit can go really wrong, really quick if you are unaware..

xo

6 days.

2011-07-28T22:32:00.003-05:00

just wanted to check in with you guys and let everyone know that i appreciate all of your kind words, phone calls, emails, visits, texts, flowers, cards etc. it really means a lot to me and i have been overwhelmed with all of your support. when things get so dark and heavy, it's really nice to know that so many people care. everyone loved denver and i know it's not just me who misses him.
things have been pretty tough and i really hate this but i am trying hard to just hang in there.
everyone says it will get easier in time, and that is something i would tell someone else who is going through this too, but i wish i could just fast forward to the part where i feel ok about it all. even after 6 days, everything is so fresh and painful. the first three days were by far the worst. i though i was going crazy and i was literally not aware that being this sad about anything was possible. i just really miss denver. i miss every single thing about him. and the very hardest part of it all is realizing that i will not ever be able to see him again. not ever. i want to really feel like i can say things like "but he is in my heart so it is ok" which he is, but i feel like that is not good enough for me. i want him here WITH ME.
but i don't want to get too into it, ya know? it gets too hard to talk about it really. it's just too much.

i actually had to take a little trip with my mom down to the coast to get away and try to get my mind off of it. and lord knows i needed to get out of this house where pulling a spoon out of my dish-rack with a dog hair attached to it would send me completely off the deep end. i still cannot manage to remove the dog food from his bowl or move anything from where it was but i will take care of all of that when i am ready.
the trip was good and very relaxing (besides waking up with swollen shut eyes and a massive forehead from a second degree sunburn). my mom is the best mom ever. she is kind and understanding and she really does make every blow a little softer. sometimes you just need your mom. and i am very lucky to have such a great one.

but that's it. i just wanted to let you guys know that i am still alive and trying to get through this.
loves.
xo

home.

2011-07-23T04:45:00.003-05:00

tonight i lost my little denver.

and i am so sad and so heartbroken and i am sitting here and he is not here.
he is not here.
he waited for me to get home. he was in the yard with my sister when i got home from work and i knew it was time. i knew.
i knew i wasn't going to make him wait until the morning because i promised him i would not let him get so bad. we didn't even have to take him to put him down. he passed away in the middle of the yard with my face pressed to his. i told him it was ok if he needed to go. i would understand if he had to leave me. so he just kinda faded away, right there in the yard.

and i am really thankful that i didn't have to try to figure out a way to get him into the car.
and i am really thankful that my family came to help me dig a hole for him in the middle of the night.
and i am really thankful that he waited for me.
and i am the most thankful that he chose me to love. because that feels like the only right thing that has ever happened in this world.

i don't feel like i have a whole lot to say right now. but i know that some of you guys were kinda waiting to hear so now you know.

i've been trying to put together a little video with pictures of denver just so i can watch it if i am missing him too much. but it turned out to be really hard to do. like it was never going to be good enough. but i did finally find the song i wanted to have on it. the only thing about this song is that it makes me cry like way to much. but denver is my home. he is always going to be that.

i have no idea if it is possible to love someone more than i loved him.
i am going to fucking miss you denver.
i am going to miss you forever.
i love you my little prince. love you forever and ever.

texas shaped waffles..

2011-07-15T05:07:00.004-05:00

one last thing.

so esther dropped off my new waffle maker at my work yesterday and this morning i made some waffles for everyone at work. unfortunatly i could not eat any, but i did buy some gluten free pancake mix so i will make some for myself soon. such awesome things happen for me on the internet. i tried posting a link to the range rover dealership to see if my luck would continue but no takers yet. i will wait it out.

do other states make literally everything in the shape of their state? we have unthinkable amounts of things in the shape of texas: tortilla chips, stepping stones, swimming pools, bathroom sinks, cheese, candles, baking pans, even large crowds gather in this shape.
i have a feeling that no other state is as vain, besides possibly new york. i mean, i guess kansas has lots of things shaped like it, like tofu.

xo

wheat free-meat free...

2011-07-15T04:23:00.004-05:00

so.. we have all tried new and different things or had new goals in our life for our diet and health. i have tried before to do bootcamp and i was successful (for that time) but the results just kind of faded away over time. and i have tried to do a raw diet and that faded away over time as well. but this time i want to create something more lasting. a new lifestyle; a new me. and that is really hard to do. HARD. so i am trying to come up with a new way to approach what i ultimately WANT.

i am not really big on fad diets. sure, i have tried a couple but i feel like they have always been so transparent to me. i remember doing this soup diet in high school where you only eat this cabbage and tomato soup. the idea was you burn more calories eating it than you actually consume. you make a HUGE pot of soup and eat it for weeks at a time. how ridiculous and unhealthy. and when i was about 18 i did slim fast for a while and lost about 30 pounds. around that same time the gas station down the street from the day-care where i worked sold these diet pills with ephedrine. they basically made you crazy and have since become illegal in the states. i went through about a bottle and a half of those before i dumped them in the trash. that is pretty much the extent of the crazy diets i have tried. i have never ventured into things like no-carbs or quick-trim and i never buy workout equipment from informercials. basically all of these things have something in common: it's a quick fix for a problem that needs a complete overhaul.

i know myself very well and it is hard for me to start anything without it consuming my mind. so consumed, that i really set myself up for failure. i make such drastic changes and cut so many things out that i eventually just toss all of it out the window and go back to eating breakfast tacos and drinking beer whenever i feel like it. but that is not what i want. i mean, yes, i want breakfast tacos pretty much all of the time, but i want to feel good more than i want breakfast tacos. and although i do not think i overeat on a regular basis, i do not feel like i am treating my body fairly. i don't think i drink enough water and i do not think i take in enough vitamins. and i definitely think i don't exercise enough. i want to channel all of my desires to change what i am doing into something that i could actually do. something i am excited to do. because at the root of all fad diets and new beginnings, i am/was unhappy with how i was living day-to-day.
so i needed to come up with a plan.

since i want to be successful this time and make it a 'forever' thing, i am going to really look at what works for me and what doesn't. and create a plan around that. so here is what i have come up with so far:

-i will weigh myself once a week. not daily like i have before. my digital scale quit working a while back so that will work in my favor. on fridays i will borrow my sister's scale and that will be that. i think not knowing will make me work harder to see results. but i want to make clear, this is not about shedding pounds, this is about being healthy. so i will do my best not to be discouraged by the numbers that pop up between my toes.

-i will maintain a calendar each month that has daily goals. including my work schedule and gym schedule. i will sprinkle the calendar days with gym workouts, walks, home workouts (on-demand videos) and grocery store trips. if i do not buy fresh vegetables twice a week i will not eat what i have. i know this about myself. i also know that i am very good at crossing things off a list. so if the calendar says gym-work-walk i will most likely complete those tasks. and if i plan fun things like laps at barton springs i can look forward to what is coming up on the calendar too.

-i will spend quality time planning my meals. i really like to cook. and not to toot my own horn, but i am pretty good at it. when i cook for the staff at work i have had many people ask me if i have been to culinary school. to which i bat my eyes and say "why, heavens no". but it's really something i enjoy doing (the dishes, not so much) and i like to find new interesting things to try. so again, knowing myself, i need to spend time coming up with great recipes that i will get excited about. i want to fill up my little vintage wooden recipe box with delicious healthy things. which brings me to the next topic..

-gluten free (for now)- this may sound like one of those fad diets i was talking about before and it very well may be. but the reasons behind it are not. my sister went gluten free about 1 1/2 to 2 years ago and it has changed her life. she looks and feels fantastic. she also makes a lot of money and goes to an herbal doctor that balances her vitamins and life. i cannot afford that right now, in fact, i cannot afford to even take a test to see if i have celiac disease. ($250) my sister's doctor has told her that the way in which she has it suggests that several of her family members do as well. meaning my mom, dad brother and me probably have celiac disease and are undiagnosed. (95% of people with celiac disease remain undiagnosed) my mother visited my sister's doctor because of some scarring on her liver that she has been trying to heal. our regular doctor has not had any luck, even with my mother cutting out drinking altogether, her condition has somehow worsened. and because she doesn't want to end up with cirrhosis of the liver, she is trying to do whatever it takes to fix this. so she went to the herbal doctor and, because it is pricy, she is starting with the liver detox before she has the blood work done for the celiac test. but for this 30 day detox, she has to basically eat only vegetables and things that give her liver a complete vacation. and she was telling me the other day that she has never felt better. she said her fingernails are growing like she has never seen before. and since her diet on the detox is gluten free, she has suspicions that she most likely is gluten intolerant. having celiac disease is an auto immune disease that blocks your body from absorbing essential nutrients. and it is my understanding that consuming gluten when you have celiac disease makes it basically like eating mcdonalds every day. like no matter what you eat that is healthy, you arent doing yourself any favors because you cannot absorb that nutrition. so i am going to try it. i will eventually have the test done but i am going to give it a try for now, and i know it can't hurt. but it limits my recipe options. not completely, but it will make me have to plan my meals even more carefully. which brings me to my next topic.

