dames

i really enjoy the vintage ad artwork by c. gesmar. his work mostly was really cool 'portraits' of headlining women at the moulin rouge in paris from about 1918 through the 1930s. i have 'doriane' as pictured below hung in my room as a wonderfully oversized piece above my night stand and i would like to get her some friends from gesmar's body of work.

isn't she a beaute? in addition to getting her some friends of her own genre, i was thinking it might be cool to hang a few vintage budoir shots near by to juxtapose the fantasy with the reality. i found these broads, pictured below, online and was thinking of having them printed and framed to keep the watercolor ladies company.


and then who doesn't want a vintage pic of a kid in a paper moon with a gun?


thoughts?

gimme!!!!

so, i need a few things to get ready for fall. among them are the following items. if anyone out there in cyberworld wants to get me presents, start with these- thanks and please.

fitted plaid shirt with military styling

great v-neck sweater

super soft blue zip front hoodie

super cool black vintage looking belt

embarrassed to admit

ok, so i am embarrassed to admit it, but i really want a pair of high top sneakers. ya know? like all the kids are wearing these days. i know i could rock the look. but i can't help but feel weird about having something in common with justin beiber. although i will go up in my 9 year old neice's estimation for having anything to do with justin beiber, beiber fever, or beiberesqueness.
in any event, i will be shopping for these presently and will own a pair soon. as for now, i am in eenie meenie miney mo love with all of the following.

i feel fall about to happen.

i feel fall about to happen. the air is changing. the length and quality of daylight is changing. what's next are the leaves gonna change colors and fall from the trees?! oh, wait. that is what happens next. anyway. i am both sad to see summer go because i love it and it was a pretty good summer for me. and for that part of myself, i offer the pool below. isn't it delightful? i just wanna be there always. perhaps sitting poolside with jay gatsby and daisy in a world so perfect even its imperfections are romantic and intriguing.


but i am equally happy to see fall come because it is my most favorite season. a lot of people think of spring as the season of rebirth and new beginnings. i think of fall in this way. its sort of like wiping the slate clean and starting over. and the clothes. can we even talk about the clothes? that's the best part. layers are my fav and this is where it all begins. and for that part of myself i offer this prada camel trench. bliss. although the sleeves need serious tailoring.
anyway, enjoy.

its almost like being awake.

so i can't sleep tonight. i've tried everything. its just not in the cards. but its not like i'm functioning and fully awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed. i'm just not asleep. which is even more rage-enducing. at least if i was unable to sleep because i was doing some great thinking or reorganizing my whole wardrobe i'd feel productive. but i'm just not asleep.
the best way i can describe this type of awake is that it is sort of like having a muscle spasm in my brain. i lay here waiting for sleep to come and just as it arrives =zz= my brain reactivates with nothing special to think about or remind me to do. it just won't shut down for the night.
so now i have propped myself up and decided its time to make this unrest productive by thinking and blogging about the following:
so, lately i feel i've been standing on the presupice of something great. i'm not sure what it is but i'm preparing myself. things are just lining up in an oddly neat manner and it seems they must be pointing toward something.
change of topic. this will be left vague, but i have a feeling two of my friends will be able to read this cryptic type and understand as if they were in my head thinking this for themselves. it is no secret that i am a person who does not hide or mask my feelings or emotions. this can be good and bad. but one thing i learned during my parents divorce was that it does no one any goood to lie or or disguise truth. and that is a direct comment on having strong and open lines of communication in every relationship you value - family, partner, friend, co-worker. no matter. i also learned that its not a good thing to eat doritos and sit on the couch while my parents were divorcing, but those 75 pounds will be discussed another time. ok- so, sometimes things happen in life that you know will lead to inexplicable amounts of happiness in the future. you may not know the date said happiness will begin or even a ball park estimate, but you know it will be. i've got that right now. and that constant knowledge of forthcoming happiness is awesome. however it comes at the price of knowing there will be considerable challenge and pain to achieve the happiness; as with all good things there is a price to pay. at present, there is a hint of that pain sort of constantly nagging at me, letting me know its gonna happen. it's like a bad joint. it hurts, you get used to living with that pain at all times so much so you almost don't notice it anymore but at least once a day you feel it full out and it steals your breath. thats where i'm at right now. even though i haven't really met even one big painful obstacle yet, i can feel it a little bit all the time. but the pain is sort of good. it makes me know i'm feeling - i can feel it. which is good because if you can feel the pain then you can feel all the good as well. and the best part is at least once a day i get a little shot of the delight that opposes the pain. and that little taste is enough to make the pain worth dealing with. so i've come to love the pain. it's a reminder of the delight that relieves it.
and the best part is i know - i don't know how i know, but i know- that the delight will eventually be the norm. i have total faith in this and it makes everyday a little better.
so with this realization i have developed a little saying to keep the inspiration up: "every reward starts with a challenge. meet your challenge eye to eye. make your challenge your friend. after all, your challenge holds the key to your reward so it can't be all bad."

