light at the beginning

today isn't the end. it's friday. tomorrow isn't the beginning. it's saturday.

but in the spirit of new years, i will say i had a busy 2010.

i moved from charlotte back to asheville with my love.

holden killed himself. i didn't kill myself. it wasn't as hard as i anticipated. it never is.

my business was dissolved, and i started a new one.

i went to new york a couple times, and to florida a couple times, and to charleston, and to colorado. i hiked a lot. i swam in a mountain waterfall.

i became an aunt. to the cutest happiest little monkey in the world.

i didn't see as much live music as i would like, though i did see neil young and bob dylan and that might be enough right there.

i made my goal and posted more times here than i did in 2009.

i watched a lot of dog whisperer. keep moving forward is the secret. be calm and assertive. and move forward.

whatever you are doing tonight and tomorrow and the rest of your life, i hope you find peace and warmth and good people to share your time with. here's to positive momentum - cheers!

dirty dripping roofcicle

i know it looks like a chamber pot chair. (which my MOM used to have in our family room as a planter. antique one. probably still has it in the house but i can't picture where.)

316 crestwood road in the snow

got a foot of snow in asheville starting on christmas day. it turned into a blizzard and headed northeast. i hope everybody is safe and warm and has power, heat, and water. 

here's where i lived 30 years ago when it was covered in snow. santa used to go there. there was a bunch of kids my age in the neighborhood. it was sweet. good old warwick rhode island.

eli as he was in the cell in his mother's womb

i believe this to be true.

christmas squirrel marshmallow world

murray christmas

i think the cleveland show is pretty damn funny. rollo reminds me of holden (RIP). i love how cleveland pronounces merry and marry like "murray."
i can't stop saying it that way.

MURRAY CHRISTMAS!

when parents text

this is the funniest site i have seen in years.

http://whenparentstext.com/

parents texting with their children.

por ejemplos:

FLASH

Dad: ill send you a FLASH tomorrow

Me: What’s a flash?

Dad: this thing that goes FLASH on the phone

Me: It’s a text, thanks.

*****

PROFILE PIC

Mom: Proud day for you! I changed my facebook picture

Me: to what?

Mom: Gummy bears. LOL!

holiday advice from charles-pierre baudelaire

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"

-Charles-Pierre Baudelaire

wine country

it's noon on a saturday.

you're in an SUV limo with 15 people you just met, going from winery to winery in temecula, california.

you start making out with one of the people in the back seat.

this is the reaction.

my dream

when i think of the most perfect moment i could ever live through, this is it.

shine on

no more tiles in the bag, and this is the message the scrabble gods sent me last night.

here's a video of john cruz singing his song of the same name.

The morning sun comes through the window on your hair
I find your love & spirit everywhere
I may not have that much to give in material things
But what i have is this song & to you i sing

Shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn
Shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn

All night long i wait for you and you're finally there
I'm amazed at the loving that we both have shared
I may not have that much to give in material things
But what i have i give to you so freely

Shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn
Shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn.

All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire

Well, the morning sun comes through the window on your hair
I awake to find your spirit everywhere
I know i may not have that much to give in material things
But what i have i give to you so freely

So, shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn
Shine on, shine on just let your light fill up this world til' dawn

All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire

nachodoggy

i decided i was being mean to people i don't know on here today, and deleted the posts about zuckerman's hands and donald trump television and here is a picture of nacho's gullet.

television

oh to be like nacho and have a brain the size of a walnut, fresh snuggies to drool on, and an everwagging tail...

i spent the majority of my adult life without a tv. which meant that i spent a lot of time online. i missed having a tv during college basketball season and that's it.

in the past couple years, the situation has changed, definitely for the better, and now there is a big screen tv in the family room and i spend a couple hours every night in front of it.

i thought it was supposed to be relaxing and turn people into unthinking zoned-out zombies. instead i often find myself anxious and yelling at the screen and hating humanity.

i love the show pawn stars. i love the real emotion and hope and validation non-actors get in selling their treasures.

i love watching sports on tv. i hate the announcers. we turn on woody durham on the radio and sync it to the tv during carolina basketball. i learn so much more about the teams that way - radio announcers kick ass. tv announcers blow hard.

last night for example the following shows stressed me out:

cash cab - while i love the true emotion of non-actors (again) i am anxious while watching it imagining if i'd been in the cab and didn't know the answers

millionaire matchmaker - the plastic surgery and shallowness was overwhelming. completely. and the loneliness. egos. delusions. uggghhh.

even the golf channel, which you would think would lull a person to peaceful rest, had a show about how donald trump strong-armed his way into polluting the northeast coast of scotland with his 'biggest' and 'best' and 'most lavish' golf course that he's building in the dunes there. he is an ass. if he wanted to appreciate the dunes and let people enjoy walking through them, he could've created a park instead of a multi-million dollar exclusive golf course in the beautiful fragile ecosystem. now if you want to walk in those dunes you'll have to pay exorbitant greens fees. and half your month's salary to stay at the fake garish castle he's renovating. america, fuck yeah!