-pinterest. pinterest is a neat website that my sister showed me. you can basically put everything you love on the internet in one spot. you can "pin" things to your boards for quick reference, like bookmarks. it is really useful for anyone say, planning a wedding or a roadtrip (which i am. more on that later) or gathering recipes or posting your favorite etsy finds. anything you find on the internet, you can pin on pinterest. the only catch is you have to request an invite. it took me about 24 hours to hear back and get started. i am using one of my boards for meat-free/wheat-free recipes. yes, i have been a vegetarian for nine years in august. so that makes my meal planning even MORE difficult. i set up my "board" to allow my sister to post recipes she finds as well. so as long as i keep digging for fresh new things to try, i do not think i will run out of ideas and give up. i want to make it really easy for me to eat right and eat easy. and if you have a pinterest account and are interested in following me or adding some recipes or ideas to my meat-free/wheat-free board, just let me know. or if you want to know more about it, just ask.

and i wanted to share another AMAZING website that i have found called gojee.com. it is a recipe website that has an amazing deisgn to it that makes it nice to look at as well as incredibly functional. you can type in what things you have and it gives you recipes based on that. you can also 'favorite' recipes and what i find to be most useful, you can put in things you 'dislike', like gluten or meat. the pictures are beautiful and the recipes are top-notch.

so my main goals in this are going to be: easy, gluten free, fresh and healthy, natural and nutritional. but most importantly, possible. i want to set my self up for success and a true lifestyle change. i want to learn new things about my body and make food an important, but secondary thing to living my new healthy life. i also plan on quitting smoking because that doesn't really seem to fit in with what i am trying to do. but i am going to give myself a break on that one for now. baby steps. i want to make lasting changes, not be a part of any fad diet. (those DO really sound like excuses, but i know my head is in the right place for this).

so, i have been doing this for two weeks now, or since the first of july and i have lost 7.8 pounds in two weeks. seems a little much to me but like i said, i am not going to stress about the numbers.

i was thinking about putting this all on my old bare greens blog but i have not made a final decision on that. having a blog, a facebook, now a god damned google+, a twitter, flickr, 4 tumblr accounts and a google reader to keep up with seems like enough. holy shit i have never listed out the internet things i maintain before. sheesh, i might need to re-evaluate that as well.
anyway..
so there you have it. the beginning.

xo

the gap...

2011-07-15T04:22:00.001-05:00

for when you get frustrated.

xo

dang yall...

2011-07-13T04:00:00.003-05:00

so it's like 4:30am and i am sitting here slightly inebriated listening to all these old country songs that are hilarious/awesome/my favorites from when i was a kid. some of them are ridiculous and some are the ones that come on the radio in a store and you strangely know every word, you know?

i don't listen to country music. i don't even know who the "big stars" are right now but i love this old shit.

also, i posted on facebook earlier that i REALLY needed someone to buy me this texas shaped waffle maker.

yes, needed. and my old friend esther chimes in and says that her husband did the website for them and she has one lying around and she is going to GIVE it to me tomorrow. wtf?? i probably should not explain how excited i am about this because you guys might start to think of me differently. i am really excited to find some good gluten free waffle recipes. yep, gluten free. i will do another post about that soon. i have actually already been working on that post but i've been kinda busy. but yeah, i am off the gluten since the beginning of this month and i feel fucking GREAT! but that is probably due to me eating basically only raw veggies and healthy stuffs. but like i said, i will get more into that later. WAFFLES!!

(for ian)

now, you all stop rolling your eyes at me. that's it. i am going to find a dancehall and go ride a horse or something.

xo

my denver..

2011-06-23T21:22:00.001-05:00

it's been nothing but agonizing watching denver decline since i received the news last month.
it's just so god damned sad to watch.
it has also gone much quicker than i anticipated. or at least it did not occur to me that i would see physical changes to his body. i thought it would just go from ok to not-ok and i would know what to do. but now he sits in front of me panting endlessly; staring at me.
i don't know what i am supposed to do.
his bones are showing in his face now, which accompany his already protruding backbone, ribs and pelvis. he has a hard time getting on the bed. i have to help him pick up his back legs and push him up. i would just make him a spot on the floor but he wants to be on the bed. he stands in front of the bed knowing that he probably wont be able to make it, pacing around. so i help him. and if he wants to get on the god damned bed, i will help him get there.

he sleeps a lot but he also sits up at night panting. it shakes the whole bed. so i sit there in the dark with the bed shaking wondering if i am doing the right thing. the vet says i will know when it is time because he won't be able to get up anymore and he won't be able to wag his tail. the thing is, i don't know how he feels right now. is he in pain? is he sad? is he tired of all of this? i wish he could tell me if he was hurting or if he was ready.
this is really such a strange and emotionally draining time for me. i try to make his days as nice as possible. we talk a lot about things. or i talk and he listens. and i tell him that he has to tell me when he is ready. he has to show me because i am trying my hardest to be in tune with his every move and i don't know if that is enough. i know that he knows how much i love him. i know that because when i tell him, his tail wags just a little each time i say it.
i know that he hears me.

my friend angi had to put her lab down today. taylor (tay) has been with her for 14 years and i am heartbroken for her. angi told me when i found out about denver that her vet told her two years ago that tay had tumors everywhere. i kinda got my hopes up that denver was going to be around for that long too. i started to try and push it out of my mind like it was going to be ok. but just looking at him now, i know that probably won't be the case for me.

this morning denver woke me up by putting his face on mine and whimpering to go to the bathroom. he walked around on the bed along both sides of me to make sure i was good and awake. i was thinking that today was going to be a good day because he was so full of energy. he had not woken me up like that in a while. it made me happy.
then, this afternoon, he was laying on the kitchen floor and i heard some rustling so i went over to check on him. he was looking at me like something was wrong and i tried to get him to stand up and he couldn't. he fell back down and his eyes widened and he looked scared. i thought he was going to have a seizure which i have been really worried about. he has them every so often and they are pretty hard on him. i was dreading that he would have one because i did not think he would make it through another one. so i sat there with him and he laid his head on a towel for a while. i didn't know what was happening because he was not going into the seizure like he would have normally. he just laid there with his head on my lap and i had no idea what was going on and i was thinking "this is it"...and i am not ready. everything started to float around in my head and tears were rolling off my face and all i could say was "FUCK! fuck!"
after a few minutes and he seemed to come out of whatever it was that was happening to him. he stood up and everything was ok again. i took a deep breath and tried to compose myself.
later in the afternoon i went to buy some cigarettes at the gas station and i was talking to my mother on the phone. i was telling her that i am trying really hard to keep a balance between more time, and him being comfortable. it's just so hard to tell. i don't want to keep him here just for me. even though i need him so badly. i want to be able to let him go at the right time. i don't want him to be in any pain. but crying by the soda fountain at the gas station (again) and having to go lock myself in the bathroom is no kind of way for me to live either. the amount of times i have cried in public this week alone would blow your fucking mind.
i have been through so many emotions with this, including just straight-up lying to myself and such terrible, deep sadness that i do not even know how anyone has ever done this before. i don't know how angi did this today.
and i just don't know how i will ever get past this or over this. i just have no idea.
and i have no idea why this is happening to me? i guess i just always thought he would be around forever. because he had to be. or because it was just too hard to think about.
and i know i should have been more prepared for this; i know that dogs don't live forever. i know that. but i guess i was always just hoping that mine would. because he is special. and i was just begging god to let him stay. i just want him to stay. and if there is some tiny chance that god or anyone else could help me then i thought it couldn't hurt to ask.
and i've been thinking a lot about who is in charge of all of this because i want to hate them. i want to punch them in the fucking face and scream at them "I HATE YOU!" but it isn't anyone. no one is. it's just life and i guess i have to start dealing with that. LIFE.
fucking brutal.
and there was this sort of moment i had the other night. when i felt like everything was slipping away from me. right through my fingers. and nothing stays the same. and nothing i could do or say could keep denver here with me. it's like, no matter how much fight i have left in me for this, he might not have that left in him. so while i am swinging my arms and hanging onto every last moment, it is not going to make any difference. he is going to leave me and i am going to be alone. and i am so scared of what will happen if i am alone. because i need him and i always have. because he is always here. but i was realizing that he wasn't going to be for long. and that is really fucking hard to realize. and i was thinking i am thirty fucking years old and i don't know anything. i don't know shit.
and it makes more sense why i was unable to let myself think about him leaving before.
because there are no answers to my questions.

i don't know what happens to people after they leave. will he just be gone? in heaven? or what? because i can't imagine what we've got is just for nothing. it can't be. so i wish someone would fucking figure out where he will be so i can know.
if i had my wish, maybe he would stay a little closer by. not float away so far.
because i know i am always going to need him around, tucked in the biggest, deepest part of my heart.

but i just have this feeling inside me that whatever is going to happen is going to happen sooner, rather than later. and so however you are supposed to get yourself ready for that, i guess that is what i have to do now.
but i am still not really sure how you go about doing that.

and i am sorry if none of this makes any sense to you. it doesn't make any sense to me. i am just dumping everything on here. so, here it is.
and we are still here. hanging in there. one day at a time.
xo

dirkkkkkkk

2011-06-13T14:26:00.002-05:00

this:

xo

summer in the city...

