the grunge princess

Princess movies? I'm into it! Actually anything Disney I tend to swing a bat at. I grew up thinking that at one point my Prince Charming would come or at least something resembling a prince charming. Obviously we all know that romantic comedies, Disney Films, and the Lifetime channel have seriously affected woman's expectation of relationships. I am constantly living in reality vs expectation but out of all the Disney princess films I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy "The Princess Diaries". Besides having a charming and shy lead awesomely portrayed by one of my future style icons Anne Hathaway. It has Robert Schwartzman playing the lovable friend that is in a band (Duh!). Completely a no brainer and thanks to E! playing it on heavy rotation I have gotten to enjoy this movie more than once this month.

 

Currently Living in the Past...

I am the first to admit that at one point in the last few years I just stopped acknowledging all the advancements in technology, music, and fashion. It's almost like I put on the breaks and decided to live with everything I knew prior to that moment. I always mention the Spring of 96' which is something I picked up from a Chuck Klosterman book.There he states that the offices of Spin magazine, where he used to work, always seemed like the Spring of 96'. Everyone always wearing flannel and talking about Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. like they were still relevant.I just thought how nice it would be to live in that world. 1996 was the year that I really got into music, such a turning point in my life. And now here I am re-living it listening to bands like Superchunk and Pavement wishing I was my age now in 1996 (how weird would that be?)

 What makes me think of this? maybe the fact that I live in my jean jacket, and recently have decided to dye my hair red. I think when I did the first time my best friend said "oh shit it's high school all over again" People are constantly trying to remove themselves from the person they were and I am constantly trying to communicate with who I was. I must be weird! I am also toying with the idea of dying my hair pink. Midlife crisis do I hear you calling?

In my purse...

I believe the contents of your purse describe you to a T, these are mine. I must always and I mean ALWAYS carry around a camera. You never know what you need to capture! You must always be ready and I am always ready with my  Diana F+ Parisian edition. I take the bus which affords me time to read. I recently purchased this book "The Best American Travel Writing 2010". I figured if I can't travel I might as well read about traveling. I am obsessed with make up that I never wear so I have an array of different plum colored lipstick from loreal to wet and wild brand. I also have an obsession with lip glosses. Tokidoki recently came out with a cosmetics brand and to be honest I purchased a lipgloss from their brand just for the packaging.

I think I have found it...

Today I came to this conclusion, an epiphany if you will. That may be a stretch but it was something that had been staring me in the face for awhile. Happiness is not something that we can achieve without putting some effort into it. I started re-evaluating my life, making a laundry list in my head of things I do and what I expect from them. So many times we go around asking so much out of our lives. Yet we do nothing to get those results. How many times have we said "Why can't I just win the lottery?" but how many times do you actually play the lottery? That was(is) my life! Need results but nothing in the equation. I started coming up with things that I could do to push me in that direction. First and foremost, the biggest part of my life is my job. I work a lot, I work when I am not "working". I come home and think about work, talk about work, etc. So Step # 1 Leave work at work This is easy for a lot of people but it is something I am really working on. It's hard for me to invest so much time in something and then just forget about it. I have been invested in my job for so long that I completely forgot how much free time I could have if I could just cut that out of my life.. Watch more movies, read more books, take more pictures. The list just got bigger and bigger. 

I took a nice break from the city I reside in and went home and spent time with family which was also big on the list. I try to go home as much as I can. I have sisters coming out of my ears, all lovely, funny, silly characters.  The middle one of the bunch had asked me a week earlier to go ice skating with her. Something that is completely out of the ordinary for us, and to be honest it was quirky enough to get my attention. It completely fell in place with my new plan on life. Do something fun that you wouldn't normally do ...Why not? 

Us being naive about the whole thing completely disregarded the fact that there are a large group of people who train to be professional ice skaters, and in fact they would probably be there that day. So there we were two girls in their mid twenties too scared to go on the ice because every one besides us was skating like it was the winter Olympics.

You know the feeling when you realize that you are about to embarrass yourself completely and it's do or die?. You hold your breathe and hope for the best! That was us! Scared shitless that these little teenage ice skaters would see us fall. To be honest it was a nice feeling to be scared again, mostly because with fear comes a need to be courageous.

Being back home was really just a nice feeling. So step # 2 was surround myself with family. I am lucky that a lot of my siblings are still young and adorable. Kids really do say the darnest things and it's great when they are clever too. The baby of the family is 10 going on 30 and could carry on a conversation with anyone. She has 6 different after school activities, which include honor roll and student council. When I was 10 I would rush home to watch TV and she gives up hours of her time to study. Kids these days I tell ya....

A polaroid a day....