so i guess i should just stick with pawn stars, house hunters, and unc basketball with the volume off.

skedaddling

highlights of the past week include:

- tea and crumpets (okay coffee and chocolate) with friends and their chubby babies

- a chubby 1 year old who slaps his legs instead of clapping

- a chubby 1 year old who tumbled gracefully head first into a diaper pail and didn't even cry

- corn pudding and collared greens from 12 bones

- for 4 meals in a row

- behind the scenes after hours tour of a fantastic brewery in the woods with fun friends old and new

- lap sitting in the back of a cab down the interstate

- finding a stray lace thong at our house after a party, for the second party in a row

- finger painting a mannequin flesh color

- sub-zero wind chills forcing me to stay inside

- for 4 days in a row

million dollar soup bowl idea

i would love to have soup bowls with spouts. then i could drink the soup dregs straight out of the bowl without spilling on myself or needing a bib.

you are free to take this idea and run, just please send me one.

dusting porch

welp it's snowing in asheville. it hasn't stopped snowing in asheville since last friday. no real accumulation over an inch, just icy super windy winter shit. it's so cold in the basement the olive oil froze. i put olive oil on the dogs' food as gravy and it was caked frozen onto the sides this morning. i'm so ready for april.

selling vintage clothes

i am so excited to be selling vintage clothes online again.

i love everything about this job.

i love finding the clothes at goodwill. i think of it as treasure hunting and 'saving' them.

i love taking pictures of the clothes.

i love photoshopping people's heads on the mannequin.

i love getting them to people who will love to wear them. it feels good to wear your favorite clothes!

i started a store on etsy, as opposed to ebay or starting a site of my own. the fees are reasonable, i like how it looks, it's simple to add new shirts, they allow buyers to pay with checks, money orders, and cash, not just paypal, and they have a 'vacation mode' where i can close the shop for any amount of time and go away.

the top shelf from vintage vantage will eventually be listed in the etsy shop. as soon as the boxes arrive and i can list them.

i love working!

here's a link to the shop - skippy haha vintage on etsy

eating while driving

Faster Food, originally uploaded by FaceMePLS.

i started a group on flickr called "Eating while Driving" and there are 25 pictures added already from people all over the globe.

click to see: Eating while Driving

apple cider vinegar

i think apple cider vinegar is a miracle elixir.

i had a sore throat swollen gland the size of a golf ball and achy feeling starting wednesday night. i drank apple cider vinegar yesterday and today my throat is 95% perfect.

1-2 Tablespoons raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar
squeeze of honey
cup of hot water
mix and drink 2-4 times a day

as soon as i start to feel even the slightest twinge of getting sick i do this.

eat as much garlic (raw) as i can, along with local raw honey, ginger, and lemons. all day long i drink combinations of these 4 things mixed with hot water.

yesterday i got chicken noodle soup and added a few cloves of chopped raw garlic.

i squeeze lemon on everything.

i dip a q-tip in rubbing alcohol and clean my ears.

i haven't had a full blown cold or flu in 3 years. knock on wood. i get the swollen glands and kill the bugs with apple cider vinegar, and feel better in a day.

acv will also remove a wart. dip a q-tip in acv, cut off the end of the qtip and put it on the wart and cover it with a bandaid. air it out when you sleep, replace with a new acv qtip tip in the morning. within 3 days the wart will turn black. within a week it will fall off like a scab. poof! gone!

asheville beat tape vol. 1 from skew records

press release from skew records:

In a clearing surrounded by mountains a distinctive sound rings out. This sound is the imaginative echo of the Asheville electronic music scene. It's a sound that has been growing rapidly within this mountain community, where an ever-growing artist population constantly pushes the variety of musical production through the envelope.

The idea for an Asheville Beat Tape came from Nigel One, a long-time DJ and producer who has been involved in Asheville's electronic music scene since the early 2000's. Soon after joining forces with Skew Records, Nigel decided to spearhead the idea of bringing some of the surrounding talent together to form an Asheville Beat Tape. After a month's time, Nigel had collected a multitude of tracks from area producers, and brought on Skew producers Peripheral and DM Stair to help artfully and seamlessly arrange the tracks into order. The result is a 45-minute mix of inspiring production and composition styles.

The Beat Tape consists of a variety of artists such as Two Fresh, Moving Temple, Mother Hood of RBTS WIN, Peripheral, DJ Bowie, DM Stair, and Mingle of Paper Tiger, all performers at Moogfest this past Halloween weekend. Other producers include Nigel One, Marley Carroll of Melanaster Records, Bookworm and Jables from Labcoat, SYS-HEX, d:Raf, KimathiM, Wuchinow, and ProFlogik of Skew Records.

Nigel One and the collective of area producers have started accepting entries for Volume 2, which will include other artists that did not appear on Volume 1. Stay tuned this winter for more information on mix tape and individual artist releases from Skew Records.

 

Asheville Beat Tape Vol. 1 by Skew Records

download or stream and pretty soon you will be dancing like this -

nacho's first day - july 2003

how did i not eat him?