2011-06-13T12:22:00.003-05:00

i've been taking advantage of summer this year instead of hiding away in my house from the almost unbearable heat. it is said that you cannot remember pain. i find that to be true because each and every texas summer that creeps upon us feels worse than ever before. where walking from your car to your house feels like you just escaped a certain death.

last thursday, i tried to go to barton springs to use my rain check but clearly i do not know a thing about the city i live in because barton springs is closed on thursdays for cleaning. so i said "fuck it" and drove out to hamilton pool. hamilton pool is in dripping springs, about 25-30 minutes outside of the city. it's this little obscure swimming hole that you have to hike 1/4 mile down just to get to. i like to look at pictures of it on flickr but i had never been myself. i am SO glad i went, even if i was by myself. it was so beautiful. i felt like i was on some safari in some other country. there are little spings that drip into the water like a waterfall. i believe they flow more heavily usually but we are in a pretty brutal drought. all was awesome until a water moccasin was cruising around in the water. everyone screamed and got out and the snake decided to come out of the water too. that was my cue to leave. i do not fuck with snakes. no sir. but i guess that is what you get when you are out in nature and shit.

i'm really not happy with the photos i got here. i need to climb up on the inside rocks next time to get a better view.

yesterday we went out to barton springs again. it was brutally hot and beautiful. my dad, little sister and nephew joined me. it is the best feeling in the world to watch little eli in the water. i have never seen someone so happy to be alive and learning new things. he was kicking his legs like a frog, like it was second nature; splashing the water so vigorously that it was getting all over his face. he was screaming at the top of his lungs with excitement and when he was not screaming, he was letting out a low growl. it was pretty much the cutest thing i have ever seen. i have a feeling that if we were to let go of him, he would have known how to swim. he is my favorite littlest thing ever. today is his 9 month birthday! i can't believe how quickly time passes.

because of all of these recent adventures, i am bordering on too tan. i look like i just got back from three weeks of vacationing somewhere tropical. i have a pretty olive skin tone and it absorbs color pretty quickly. its pretty hard for me to get sunburned and i never use sunscreen. it must be the 1/16 Cherokee i have in my blood. my aunt once told me that she is more worried about putting sunscreen into her skin than getting a tan. she said anything that soaks into your skin that blocks you from getting tan seems more dangerous than the sun. maybe she is right, maybe she is wrong and we are all going to get skin cancer. but i guess as long as you are not getting burned all the time, you will probably be ok.

in other news, the mavs won the finals! when i watch sports i yell a lot, and i love when denver slowly raises his head off the couch to look at me to see if he is in trouble or what the fuck is going on.

xo

give fruit the boot...

2011-06-12T00:21:00.004-05:00

ladies, are you sick of your shaving cream smelling like fruits?
we are too!
so amy and i came up with some fresh new scents that will be available soon where fine goods are sold.

sour cream and onion
new car smell*
movie theater butter
jaegermeister
nutella
dill pickle
sausage gravy*
deep woods off*
pimento cheese
opossum*
leather
bacon*
cool ranch
apple cider vinegar
nacho cheese
turkey jerky
crab leg
meatloaf surprise

*several of these shaving creams have been known to cause immediate pregnancy. use at your own risk.

xo

this and that (and shit tons of pictures)..

2011-06-06T00:48:00.003-05:00

heyyyy,
sorry i've been away.

first things first, i have been trying not to jinx the situation but denver is doing really well! i have to feed him several small meals a day instead of the normal one big meal he would normally have. but other than that, and him moving just a tiny (almost unnoticeable) bit slower than normal, he is really good! so keep your fingers and your hearts crossed.

i limit the time i am away from denver. when i am at work, he has baby-sitters. and when i am off, i will stay gone for two hours max. and that is rarely. but i have gone out to do a few shoots. one for my friend natalie's graduation, one for my cousin dietrich's portfolio and one (today) to barton springs with my family (and to shoot some photos for my brother vaughan.

natalie graduated from UT and just moved to new york on wednesday! although i hate to see people leave austin, it's always good to have lots of people i know living there so i can sleep on their couches when i finally attempt my long overdue trip to NY.

my very talented cousin dietrich has started dabbling in modeling and we shot some stuff out at windy point for his portfolio the other day. this guy is good at everything he has ever done. like since he was a very small child. it's a bit nauseating, actually.

and today i went with my two sisters, my brother, his girlfriend, my sister's boyfriend, my dad and my nephew to barton springs. my older sister and her boyfriend and i had been there about 45 minutes when the rest of the crew arrived. approximately four minutes after they got there the skies went from sunny and beautiful to raining like a motherfucker. it was raining so hard it hurt hitting your skin. i was about to have a fucking panic attack because i had my camera and two lenses and a mesh beach bag. i ran for cover with them and snagged a plastic baggie from the concession stand.

they evacuated the pool because of the lightening and it was a good hour before they let people swim again. so we got rain-check tickets and headed to sandy's for some ice-cream cones.

(and if any of you have instagram on your iphone, my name is thuglifeforevs. let's follow eachother.)

my little brother vaughan is shipping out to bootcamp for the air-force on the 21st of this month. he opted for the fast-track and we have no idea what he will be doing. which is TOTALLY making me a nervous wreck. but i have a whole bunch of stuff on my plate right now so i need to keep order in what i can worry about right now. so i am going to try to stay calm until we know what's going on with him. since he is on the fast-track he might not even ship out on the 21st. he has to show up and be ready to go that day and if a spot is not available then he will do that once more and then go for sure on july 4th. crazy stuff. but him and his lovely little girlfriend josey wanted some pictures done before he goes. we really only shot for about 10 minutes before vaughan started feeling sick. he ended up throwing up in the yard. it was pretty disgusting and i hope he does not have food poisoning or something. so we are going to finish the shoot next sunday.

xo
love you guys.

literally unbelievable...

2011-05-27T16:39:00.002-05:00

this is hilarious.
i love the idea of people thinking onion articles are real.

http://literallyunbelievable.tumblr.com/

xo

the story of samson. (part two)

2011-05-24T01:20:00.003-05:00

(part one here)

