Enter the Fog God Neptune:

Behold.

The majesty of a foggy day. Everything is elusive, unclear and soft. I can always rely on the enjoyment I derive from such days, a happy byproduct of severe fluctuations in temperature. Or whatever reason the scientists have come up with to explain fog; its presence is as mysterious as its effects.

Since I’m currently battling the negative externalities of nesting season, choosing to capture the beauty of the world around me proved an effective emotional pacifier. And yes, I know it’s the holidays. People who date each other want to do things like nap and other indoor activities. People who don’t date anyone also want to stay in and nap. And watch movies.

Or whatever.

And it’s not like I hate inside time, I just mostly dislike it because it’s usually not as awesome as outside time.

Spending too much time indoors makes me feel like a wild animal. I already spend tons of time indoors at work all day. I have a need to be expressive. Outside. Also, I got snow boots this year, which has really revolutionized my outdoor winter experience. Maybe the people of Boston need to prioritize getting winter boots and an appropriate winter puffy jacket?

Anyway look at more photos of cool buildings. I’ve been taking lots of pictures of my environment lately. How can you not when the world is so beautiful? Plus taking pictures and walking around aimlessly is a great distraction from…

NESTING SEASON.

I’ll get over it eventually.

Yule RULEZ

Oh boy.

Am I excited for the holiday season this year. In many respects, this is a recessionary time for me, and probably many others.

A time when we zero in on the important, intimate, beautiful parts of life and enjoy them in exquisite solitude.

The way I’ve chosen to express this phenomenon is in photographic form. With photos of snowflakes!

I didn’t actually know snowflakes were visible with the naked eye. I thought you needed some sort of microscopic lens. My whole life. Until now.

Together, with regular sight and the magic of iSight, I was able to use technological advancement to capture these elusive yet plentiful gems. Observe:

Start your day off right.

Does this make me a Born Again? A.k.a. RevolutionBEATS

I spent a great deal of my life making sure everyone knew I was fine. Everything was great.

Don worry abaout-et.

 I got hit by a car when I was six because I wasn’t paying attention outside of the church my family and I sometimes went to (for ten minutes or so before midnight mass on Easter—for the cheap thrills of fireworks and that cool candle lighting ceremony that happens). Except this time I was alone and I was walking home. My leg was bleeding, it wasn’t that serious, but the dude that worked at the church was very concerned. The only thing I said to him was “don’t tell my parents about this” and I treated him like he had done something wrong.

I was angry.

Not that I got hit by a car, but because I was seen getting hit by a car. And I wanted to make sure no one else found out about it.

Especially my parents.

This was my nature. I did this with everything you could possibly ever think of. I was such an angry child and it seemed with each person I came into contact with through the years my anger grew greater and more vicious. You always hear about how people try to be courageous or brave and try to mask their insecurities and fears, never knowing that what’s braver and more courageous is the act of expressing and losing sight of consequence.

For example, here are a few things that I got scared of:

Stagnancy and complacency, interacting with someone who refuses to like me (an uncommon occurrence really), that the people I love will get hurt, that I will end up alone and unloved. Expressing that I sometimes feel unlovable: too ugly or too fat to love. Or perhaps the underlying theme of it all: that I am unworthy of my greatest dreams, for whatever reason I decided once when I was a toddler or whenever you pick up yo crazy.

 Writing these things out makes them seem so silly.

Writing them publicly in your blog makes them sound insane.

 This is what Brenee  Brown, and so many others she has drawn from, means when she says vulnerability is strength. What happens when you transcend your neuroses is that you derive knowledge and love from them.

You understand better. You have more courage.

 How nice it is to wake up from a reality and realize it wasn’t real. It was basically a dream. It was never true, it wasn’t based on truth. You live your whole life believing an illusion about yourself until you don’t and all of a sudden you’re light, free and happy about the world and you’re finally ready to inherit it.

I’m hoping that someone who’s ready to read this will come across and become inspired to fearlessly look into their lives, their choices, their minds, their reactions and feelings and to have the courage to understand that they couldn’t be more beautiful or worthy of all the gifts that are so freely available to us in life.

#OWNED

#soflysofresh

Also, this is what Charlie Chaplin looks like without makeup on:

Yoga Realness & Truth. And Love.

Evidently I’m drawn towards glorious old ladies lately.

