I'm In Love!

From the Sunday Times:

Recent posts on Style Rookie include a photo shoot of vintage clothes and masks that has a hazy, suburban-wasteland quality; a selection of thrift-store buys; a chart dissecting last season’s Blumarine collection pointing out references to Christopher Kane and Comme des Garçons; and catchy headlines like ‘‘I Take on Resort 2009.’’ It’s a well-rounded selection for a fashion-related blog: thoughtful critique, cool outfits, funny pop-culture musings. Not bad for a 12-year-old.

Tavi's blog is so wonderful! She's a fine writer and an incredible stylist! Check out this "Geek" photo shoot she did with her friend. AMAZING!

Tavi, your blog makes me feel happy and inspired and hopeful. I hope my kids turn out as confident in their creativity -- at least there will be a ton of vintage in my closet for their repurposing purposes.

Barnard-Stokes Heresy

I've mentioned before how much I simultaneously love and am stirred up by Postcards From Yo Momma.

Surfing it today, I was suddenly seized by the idea that what if my mom were somehow elsewhere sending some other, nicer girl mom-emails that I would inadvertently find on this site?

I see her in the mirror more and more, in the ever-softening tricep, in the crazed glossy look I have in some photographs. And like her, here I am, in a null job, simmering and squandering. Infinitely better off, infinitely happier, but still -- It would be so nice to tell her all the things I understand so differently now, but would it even be possible, were she to come back to me? I think it's only her absence that makes it possible to murmur I'm sorry, I get it, I love you. I know. Her absence hurls my freed heart at the stubborn sternum, pounding against a door that will never open.

New Awesome Website

While I was obsessively checking the Agent Provocateur website to find when my new half-price underwears would be "despatched", I came across HumaneMyth.Org . People who care and go to the trouble of searching out labels like "cage free" or "humane care certified" have the right to know whether or not those labels actually mean anything. Most people want to "do the right thing" and want to treat animals humanely -- this site provides ample material for people to figure out what it is to do so, including but not limited to moving accounts by people on how they were transformed by their experiences working with animals. Here's an excerpt from former goat farmer Cheri Ezell-Vandersluiss' story (she seems like such a great woman!):

But we later witnessed the deaths of some of our baby goats, and that finished the process of altering our life course. We watched in horror when a goat was roughly held in preparation for his throat to be cut. He cried out with such terror, and then the knife quickly crossed his neck. It was not an instant death. The struggle went on for twenty or thirty seconds, but it seemed like an eternity.

So yes, you can raise them and have them graze in green fields of grass and brush them every day, but when you ultimately put them in someone's truck or on a livestock trailer, and they go to be slaughtered, I don't care if you say a prayer before they're slaughtered or if you simply send them into the slaughterhouse. Their throats are still slit. They feel pain. They gasp for air. I can't imagine what goes through their minds. If you look into their eyes you can see the fear, and the abandonment. You've loved this animal, and then you've sent them off to this horrible death. So I can't imagine "humane" and farming going together for raising any sentient being. The words just don't go together for me.

Jim and I have since left the dairy industry and converted our farm into a sanctuary for farmed animals, wildlife, and companion animals. Now when I go to the grocery store, I have such a hard time going by the meat department. It sounds strange because I used to shop in the meat department like everyone else. And now I have a hard time even looking. I see people going over and selecting their cuts of meat, and I want to take them by the hand and explain to them that this came from a living being who had feelings just like all of us. That meat came from a cow who had babies, had a family--or tried to have a family. I want people to understand these are sentient beings who, if left to their own devices, have a real bond with their own kind, and with us humans too, if allowed to. And yet I see people picking up the slabs of meat, and they have no concept of where that meat came from or how that animal suffered when he or she was slaughtered. It's not their fault. It's just the way of life society teaches us, the way of life I was taught before my own experiences led me down another path.

Open Letter To Some People

Do not ride your bike on the fucking sidewalk. In particular, do not ride your bike while walking your dog on the sidewalk, thereby occupying the entire span of the sidewalk with your deep seated need to be Holly GoDouchely. Wheels = Street, Sidewalk = Feet.

Having a dog makes me so much more careful than I used to be, and so much angrier at the carelessness of others. People who do not stop at fucking stop signs make me insane. Oh I’m sorry, Mrs. Giant Yukon SUV! I am sure you are on your way to Princeton Plainsboro to perform that heart transplant so that’s gotta be Dr. House you are gabbing with on the cell phone, telling him how to save lives! No wonder you are barreling through the stop sign at Monitor and Henry at 5:30 am – and who am I to criticize you for not putting on your signal – CLEARLY Dr. House needed to be reminded that the heart bone IS INDEED connected to the other heart bone, my bad!

Oooh, look! A total BADASS was here, clearly, leaving that broken glass all over the sidewalk. Rock And Fucking Roll! Guess what, my dog has to walk barefoot on the fucking sidewalk, asshole. Iggy Pop wasn’t on PetFinder (didn’t wanna be MY dog, apparently) or it would have been totally rad -- but now you must clean up after yourself.

Last night Trey and I took Sir Specialness to McGolrick Park. We were north of Meeker when Sir S. lurched into a crazy hopping gait, forcing us to scramble across Driggs where he started frantically biting at his back left paw. Instantly I knew he’d stepped on something sharp and sat to grasp the paw, Trey securing his collar from behind. My finger brushed the splinter of glass and came away bloody. Sir S. was trying to reach around to deal with it but I knew he’d get glass in his tongue or throat and so I had to get it out first. I thought of asking if a bodega had tweezers or something, and then realized that I used my teeth all the time to pluck stray hairs off of my poor husband. So I put his paw up to my mouth and nibbled at the splinter (is there dog AIDS? Too late!) but no luck. I spit the dog blood out, tried again with my finger and this time slid it out. Sir S. stopped twitching, Trey released his collar and he trotted on towards the run, good as new.

In short: I am the person who will suck out snake venom if you get bit, will kick your ass if I see you breaking glass on the street, and orders the HeartGuard gimlet, straight up, pretty please.