sunday night samson wandered back up to my work. i was sitting on the bench outside with him along with the host and a waitress. i was debating calling the guy (i have his number on my phone), or just fucking keeping this dog. after about two minutes his owner came walking up from behind us, did not say one word and grabbed the dog BY HIS EARS and body slammed him over the bench we were sitting on. the dog was yelping and screaming and he reached down to slam him down on the ground again. i was screaming at the top of my lungs for him to STOP! his owner (named kenneth) was screaming at me to get the fuck away from him. he was saying "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME BITCH! YOU DO NOT WANT TO FUCK WITH ME BITCH! I WILL FUCK YOU UP!!" i was terrified. i was begging him to leave the dog with me. i told him he was too upset and he should leave the dog. he just kept screaming at me. i told him i was going to call the cops if he didn't leave the dog. he cursed me out and started walking away. so i made it clear again that i was going to call the cops. which i did. by the time the ONE POLICE OFFICER showed up he was gone. but as the police officer was walking to the door i saw the FUCKING GUY riding his bike up to the door. the cop stopped him probably because i had described him on the phone and asked him where his dog was. he told him it was at home and tried walking past the cop toward me yelling for me to get the host out there because we had gotten into his business. it looked like he was going to kill me. i screamed back at him that we "had 'gotten into his business' because he had ATTACKED HIS DOG LIKE A FUCKING MONSTER" the cop yelled for me to go inside. he stayed out and talked to the guy.
so i'm waiting around by the door, kinda watching them and after about 10 minutes he LETS THE GUY GO (sorry for the all caps but that means i am pissed as you might have figured out and when i talk, i talk loud and with my hands so this is as close as i can get to making you feel how mad i am) he LETS HIM GO. and THEN he comes to talk to me inside. i was fucking trying not to cry after what i witnessed, which i should mention that i have NEVER seen anyone do something like that to an animal. i have never seen anyone so full of rage before. it was terrifying and horrific. i tell the cop right away that he needs to go get that guy back here because i wanted to file a criminal no-trespass on him and the cop was all like "durr, um, uh, i already let him go, i'm sorry i didn't know he had threatened you or that you wanted to do that" i said "what?, wtf do you THINK he was going to do to us if you had not shown back up here??" "he came BACK to do god knows what to us" HE CAME BACK UP HERE YOU IDIOT. so i told him everything that happened and how three people saw what he did to that dog and the cop says he can do NOTHING because he didn't actually witness it himself.
i call bullshit on that. three witnesses? why would we make up what happened? why?
so the cop says the guy is basically homeless and lives in some RV somewhere and that they would "probably" send someone out from the animal cruelty department to his "house" to check on the conditions of the dog before this week is over.
so here is my problem, if the guy knows someone is coming out to check on him, of course he is going to have everything it tip-top shape so they don't take the dog. right? so how is that helpful. and if you remember from my last post, the dog had a huge bump on his head with a gash (which i am 100% certain that the guy did to the dog, now) so he clearly has a history of violence with this dog. WHY KEEP THIS DOG AROUND? to just beat up on it? WHY??
i am so upset by this, i could not sleep last night. the only thing that has kept me sane today is knowing that he will most likely not kill the dog if he knows that someone is going to come check on him this week.
i feel like this dog has been brought into my life because i am supposed to help it. and i am going to do whatever it takes to get this dog away from that man. whatever it takes. mark my words.
i called the spca today to see what i could do and i was redirected to 311. the guy said they cannot send someone out if i do not have his last name or address. BUT i was talking to a waiter tonight at work about it and he mentioned seeing a huge RV parked all over in different spots in the shopping center around where we work. he said he has seen a black man (same as this guy) get out of it and he always thought it was shady. since i know the guy works a few doors down from my work, and he lives in an RV and he walks his dog on the trail that goes around the strip, it HAS to be his RV right? after i got off work tonight i drove around the lot looking for one but i didn't see it. i can only assume that he moves it around a lot to avoid getting harassed. but i will find it. and then i will call the animal cruelty people.
i was really scared to go to work tonight. i think i need to get some mace or a gun or something. i am scared that the guy is going to come back and attack me like he did to that dog. he is a big guy. probably at least 6'4 and clearly violent. he threatened me and now i called the cops on him and i bet he is even more upset with me. i kept all of our back doors and gates locked and gave everyone a stern warning about keeping them locked and closed. i spent the better part of my day looking out the windows making sure he was not around, but mostly hoping that the dog would wander up again. if i see the dog again, i am marching him straight into the work office and locking the door and telling no one that i ever saw the dog. i do not consider that dog-napping. i see it more as dog-saving. and if the cops are not going to do something about this i fucking will.
that man deserves to die for what he has done. i am not saying that as a threat, i mean he should be arrested and given the death penalty. animals are innocent and animals are good. and if your dog is not behaving, it is YOUR FAULT, NOT THEIRS.
i cannot even describe what i saw him do to that dog. i will never forget it. and i will not rest until this is taken care of.
I PROMISE YOU THAT.

also, i am really hoping that i get to write a "part three" that is awesome and happy and great so i am going to work really hard to make that happen.

xo

also, GO MAVS!

today:

2011-05-21T00:40:00.002-05:00

we made a fort.

xo

what is going on here?

2011-05-19T00:54:00.005-05:00

i know i talk about justin vernon a whole bunch. and i know i've been bragging about the awesomeness that has happened to me on twitter too...
BUT
today another amazing twitter thing happened!
let's just say that justin vernon (aka bon iver) EMAILED me after direct messaging me two times.
he asked me not to tell anyone what it was about so i won't.

he signed the email with xoxo

so...i think that means we are basically dating right?

also, i got the whole album yesterday and oh my, it is amazing. i also preorderd the LP package (and you should too!) so i do not-and will not, feel badly.

what is UP with these good things happening on twitter?
i feel really lucky and grateful. i'm not a particularly lucky person so i am not sure why the universe is tossing me a couple bones lately. last time i had an awesome twitter day the next day turned out to be the worst day ever so cross your fingers that chain is broken..

also..i'm off for the next three days!

xo

calgary...

2011-05-17T01:50:00.003-05:00

bon iver's new album will be out on june 21st and today justin released his first single off of the album (bon iver, bon iver)
!!!
AND you can download it for free!
!!!!
boniver.org

i've been searching far and wide for some kind of leak from this album so this will have to do for now.
i feel like i NEED it. not want it, NEED it.
i am extremely happy with this release. the song is called calgary and it's beautiful.

don't you cherish me to sleep
never keep your eyelids clipped
hold me for the pops and clicks
i was only for the father's crib

hair, old, long along
your neck onto your shoulder blades
always keep that message taped
cross your breasts you won't erase
i was only for your very space

hip, under nothing
propped up by your other one, face 'way from the sun
just have to keep a dialogue
teach our bodies: haunt the cause
i was only trying to spell a loss

joy, it's all founded
pincher with the skin inside
you pinned me with your black sphere eyes
you know that all the rope's untied
i was only for to die beside

so it’s storming on the lake
little waves our bodies break

there's a fire going out,
but there's really nothing to the south

swollen orange and light let through
your one piece swimmer stuck to you

sold, i'm ever
open ears and open eyes
wake up to your starboard bride
who goes in and then stays inside
oh the demons come, they can subside

---

if anyone finds any more songs out there on the ~~wild wild west~~ internet, please send them my way.
NEED.

what's good..

2011-05-15T23:38:00.003-05:00

with the news of denver i have gone through every emotion there is, mostly settling on sad.
but i'm really trying to hold it together. we went to the vet on thursday night because he was having a hard time standing up and his stomach seemed extra swollen. they were really nice and spent a LONG time talking with us (my sister, mom and i) and showing me how to take his heart rate, check his gums, his breathing and his capillary refill time. it was really helpful but it also added things to the list for me to be paranoid about. i had to go to work on friday for the first time since i found out and it was not very fun. my anxiety about leaving him alone was insane. i had my mom and sister checking on him every hour. (they are being really great and saving my ass big time). he was probably annoyed that he couldn't just sleep the whole time i was gone without people waking him up every few minutes but OH WELL. i would never forgive myself if something happened to him while i was gone. NOTHING is more important than he is right now.

i am also having trouble not taking my anger with all of this out on other people. people are just carrying on with their lives when mine is so terrible right now. i do not fucking care about your friend's wedding or your job or the new angry birds or ANYTHING. so instead of snapping at people i am just trying to distance myself; not say anything. maybe that is the wrong thing to do, but i figure it's better than yelling at people. i know that people don't really know what to say or do and i don't expect them to know what to say or do. i don't expect them to SAY anything. but i don't want to just pretend like this shit is not happening. and maybe i love my dog more than people can understand and that's not their fault. but this is MY LIFE and if i need to be selfish or alone then i am going to do it. right now i am focused on my dog and making the most of the time i have left with him and everything else is just going to have to wait. the end. period.
so if i'm not answering you back, i'm sorry. and for everyone who has said such sweet things to me, if i didn't answer you it's not because i'm being rude either. i really appreciate it and it makes me feel better so THANK YOU. and i am sorry for the silence. i love you all and i am really lucky to have such great people in my life.

saturday my brother and his girlfriend came down from denton to hang with denver. he had a really good day. he woke up frisky and was acting completely normal like nothing was wrong at all. it was a great day. i also went and got a little tattoo on the outside of my wrist for him. it is a little yellow crown. i know this might sound cheesy, but i tell denver bedtime stories. yes, you heard right. they are always about a little yellow prince (him) and his adventures. it's really silly and i know it but i don't care. he lays his head on my stomach and listens. i swear. it's like he is waiting to see what happens. so i got the crown for that. so he is always with me no matter what. he will be anyway.
i also got a little kit at the hobby lobby to press his paw prints into some plaster. it was kind of hard to figure out and i was not sure if i did it right but they turned out pretty good. his paws were kinda dirty because we did it outside. some of his hairs floated in and got stuck but i don't care. to me, it's perfect. and i am really glad that i will have that forever.

so now that i have those few things out of the way i can just focus on hanging out and having good days.
great days.
xo

denver.