Her name is Tao Porchon-Lynch and yes. She is a yoga master.

There’s been so much talk about what negative emotions do to us in my world and I’ve been thinking it might be most beneficial, as a general rule, to maintain a positive psychic orientation.

“When I wake up in the morning, I know that it’s going to be the best day of my life. I never think about what I can’t do. Make sure positive thoughts are the first ones you think in the morning. And never procrastinate.”
-Tao Porchon-Lynch

I’ve had a few opportunities lately to be very upset and instead of getting very upset, I’ve only gotten mildly upset and instead of venting about it, I just get over it. Usually asking myself why I’m actually mad about something neutralizes the feeling.  I don’t know if this sustainable, but I am going to try and keep going at this rate so that I can be like this amazing 95 year old faerie princess.  Either it is sustainable and I will live happier for it, or I will spontaneously combust from the flames of bouts of anger trapped inside the arsenal of my tumultuous heart. Or not, we’ll see.

This is a 95 year old yoga instructor, and I found out about her today by accident—if there even is such a thing. I think the universe is trying to shame me into committing to a yoga practice (since I don’t think I have any desire to go to a gym ever again). Regardless, she is beautiful and the fact that she exists is an inspiration. She is an inspiration!  Look at her, in the arms of this strapping man:

Ok this is the final picture I will show you. Just promise me you won’t throw up from the shock of the violent cuteness of this image as it enters your consciousness.

PROMISE ME.

Love you.

BOOM. Dolce. Life Advice. (Not from me, don’t worry)

I came across an article by Refinery 29 and, since our blog names match, I decided to perpetuate the idea of old versus new in this most inspiring story of an older woman who was approached for a modeling career because she’s a fantastically aged specimen of a human:

When you were in the R29 office, a few women said they hoped to age as gracefully as you have. So, what’s your secret?

“Everyone wants to know that life gets better and not worse. We would like to know we get better as time goes by. And, we can. I have come to the full realization that all of life is fun, adventurous, challenging — not just the first 30 years. I have thrown out the old paradigm of life looking like a mountain, with an imaginary peak they call the ‘prime of life.’ There is no such thing. Every second of your life is the prime of your life. Right now. And now. If you take care of your body and live for pleasure rather than success, (which lowers the stress in your body and mind) and learn to trust the universe, you will carry yourself with ease and joy.

I do not accept my age — I celebrate it! I wear my wrinkles, silver hair, and age spots as medals of honor. Life and beauty is all what you make it. That is what attractiveness and aging gracefully is all about. Enjoy it!”

Highlighting points I would like to mention:

This isn’t one we haven’t heard before, but still: “Being attractive is about how you feel and your attitude, not how you look.”

On Makeup: “I believe if we wear beauty products for fun, rather than fear, we are on the right track.”

On Greys (NOT ALIENS): “At 43, I was silver all around my face. I was not comfortable with it and covered it against the wishes of my then-boyfriend, 16 years my junior, and my kids. After six years, I realized I was covering what I was celebrating: my age! So, I threw out the bottle of dye and went silver. The day I chopped off the last bit of dye, I was approached to model!” (FOR DOLCE & GABBANA)

On Face: “A Thai dermatologist said, ‘do not wash your face unless you must, and only at night before bedtime.’ Been doing it ever since!”

On Girl Life Hack: “It’s all the same conversation. Remember, you are in the driver’s seat of your life. It is what youmake it, and what you think of it. You make the judgment calls — no one else does. If you are living according to what others think, you will never be truly confident or happy. And, if you live only for success, you will burn yourself out. If you go for success, pleasure is 50-50. If you go for pleasure, success is guaranteed. I believe we were built for pleasure. That is our nature, as women.”

HEYOOOO. No but isn’t that inspiring?

I mean. Right?

Also she has started a line of beauty products which i would be more than HAPPY to promote in my very modest blog:  BOOM

Fashion Week & Girl Power!

As I ponder the various fashion weeks that are going on during fashion month as I’m sifting through my various—too many, too heavy, large, over-sized September issues—fashion magazines trying to draw inspiration for my dream boards (mostly), I find myself thinking more about how so many women (and gays) are dealing with sharing constricted spaces.

I wonder if the experience is happy, I know fashion weeks are filled with people that are either thrilled to be there or burdened by being there, but independent of this, is anyone actually having any fun?