deal.

ok. so i'm bad at doing this regularly. deal. new stuff since last i left you. my birthday weekend in february got snowed out. so it was rescheduled two weeks later to the end of february. fail. i hate snow ... in fact winter entirely except i like layering clothes. other than that it stinks. but thanks to those who came out to celebrate and donned wild wild west accessories in public to help me have fun.
march was what march always is - dullsville. not much to mention. march is my least favorite month of the year. it's not spring, but it seems like winter should be over. the best part about march was that katharyn made a lot of great appearances over spring break.
april was pretty good. my mom, who can't drive, bought herself a brand new car. sort of odd. but whatever. after lots of invitations, i finally got to go see my friend lauren's (not so new anymore) apartment. fun.
have had lots of laughs with my bestie aubre over the past few weeks. they are usually inappropriate or childish and we couldn't love that anymore. most recently our chuckles have come from inaccurate celebrity look-a-like creators on line (me, christina applegate/ aubs, joan cusack!!!!) and the entire population of a hippie-fest earth day (on the wrong day) flea market / street fair - most notably the one-africa singer whose accent kept mutating to one from different lands. priceless.
if your not following brothers and sisters and glee we can't be friends. stop reading blog immediately and go catch up on-line.
done for now.

hello old friend, it's me, blog.

ok, let's not beat around the bush. i've been very neglectful of my blog. it's not that i don't love you blog. but life has been really busy. but i will admit, four months is too long. so here's the long and the short of it. september was september. october was nice. halloween crept up on me and i had no time to build the la carlotta costume i wanted so i pulled together a bunch of costume pieces i had to make this fantastic willy wonka. but at the last minute it was unseasonably hot and rainy. so i grabbed some fabric i had and whipped up a pretty stellar caesar costume 20 minutes before leaving. casey and i had a terrific time and she got so crunk she couldn't wear her shoes so i lent her mine and i went barefoot. she then ripped a full mum out of a window box in center city and carried it with her to the diner we went to so she could 'sober up.' she completes me. november was hectic. i was a cast addition to the christmas show at the broadway theatre. while i hate holiday shows, they are so generous with tthe use of their space to the miss liberty pageant, i really couldn't say no when asked. and despite my initial trepidation, i had a blast and met some wonderful new friends. most memorable experiance was the blizzard of 2009 that postponed one performance and sufficiently stranded me in laurie's attic in mannyunk with some delightful chums. it was like we were the franks hiding from the germans but with pizza and internet access. also, i finally saw all of zoolander that weekend and fancy myself something of a 'blue steel' officionado now. don't hate.
five minutes into christmas show rehearsal i found out i was cast in singin' in the rain at the broadway and would be reprising my role of 'production tenor' from 2002 at three little bakers. psyched. i love that role. bad news, not enough guys in the cast for me to just cameo so i have to tap dance. now for those of you who don't know, i'm not really a tap dancer. so doing it in front of 1100 hundred paying costumers sort of gives me a panic attack. but ya know what? i'm writing this after my third performance of the show and i'm really holding my own. in fact, next weekend i'm being moved to the front of the formation by the choreographer! sort of proud of overcoming that fear.
i have also met some really awesome people doing this show and am also insanely happy and feel very blessed to be working with my friend ted in the same cast for the first time and am really pleased that this affords us the opportunity to become closer friends. as well as finally meeting/ falling in friendship love with his lovely girlfriend samantha (she's our lina lamont and is fantastic). also big ups to ted for learning a boatload of tap-ography to play don, because he was in the same tap boat as me, but is totally looking like a lifelong tapper.
At the same time as the christmas show and rehearsing singin', it was time for my most favorite event of the year - the miss liberty pageant. miss liberty was held january 3 and it was pretty much a flawless evening and i received many compliments, which is awesome. but even better, my new miss liberty is katharyn nicolle. k-dizzle was miss new jersey's outstanding teen in 2008. she is super intellegent, overly talented (pointe ballerina), drop dead gorgeous, and just an all around nice girl ... and she drives a convertible so having her as my girl is a match made in heaven. i can't wait to go to miss new jersey with her this june. look out ashley shaffer, we're coming after your job!!!! no worries though ashshaf, cos you'll have had to pass it on to katie hope by then cos you'll have won miss america by then ... hopefully!
ok. this is really long, but now your up to speed. i'll try to be better at this now.