2011-05-12T13:46:00.000-05:00

i went back for the second ultrasound with the radiologist today for denver.
as they suspected, there are too many tumors and they are on both the liver and the spleen.
big ones. and lots of them.
so they cannot operate. they cant do anything.
NOTHING.
so now i just have to sit around and wait.
i could have anywhere from 1 day to at the very longest she has ever seen, 3 months.
i am completely devastated.
i have to find babysitters for him while i work. i wish i could just stay home with him for the rest of his time with me.
i am mad at myself for using up all of my savings last year when i took four months off of work.
i am mad at myself that i could not have learned about this earlier. i don't know if there would have been a way for them to find these sooner.
and i am mad that he is going to leave me.
i am fucking mad about that.
he is the only thing.
i just love him.
beyond how i can describe to anyone. with every piece of me.
because he is good and he is innocent and he has never let me down.
he is there when i need him. and he loves me when i am an asshole.
he loves me no matter what.
my heart is broken into a million pieces.

and i wish that i could have more time.
just a little more time.

denver..

2011-05-11T20:00:00.000-05:00

well, today i took denver to the vet.
i felt a lump on the side of his stomach.
the news was not what i was expecting.
they did an ultrasound on him.
the vet walked in and pulled a chair up close to me and said it did not look good.
he has tumors; lots of them. on his spleen, on his liver. they have liquid in them and she fears he may already be bleeding into his abdomen. she is not even sure he will make it through the night.
i don't really remember anything else she said because everything went white.
i don't know how to deal with this and i don't know what to do.
i am going back in tomorrow for another, better ultrasound so we can know for sure how bad everything is.
the options are not really good right now.
but i have him at home and he seems completely fine.
they gave me some pepcid for him to increase his appetite and that is literally all i can do for him right now.
he doesn't seem to be in pain.
that is not the case for me, however.
i threw up in the parking lot.
i can't imagine my life without denver.
and i don't want to.
he's all i've got and he's all i want.
i just wanted to let everyone know what is going on...

UPDATE TO AWESOME:

2011-05-10T16:27:00.003-05:00

AND i just got press credentials so i get to bring my camera AND i get to go into the photo pit for the FIRST THREE SONGS. HOLY SHIT*. i'm buying lottery tickets while i am still on a roll.

i will be shooting for austin bloggy limits and i just cannot believe how good my day is going.

i will post pics and links and all that good stuff just as soon as i can get my feet back on the ground.

*sorry for my capslock problem today.

xo

everything is beautiful and the world is a good place..

2011-05-10T14:27:00.004-05:00

today is turning out to be...
THE BEST DAY EVER!!!!

for those of you twitter haters, maybe you should reconsider.
i was whining about not being able to go to the sold out fleet foxes show on there today and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!
robin pecknold of the fleet foxes TWEETED ME BACK AND PUT ME ON THE FUCKING LIST TONIGHT.

this show has been sold out since forever and i cannot believe this is even happening.
what is this??
how?
i don't know.
but jesus christ, this is amazing.
i have no words. (mostly screams but no words)

HOLY SHIT.
i was supposed to work tonight too but i basically promised my first born to get off. EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL AND THE WORLD IS A GOOD PLACE.
haha.

xo

getting better..

2011-05-10T11:41:00.002-05:00

denver (my dog and the love of my life) has been sick or something the past few days.
it started the other day when he shit on my floor. it was white and crumbly. like that dog poop from the 70's. (sorry for describing my dog's poop on this blog but whatever, he is my child so get over it). i had this feeling that something was wrong. and then he stopped eating right. he would sit in front of his food bowl and then get up and take a few bites and then sit back down. for him, that is crazy. he is food obsessed and eating is HIS MOST FAVORITE THING EVER. so i started to flip out.

he is getting older and lately, sometimes he seems to take a little longer to sit down or stand up. i've had him for ten years and he is probably about 11 and a half years old. my brother and his ex girlfriend had a dog that was the same size as my dog (about 60 pounds, lab mix too) and he passed away when he was 11. that was terrible and really hard on me and them. it was devastating. so this combination of things has got me in a severe panic. i cannot even start to think about something happening to him without bursting into tears. he is my whole life, my love, my everything. he means more to me than anyone i know. and i know no one is asking me to rank him above my family or friends but he is the best thing i have ever had in my life. even typing this is getting me upset.
i know i will have to eventually deal with the facts. he is not always going to be around. but i just can't think about that right now. i want to live in the moment with him and i want him to have a good happy life. the best life i can give him. because he has given me way more than that.

after googling and researching i thought most likely he was constipated and had some sort of blockage which had to do with the poo and the not eating.
i got him some wet food yesterday and took him on a long walk to get things moving. that worked pretty well and today he seems totally fine and he is back to eating normally. as if nothing happened. i was planning to take him to the vet today but i will literally have to borrow money from someone to do that. i am really lucky to have such an awesome family that offers up that kind of thing without me even asking. i hate borrowing money. and i hate being poor. i have always tried to keep enough money in my savings account for denver. not for me. for denver. it makes me feel like a shitty person knowing that i just don't have that right now. i feel like a bad mom because i would have already taken him to the vet if i actually had the money. and i would NEVER forgive myself if something happened to him and i let him down because i didn't have the money. so this is really putting a fire under my ass about what i am doing with my life right now. that's for sure.
so if he is doing better and seems to be over whatever it is that he ate that was making him sick, should i still take him to the vet? he has eaten things before and gotten sick and they can't really do anything, i've always just had to wait it out. i guess i am still unsure because i feel guilty about not taking him for a check-up. if he even looks at me funny in the next 24 hours i will just take him in. i haven't slept right in days because of this so it would be good to have someone else tell me that he is fine.
all of this has really been making me crazy. and all of this worry has made me just as sick as he was (minus the 70's white dog poop) and hopefully today my eye make-up can stay put.
he is not just my dog. he is my family.

xo

keep the bright and unforgiving light from shining through..

2011-05-07T04:57:00.004-05:00

lucinda williams:
one of THE best things to listen to late at night while sitting on the porch smoking cigarettes (among other things).
add miller high life.
add 70 degrees.

of course, this is the next best thing to seeing her live at stubb's tonight.
which i missed.

xo

this is not a shoe blog...

2011-05-04T19:34:00.005-05:00

BUT i am pretty shoe obsessed and i'm not naming names but SOMEONE asked for my advice.
actually, i offered up my advice. they didn't ask.
same thing.
but here it is. the end-all-be-all of acceptable shoe choices for men (according to me):

basically men should be wearing vans at all times.
but if you need to stray, here are some acceptable alternatives:

first up, red wings.
i can say with absolute certainty that if you are wearing red wings, particularly these styles (1907 classic moc toe boots or heritage classic lifestyle boots) you will at least double your odds with any woman.
i'm not sure if my lumberjack fantasy has anything to do with my adoration for these shoes. but it is highly possible.

don't have $250? well start at your local thrift store, or ebay or a local vintage shop.
some acceptable vintage work boots:

other acceptable shoes:

vintage leather wallabees:

distressed military boots:
if ryan gosling wears them, you know i like them.

(also notice the beef hot dogs sign...just filthy thoughts. filthy)

urban outfitters:

my cousin dietrich just got the first pair of these to hit the united states. they are from a company called circle-5 from hong kong. he and his bandmates were sent two pair each. the line comes out in june and i think they look pretty effing sweet. click the link and check out the black ones too. i could see kanye in a pair of these.

i'm really not into men's sandals or loafers but if you can pull off some loafers like this (minus the purse) go for it.
the main thing i have a problem with is the tassels. same with boat shoes. they are alright until you add the frat-boy tassels. not a good look.

running shoes? first of all, men should not be wearing running shoes if they are not running or at the gym. so do'nt please.
but when you do need them, i would say keep it simple.

(lots of these photos were taken from the midwest style blog. don't ask me why i have a menswear blog on my google reader but I DO. i like most of the blog but occasionally they go overboard. trying too hard. i like the tie pins, shoes and jeans mostly. but my eyes really get rolling when they are going on about men's purses and any man spending $100+ on a BAG TO CARRY. huge turn off.

now you've seen what i like.
next up. the deal breakers:

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

yes, i would most likely break up with someone over these shoes.

a few more hints and tips..
-if a company's main marketing strategy is "comfort" i would steer clear of that altogether.
-if you can go from the water, to work, to climbing a mountain in them, they are not going to look good. i promise.
-men should not be wearing flip-flops or sandals pretty much ever. maybe not even at the beach. but if you MUST own flip-flops, do not wear them in public. please, we don't want to see your toes.
-no one want's to see your socks either. so if you are wearing your jorts with your vans, buy some no-show low cut socks or skip the socks completely. those half-up-the-calf dingey "white" socks are just not ok.

so there you have it. my bossy-know-it-all compilation of acceptable men's shoes.
if i missed something that you prefer your man to wear let me know.

xo

some crap i bought..