Why wouldn’t it be fun right? What unfathomable, unsuspecting, strange, irrational, unnatural, problematic, highly concerning issue could it be to prevent any of these people from enjoying themselves during such an uplifting, happy time? The frenetic, buzzy energy of New York or London or wherever is probably infectious, I’m sure it’s enough to send your spirits soaring into a paradise of fabrics, prints and cuts representing physical forms of dreams and fantasy. RIGHT? Because that’s what fashion week is: the cathartic, orgasmic culmination of tired work nights, blood, sweat, tears (and business). Again, what could distract from this? What could take it all away in an instant?

BITCHES.

Realistically speaking, fashion week has nothing to do with this since I can think of lots of profoundly beautiful life events that can be ruined altogether at the fault of bitch weakness. More specifically: women being cruel to each other.  I once had a boss tell me that female clients would hate me right off the bat, almost always, and she curtly offered the advice of not wearing makeup and putting my hair up in an ugly bun when I plan to meet with a woman because it would “put them at ease” because that’s what she does and it works for her.

So just to ensure my point is made as succinctly as possible, I’m going to try to make some declarative statements:

• Women are insecure a lot
• Maybe more than men?
• Probably. That seems right. But I’m not a man, and someone somewhere might one day get all “um statistically speaking BLALBBLABLA” and I’m not doing this to attract fact based counterarguments so LET ME stick to my generalization.
• They’re insecure because they:feel like losers
• think they’re not cool or smart or funny
• think they’re fat almost always
• beat themselves up over things they do that they feel support the above claims
• hate themselves and are mean to themselves in the privacy of their own thoughts
• had a bad experience once or twice in the past where someone (anyone) convinced them one or all of these things are true and they can’t let it go

Also, obviously, tons of people might think “Nope. I know I’m not (actually) fat, I’m pretty hilarious, stunning, ingenious… I’m a total catch… Anyone who doesn’t think so is out of their minds” but if you peel back the self delusional “fake it till you make it” silent desperation that plagues so many people today that consciously believe this is true and arrive to the cold abyss of darkness and despair (among other, happier companions I’m sure) that is the subconscious and really take a look into what’s actually happening, we would find that people are motivated by fear and a constant (though ill executed) search for acceptance and love.

This is what goes on in the internal dialogue when meeting a fellow female:

• Is she prettier/smarter/more put together/more successful than me?
• If so, does this mean she’s better than me?
• If she is better than me, does this mean she will take all the goodness and love and wonderment of life AWAY FROM ME FOREVER?

This frame of mind used to affect me quite a bit during my development and I’m sure it still does to an extent though I’ve come to realize it’s nonsense. I’ve been on a self love kick and luckily so have many of my close girl friends and the infusion of this type of feel good energy makes it possible to step out of the aforementioned paradigm and actually like other women. Through my conversations with my various enlightened friends, I’ve come to understand this viewpoint is universal and I see evidence of it when I meet new females during the course of my days.

Interestingly, focusing on yourself and thinking about how awesome you are actually makes you hate other women less!

Men have a brotherhood and they are, more often than not, able to acknowledge each other as potential friends first, unless something goes horribly wrong,  but this camaraderie rarely exists in girl world. There’s no such thing as a universal sisterhood for females. We are constantly bombarded with conflicting information and feelings that make it impossible to step outside of the confines they create, which makes girls have their guard up always. Usually this means, when approaching another female, you have to either downplay your strengths (to avoid negative attention from them) or completely dominate the interaction entirely… with loving kindness.

It’s kind of like in Avatar when the avatars have to fight those dragon things before they become besties forever.

What delicate creatures we are.

Now I will provide some helpful aids which I hope will be heavily considered:

• If you’re a girl and you meet another girl, be nice to her.
• This doesn’t mean mask your inner hatred for fake niceness. This means actually acknowledge the person that is in front of you and find a source of love to draw from and express that. For realsies.
• Compliment them if you like something.
• Ask them questions if you have questions (which you should—they’re a new person in your life that you know nothing about.)
• Recognize the universality of human interaction, we all share the same feelings and it’s theorized that we are all the same person in different forms and expressions. You don’t necessarily have to believe this but you can believe that we all have a lot more in common than we think.

There’s so much more to say about this, but for now I guess it suffices to say that’s very important to be nicer to other people and to yourself so that you can be happier in general!

YAY!