2011-05-04T05:10:00.004-05:00

i bought these little matryoshka glasses at urban outfitters the other day.
i just love them!
they be saving some space in my cabinetz.
AND they were on sale.
win win win.

anyway, i just pulled them out of the box tonight and i got all excited. SO YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED TOO.

also, i would like everyone to know that for the first time in probably 10 years, i am able to hang up every piece of clothing that i own (not including items that are in my dressers drawers, of course, give me a break). after dumping probably $10,000 worth of clothes at the local thrift store, i have 6 hangers to spare. although i am not positive how those last 6 hangers ever fit in there in the first place. it is so jam-packed in my closet that i am still not quite 100% proud of myself yet. but this is major progress in "project get all this shit you don't need out of your house". i've been taking it really slow and tackling one area at a time. some things i've pondered:
why do i have so many fucking bars of soap? i don't even use bar soap. so why do people give it to me? gone.
washing your bed skirt is stupid and hard.
HAVING a bed skirt is stupid.
i need a bed frame that no longer requires me to have a bed skirt.
but where would i store my under-the-bed-boxes?
i need a new house with a bigger closet and a king size bed...

xo

he's dead..

2011-05-03T20:12:00.003-05:00

i can watch this all day..

i'm not too sure how i feel about all of this osama bin laden stuff.
i have more questions, like will the picture of the body be shown? why so quick with the burial at sea? is there video? and does killing this man who has most likely already been succeeded by worse men really help anything? and should anyone really be gathering anywhere chanting U.S.A. over this?

also, i am kinda annoyed that that MLK "quote" has gone around when it is not even a MLK quote. but it's kinda nice either way.

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." -unknown.

i am, however, happy that after nearly 10 years of nothing at all, the families of those who were killed on 9/11 have this slight revenge. it does not take away from what happened and it does not bring anyone back. and according to the FBI website, bin laden was not wanted for anything to do with 9/11. so.. like i said, i am still not sure how to feel about any of this. but it's something.

what i am sure about is our president got some swagger.

after the correspondence dinner, ripping into that fuck-tard donald trump and after walking out after addressing the country, i am certain of this swagger. i just wish he was still publicly smoking cigarettes. i will be interested to see how those approval ratings are doing in the coming weeks.

xo

@dadboner

2011-04-26T16:25:00.003-05:00

for those of you on twitter, you should be following @dadboner
street carnage posted about it today and i laughed my ass off. i am sure it is not real, but it is pretty good.
for those of you not twittering, you need to read these from bottom to top..

and

xo

please don't watch me dancing...

2011-04-25T01:04:00.003-05:00

i almost forgot how much i liked this until itunes reminded me.

little joy.
don't watch me dancing.

another one

also, today (or yesterday..SUNDAY) was day TWO HUNDRED of my 365 days project. i am trying really hard not to jinx myself and then forget to take one. I WOULD CRY, seriously CRY if i forgot this far into it. it is my third attempt and i am almost twice as far as i have ever been before. the way home.
this one is all being done from my iphone. so it gets HARD not to be able to set it down and use the timer. i am so over doing it and super bored and lacking any and all inspiration at this point. but i find that after hating it for a while, i get back to having fun with it so whatever. i just want to finish it. i don't give a shit if it is just of my big toe from here on out.

xo

some easter stuffs...

2011-04-24T00:47:00.003-05:00

my mom has made these cookies every year since..forever. i think next year i am going to have to make a special trip to help her decorate them like i did when i was a kid.

always too many desserts.

my mimi, my mom and my aunts.

my aunt lisa and my cousin travis.

cousin audrey. cousin dietrich. cousin jessica (she made these cute shorts herself!)

uncle randy, peaches and dietrich.

they made us hunt eggs. i said "but i am 30". this fact mattered to no one.
i ended up with $3.00 and some grape nerds.

i think they will punish us with egg hunting until someone gives in and pops a grandchild out.

my cousin audrey was in town and she brought several friends with her from baltimore. they kept telling me i needed to go visit them. i asked them how far it was from new york. they said "you would leave us and go to new york?".
...pretty much immediately. although the ghettos of baltimore would get a quick stop first. i want to meet everyone from the wire.

we went over to lustre pearl after. they have hula hoops and, of course, audrey and dietrich had to get down.

there was an annoying girl who was teaching everyone how to hula hoop. i was not sure if she worked there or was just a know-it-all type. then, amazingly, this random girl walked up and put her to shame. actually, she put everyone to shame. i am going to go get a hula hoop on my next day off and start practicing for my debut. so fun!

xo

in case you were wondering...

2011-04-21T07:32:00.003-05:00

i would just like to state for the official record that i do not give two fucks about the royal wedding.
i also cannot understand why anyone else would. so shut the hell up already, there is no need for america to care about this.
SHUT UP.
ugggggggggg..

xo

happy birthday to you...

2011-04-19T11:06:00.005-05:00

yesterday was my mother's birthday.
she is just the best person i know.
instead of going out to dinner in austin, we decided to go cook dinner at her house. i love her house and everyone else does too. you can sit on the porch and all you can see is nothing. there are fields of crops all around and you can only see houses far off in the distance. the moment you step into her house, you feel like you are home. no matter who you are.

it is always so windy out there, probably because nothing is around. i was out trying to take some pictures and i was giving everyone a free show. i was wearing this vintage dress i had reworked a while back. it used to be long-sleeved and floor length and come up to the neck. so i just took it apart and sewed it back together completely. but it is very flowy and it will blow up over my head. so my solution was to clothespin it into bunches so it would stay down. you cant take pictures while flashing your underpants to your grandmother. it is just not right. but this worked out very well. haha.

my mom and my uncle keith doing the jitterbug. all of my aunts and uncles and my mom have been going to the bar on saturday nights because it is disco night. the first i heard of it was yesterday so i will FOR SURE be joining them to check this out. if you knew my family, this would be hilarious to you. they all think they are comedians and they are not afraid to dance their asses off in public so it must be a sight to see.

my brother ian showing us how to model with your head turned. he said he heard it makes you look younger. i heard it makes you look homosexual. (not that there is anything wrong with that)

there were some hummingbirds out just before it got dark. it was hard to get a detailed picture of them because of the low light. but i still like these anyway.

the moon was full last night and it was really red when it was coming up. i am really bad at taking moon pictures and i get REALLY PISSED OFF when i cannot capture something the way i see it. but i didn't have my tripod and i was balancing my camera on the edge of the porch using my strap to hold it up. and i was smashed behind the porch swing, so it was even worse.

i posted these to facebook last night and my friend marcel's mom, madeleine (who lives in denver and is a very nice lady who i was friends with on facebook long before i even met her) posted a comment on the house picture and asked if it was in Elgin. i replied that it was technically in Coupland. (both are close to each other and both are very small towns just outside of austin). well it turns out that her friend patty owned my mother's house in the early 80's and madeleine would drop her eldest son (marcel's brother) off there for a few days a week while she worked at jeffrey's (restaurant in austin). my friend marcel has been to the house with me once to watch a meteor shower before and i just cannot believe how small the world is sometimes. so weird right?

i really love this story.

xo

mexican pointy boots...

2011-04-18T14:43:00.000-05:00

yesssssss

xo

a day at the rodeo..

2011-04-18T11:52:00.004-05:00

some pictures from the rodeo last month.
it seems i forgot to upload them.
oops.

george jones.

xo

bacon roses

2011-04-17T12:45:00.000-05:00

bacon roses

xo

well, since i'm up..

2011-04-16T06:18:00.004-05:00

i am pretty certain i am nearing the end of my three month stint working late night shifts. hopefully next week will be my last week of it. i am only doing two shifts a week but, as you can imagine, it really throws my schedule off. for example, i worked late night (11pm-7am) wednesday and thursday. when i got home friday morning i tried really hard to go to sleep but i couldn't. this is probably due to my almost oversleeping for my thursday night shift. i woke up at 10:20pm after a nap. i thought that i was supposed to go to my grandmother's house yesterday at 6:00pm for our little easter get-together. my mom said "friday" instead of "next friday" and since i don't have a clue when easter actually is, you can see how i might have been confused. but since i thought it was yesterday, i decided to just stay up and go to bed after it was over. i spent the day tanning in the back yard (i am getting pretty dark already!) and playing games on twitter with street carnage (replace tv shows with boner) (more on this below). so around 4:30pm it was brought to my attention that it was NEXT week. fuckandshit. so i went ahead and passed out. i woke up at 2:30am and here i am, up at 7:00am. it looks like my day tomorrow will probably be pretty effed too.

god, that was long and boring. anyway.
since i am up, i will go ahead and ramble on about nothing..

-have you guys heard about taco bell testing taco shells made out of doritos?
i've never been a fan of nacho cheese doritos (cool ranch is wayyy better) and i don't really ever go to taco bell and i don't eat meat so i am not really sure these tacos are for me. but, i still think this is the best, high-as-a-kite, invention ever. EVER. thanks ~~mexico~~ america!

-monday is my mother's birthday. we are going to go out to her house and cook dinner and hang out. i really want to get her something awesome and cool and fairly inexpensive. i pretty much only have tomorrow (er today..saturday) to get it together but i have no idea. i need help. does anyone have any ideas that do not include the internet or shipping something?

-i was at the bar the other night and my friend tsouni had this really cool necklace on. it was a cast of a mouse pelvis in silver. she pointed me toward erica weiner. all of her stuff is super creative and amazing. i especially like the letterpress necklace, the stag necklace, the feather necklace and the raptor talon necklace (OMG)

seriously, i have never seen such a unique collection of awesome stuff in my life. i need money. for real. i will probably be sending this link to everyone come september, when people are obligated to buy me things for my birthday. but until then, i will just have to wish for them to arrive on my doorstep.

-i posted a video a while back of my friends jodi and emily who do the drunk dial internet tv show. well, they have 12 days left on their kickstarter and if you are so inclined, send them a couple of dollars. you can get some awesome stuff like koozies and shirts. i am poor so i sent them $10 which gets me a koozie. they are hilarious and i am ready for season two.

*my best "replace tv shows with boner" entries:

queer boner for the straight guy.
dog the boner hunter.
two and a half boners.
everybody loves boner.
friday night boners.
extreme makeover: boner edition.
this old boner.

yeah, i am kinda like a 13 year old boy when it comes to humor. SO WHAT?? boner.

so this post is quite the hodgepodge but whatever.
you know what to expect from me.
now i am off to nap before i lay out some more. i am only half sunburned so i have to get the other side this afternoon. addicted.

xo

george michael!

2011-04-15T08:40:00.003-05:00

so i was working my late night shift last night just minding my own business and guess who walks in?
michael cera! (did the photo give it away?)
he came in with a girl who comes in several times a week. i was up near the host stand so i greeted and seated them and told him that i had seen him in denton a few weeks ago. he said "oh yeah?, i like the way you say that" he was talking about the way i say denton. i say it like a valley girl from the jersey shore or something, i don't know, i can't help it. it comes out like "deh-EN". it was pretty cool.
what was NOT cool was how everyone was acting in there about it. people going up to him while he was eating and asking for pictures and this one guy who i will call "the most obvious guy ever" was even taking FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY from across the restaurant. really guys? i know he is famous and everyone loves him but give him a break! he is just trying to eat. i was pretty embarrassed. but i know the girl because she comes in so often and she is really nice. hopefully they will forgive everyone for being so rude. maybe he is used to it. maybe this was nothing compared to being in LA. who knows.
it was still pretty cool though!
i kinda want a frozen banana right now.

xo

one piece, extra crispy, original recipe..

2011-04-13T00:53:00.003-05:00

i haven't been feeling very well for the past few days. either i have a three day hangover (unlikely) or i have been sick since sunday. i mustered up the energy to go lay in the sun today because it was so beautiful out. i actually got a nice little sunburn. my skin is pretty dark so it probably wont be around by tomorrow. laying out in my backyard is one of my favorite lazy things to do. i make myself a big glass of hibiscus tea with lots of lime and ice. get my headphones and, if it is hot enough, turn on the mister. but i realized today that i hate all of my swimsuits. all of them. i am a one-piece kinda girl because i have ~~some junk in the trunk~~ a beer gut. so tonight i stopped into the old navy by my house. i really don't care for old navy and i REALLY dont care for their swimsuits because they usually go up so high on the sides it looks like you are on fucking baywatch or something. very 90's. they also usually go really low in the back and then the straps fall off and then my tits are way more likely to make an unscheduled appearance.
but tonight i found a really cute one.

it was the last of its kind, hanging all by its lonesome. and it was in my size. the stripes are dark grey and it is very flattering. it looks more high end than the normal gold shit they try to hawk. and for $30 i am really glad i stopped in to get it. i am sitting on my couch right now wearing it. the only thing i am not 100% on is the metal gathering thingy in the middle. other than that, it's probably my favorite swimsuit i have owned since i was a kid and it was acceptable to wear something hot pink with a ruffled skirt.

so, yeah, i just wanted to share my excitement.
goodnyquil
xo

this is why i keep the internet around...

2011-04-11T23:48:00.001-05:00

i am too old for this shit...

2011-04-10T09:28:00.005-05:00

motherFUCKER.

i cannot go out and have a few drinks without waking up after three hours of sleep WIDE AWAKE.
this problem only gets worse as i get older. i think it is my body telling me that i am too old for shots. and, quite literally, it is my body telling me that i am about to die from dehydration. so, i wake up at 7:00am on the dot, have a huge glass of water and now i am just sitting here. thinking.

here are some of my hungover thoughts as a lay here...

-paul newman was the hottest man that ever lived. and i need to re-watch butch cassidy and the sundance kid soon. seriously, the hottest. i got even more distracted from sleep just google image searching him.

-it is way past the time for me to get a new tattoo. a girl at work is giving them out on the cheap to EVERYONE. i haven't decided on anything to get from her yet but i am thinking just something small and simple until i can get that big stag on my arm.

-i ~~accidentally~~ downloaded the new fleet foxes record two days ago and it has been consuming my life since. i kinda feel bad for getting it early but i have preordered the LP so that pretty much cancels all of those feelings. i would really like to see them live. they are playing at stubbs on may 10th, but guess what? that is sold out and i doubt i will be able to work my magic on that one.

-and since it is spring, i need to plant something in my sad, terrible, pathetic back yard. right now we have some ambitious larkspurs, poppies and sunflowers growing in random spots among the dirt and ruins. i honestly do not know how the hell they got there. i think the neighbor throws seeds out into our yard occasionally because it is so tragic. either way, they are pretty and i am glad they are around. i am thinking of sprucing up my little herb garden from last year, that has since died a slow and painful death. there is no reason i should be paying $3.00 for a 1/100th of an ounce of fresh mint (see below) when that type of thing grows so easily.

-the last two nights i have been mixing up moscow mules for myself. they are SO good. during sxsw, we went to the tigress on north loop. they serve fancy drinks and i asked the bartender for whatever he thought was the best. if you have not tried one, you need to get on it ASAP. here is the recipe, it is super easy and as long as you keep a supply of ginger beer and vodka, you should be able to make them anytime.

-vodka (however much you want)
-simple syrup (sugar water, sheesh, google it) more or less depending on how sweet you want it.
-ice
-about 2/3 of your cup will be ginger beer. (i used the gosling's brand for obvious reasons, ahem, ryan gosling..) you can get this at your local liquor store and sometimes at your grocery store, depending on how fancy they are. it's non-alcoholic so check the juice or soda isle.
-fresh mint, a couple of leaves.
-and a good shot of lime juice. i like my drinks pretty limey so i probably use more than most people would.

you are supposed to drink it out of a copper mug. i have no idea why and i certainly do not own one, but i am thinking of getting one just in case it makes the drink more amazing. but, you will be just fine drinking it out of a glass or your favorite 164 ounce gas station mug.

and just because i am hungover does not mean that these will destroy you. i am clearly unable to exercise any restraint when it comes to vodka. plus i added two shots of jameson and three high-lifes after i already had two giant glasses of this so, you know..just don't do THAT.

anyway, i am going to give this sleeping thing another try.

xo

favorite.

2011-04-06T03:30:00.003-05:00

true love will find you in the end
you'll find out just who was your friend
don't be sad, i know you will
but dont give up until
true love will find you in the end
this is a promise with a catch
only if you're looking can it find you
cause true love is searching too
but how can it recognize you
unless you step out into the light?
don't be sad, i know you will
but don't give up until
true love will find you in the end

xo

you do NOT wanna FUCK with me...

2011-04-05T06:52:00.002-05:00

i am up earlier than i have been in months.
today i will spend 9 hours learning about food safety in some classroom by the airport.
a day this glorious only comes around every five years for me.
meaning it has been that long since the last time i had to take this class.
i will attempt to contain my excitement.
eye rolls.

so i was off on sunday and i turned on the tv and celebrity apprentice was on. i happened to catch the most amazing thing i have ever seen in my life. meatloaf flipping out on gary busey over some crafting paint.
seriously. flipping out.
really.

has anything this amazing ever been on tv before?
CRAFTING PAINT??

do not FUCK with anyone's crafting paint.
who doesn't know that?

xo

grown ocean..

2011-04-05T00:22:00.004-05:00

may 3rd cannot come any sooner.

fleet foxes:
grown ocean.

xo

skull eyes

2011-04-04T14:01:00.003-05:00

check out the video for true widow: skull eyes
(it wont let me embed it on here for some reason so you can see it on pitchfork)

i saw these guys last year (at a very different time in my life) at the beauty bar and dan even stayed at my house.
he is an incredibly talented artist and furniture maker with an awesome country accent. i am really into this song and the video is great! good for them.

xo

also...

2011-04-03T02:36:00.000-05:00

i made some new buttons over there --->

click them.

xo

these guys again...

2011-04-03T01:52:00.000-05:00

my kids are pretty cute.

xo

take what you must, take what you must...

2011-03-30T06:27:00.003-05:00

one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite singer/songwriters that there ever was.

patty griffin.
moon song.

followed your road till the sky ran out
followed your love till love was in doubt
followed your love till it never really was at all

feeling stupid and hollow
now the moon's gonna follow me home

waited for you till the snow fell down
over my skin like a thin nightgown
waited for you to never came around at all
waited for you till they pulled the plug
bartender emptied out his big tip jug
they swept all the floors
vacuumed the rugs and went home

drank all i can swallow
now the moon's gonna follow me home

time go easy on me tonight
i'm one of the lost sheep alright
take what you must
take what you must
of what i've lost as i have roamed
and let the moon follow me home

followed your tears with a washing pail
followed your story followed your tale
followed you straight through the doors of your jail cell too
followed your voice in the darkness soft
a wind came through and carried it off
followed your love till it never really was at all

drank all i could swallow
now the moon's gonna follow me home

drank all i could swallow
now the moon's gonna follow me home

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

i've literally been up all night going through my closet, ridding my life of things.
clearing a place for me to live a simple life without so much SHIT.
i plan on doing this in several areas of my life, actually.
all i ever want are things to be simple and easy for me.
so i am going to take a crack at this again.
i always seem to get so bogged down with everything.
but it is coming really easy for me right now.
so i am going with it and clearing a good path.

xo

obsessed.

2011-03-23T18:39:00.001-05:00

too bad i missed these guys at sxsw.

odd future (OFWGKTA)
tyler, the creator.
yonkers.

xo

beautiful tornado..

2011-03-23T05:00:00.001-05:00

i could watch this for hours.
if you click the little red speech bubble at the bottom, it turns off the annoying added grey speech bubbles to the video..

xo

undercity..

2011-03-23T04:38:00.002-05:00

this is pretty awesome.

xo

the best day. the best day ever..

2011-03-19T18:46:00.004-05:00

yesterday i was off work and ready to do some SXSWesting. i really wanted to go see gayngs again since justin vernon was playing with them but it was badges and wrist bands only..totes bummed. so instead i saw my friend marc's band play down the road at a leather, gay bar (another story). after the show we all decided to head back over to northloop for some fancy drinks. as i was walking back to my car i passed lustre pearl where gayngs was playing. i could hear them and as i got closer i could see them. i picked a prime spot to watch them through the fence. at first i thought this was a real low point in my life, watching a band through a fence but actually i was pretty damn close. closer than most people inside. sadly since it was through a fence i could only enjoy it with one eye-ball at a time. there were other people around too, so i didn't feel as loserish. i got to hear them play five or six songs before they were done. i decided to head back to my car when i saw the entire band walk out into the alley right next to where i was standing. justin was sorta by himself, putting his guitar in a case when i decided to go for it. i walked up to him and asked to take a picture with him. after the picture we chatted a bit about how he was my very favorite and he assured me that watching through the fence was just as good. you could not wipe the smile off of my face the rest of the night. this made my whole sxsw and maybe my top-10 best things that ever happened. i LOVE HIM. for reals. and i think i deserve a pat on the back for not saying "i saw your brother at the noodle place." yessssss.

blurry but i find it charming. (i wonder why)
actually...they are all blurry. tevs! it was through the fence, so get over it.

michael noyce

when dinosaurs ruled the earth:

george and marc.

and that is it. that is all i need. i am staying home today.
see ya later sxsw.

xo

guilty dog..

2011-03-18T07:43:00.003-05:00

i think this video is hilarious!! my dog is the guiltiest dog ever. when i come home he will not even greet me at the door if he has done something to be ashamed of. he just looks at me with the saddest face and walked into my bedroom and lays down on the bed. also, my dog is named denver too! (this video is not of my dog, but it very well could be)

xo

nx35...

2011-03-14T23:40:00.003-05:00

i got home from denton this afternoon and boy oh boy do i have a lot to say.
but i am super tired so i will keep it short and sweet. (<---update, this is a lie)

the festival was totally awesome. it was really low key and far fewer people attended than i thought. denton is fairly small compared to its neighbors dallas and fort worth and the square downtown is so super cute. it has a clocktower in the middle of the block and you can buy beer and WALK AROUND with it. you can also smoke cigs anywhere. anywhere. the square is lined with little antique shops, restaurants, bars and record/book stores. it has a small town vibe but the people are all very modern-hipsterish-but-not-annoying types. another added bonus: every single place i have eaten there has been so amazingly delicious.

thursday night we stayed in and chilled with some burritos and beer. i had worked late night shifts the two previous nights so i was adjusting my sleep schedule back to normal.
they have a really nice yard and back porch with beautiful trees. when i visited last time they were beautiful reds and yellows and now they are covered in white flowers. i love love them and i want one.

friday night we went over to see mr. heavenly (michael cera's band). it was kind of sad that everyone was flocked over to the right side of the stage to take pictures of him, basically ignoring the rest of the band. sadly, i was one of them but i don't care because I LOVE MICHAEL CERA!

denver came with me and only escaped out of the yard once! there was a hole in the fence hidden by bushes and trees that had gone unnoticed before. could you image me losing him in another city?! after he pulled that stunt i had to hover over him for every shit and piss after that. every step toward the back of the yard had me hollering "deeennnver!" poor guy, had his mom ruining his whole vacation.

cupcake ice cream waffle conez.

saturday we saw local natives on the main stage.

each night there were other bands playing scattered around at the bars around the square but none were anything to write home about. one was in the basement of a pizza place. yes, pizza places have basements. the band was so loud that i literally could feel it vibrating between my ass cheeks. yes, i just said that.

sunday night was big boi.

aaaaand gayngs played sunday night! it was so good and worth the wait. they were the very last 1:00am show on sunday night and the thing i was most excited for. before we saw big boi we were eating at the noodle bowl place called ramen republic (soo good) and my super duper big crush walked in the door aka: justin vernon's brother nate (justin vernon=bon iver). i played it cool and tried not to stare. so later after the gayngs show he was working the merch table and i went to go get a shirt and their album on vinyl. i was planning on asking him to go steady but instead i said "i saw you at the noodle place." that's right. i said "i saw you at the noodle place." that sentence pretty much sums up my mackin skillz. sigh. oh well. maybe next time i will come up with something a little more clever.

har mar superstar filling in for justin vernon in gayngs. they were SO GOOD. i loved it!

...ok, so trying to get this 6 minute video onto youtube is taking upwards of two hours so FUCK IT, i will post it later. goodnight lovers.

glad to be home.

xo

home depot??

2011-03-09T21:37:00.003-06:00

some ASSHOLE got my debit card number and was charging shit all over the damn country all morning. all at home depot i might add. luckily bank of america shut that shit down right away and put the money back before i knew it was missing.
but this mother fucker is causing me drama still because i am leaving to go out of town in the morning (to denton for the festival). and i didn't wake up until 4:00pm since i worked late night last night and the bank lobbys were all closed. so i have to wait until i get to denton to get a new debit card and now my money is froze up and shit. i guess it could be worse but it is just annoying.
but in a way, i feel a little more like an adult now that i have had this happen. but the other part of me wants to hunt down whoever did this and make them pay. i also would like to know how exactly this happened. i pretty much go to the same three gas stations and the same places to shop. i went to this different gas station in north austin yesterday so maybe that is where it went down. should i go give that cashier an ass-whoopin just in case? i will let you know what i decide.
assholes!

xo