Just like every girl out there I have major insecurities about my face,body, etc. These insecurities that stem from childhood seem to creep up at the worst of times. It also doesn't help that I live in Los Angeles, the capital of fake, blonde, and beautiful. Growing up my mother was not too friendly or discreet about my lacking physical attributes. In fact she would go as far as to point them out and talk about improving them some day. I grew up thinking I had a funny face, I probably do but I just remember thinking to myself   "Ok if I am not going to be pretty I better have a personality". So I started focusing on things I could control. I knew it was important to be friendly and welcoming, and I loved to be goofy and make people laugh. I became a better listener, a better friend because I knew that people wouldn't automatically be drawn to me. I now tend to see the beauty in everyone which is something I pride myself in. Yet regardless we still have THOSE days.

Lately I have been hearing soo many people talk about looks and how they correlate with relationships. I am an eternally single girl who people are trying to convince is single because of what I am lacking. One person told me to go to the gym because it would give me confidence, someone else told me to start wearing more makeup. There exact words were "If you like someone you have to try to look your best, you can't expect someone to like you at your worst" Which to me just didn't make any sense...
So there I was feeling drab and fat and all kinds of other negative terms. That's when I turned to the camera, I started shooting one polaroid a day just to see what I really looked like and this is what I got....

Besides me busting out the same pose..I just thought to myself maybe I don't see how people see me. The last one is me without make up and it could be my favorite. What I learned through this was that maybe I could identify the beauty in these pictures the way I would with other people. I now have started going to the gym and it has given me confidence! BUT it isn't for anyone else other than me. I also started wearing the makeup I had stored up but I wear it at home because it makes me feel pretty and I really don't think I care about how others see me in it. In every ones words I have found a new sense of self instead of trying to do things to attract others to me. Hope I can keep this up....

I am obsessed with....

... NAIL POLISH!!! As I try to tap into my girlie side I find that I like minimal enhancements to my look. I love mascara, lipgloss, and now nail polish. Who knew that just changing your nail color could make you feel prettier. Here are the ones on my wishlist..i.e... what will take my future paychecks away.

Slapsgiving....

....came and went....

It seriously is my favorite holiday, right after Valentine's Day (it's not only for couples!!!!) 

Slapsgiving ... How I met your mother

I love eating and I love being thankful. I guess in those terms Thanksgiving happens every day in my life!!!! Unfortunately after Thanksgiving comes the day that anyone in retail dreads... BLACK FRIDAY. So picture this there is a line forming around a building, hundreds of people camping out. Not for a concert, or an autograph from some celebrity, it's for shoes, or a dvd. Could this really be normal? I of all poor people understand the value of a great deal but just like my dear friend Annette put it I put comfort over saving a buck any day. Don't get me wrong I once too succumbed to the idea of getting up early and waiting with the rest of the world to try to get on some good deals but I remember that morning and it ended with my friend and I not purchasing anything because the lines were too long. The whole morning was just for us to drink our starbucks in crowded places. Yet the excitement was there.. Maybe all it really is an adrenaline rush to buy things that you don't need and would eventually try to pass off as a good gift even though we all know you bought that DVD for 3.99 ( I am talking to you Luis Mendoza) Still this all baffles me.

 We are the only country who does this, and even worse I feel like we seem to be losing the idea of what Thanksgiving is all about. We already lost Christmas and I would like to keep at least one Holiday low on the cosumerism (Yes yes I know it's always there but could we keep it to a minimum ?) It seems each year the stores open earlier and earlier, sooner or later we will scratch out Thanksgiving in general just to make sure  we can get to the sales faster.LAME

Settle ? You said settle...

I don't understand this world, or to be more clear this world and it's standards in relationships. Yesterday I had two different people tell me I had to lower my standards in order to get a guy. I even had someone ask me if I drank a lot because that would probably help me find someone. Which brings me to the conclusion that standards are a way of the past now it's all about what you can get and dealing with it. Then we wonder why we have such a high divorce rate, why people cheat, and why girls are getting beat in relationships.
When I first got told to lower my standards for a second I thought maybe they are right, then I really examined what my standards really are.

What I look for in a guy is mainly just a sense of humor. I like funny guys, always have. That is pretty much the only requirement everything else is just common sense into play. I want a guy whose funny, intelligent and nice. Don't we all just want variations of this? No one wants to go out with someone that they can't talk to and no one should want to go out with someone that treats them bad. Those are my "standards" that really should apply to everyone. Other than that everything else doesn't matter. How he dresses, how he looks, all of this kind of falls into place if the other things are there.

So I should lower these standards? Should I allow a guy to treat me bad? or should I be with someone who I can't even talk to ? We are almost trained to settle in this society, there is no real idea of love there is no real idea of getting to know someone anymore. We walk around trying to not feel lonely and we fill that hole with whatever we can get. If we are lucky sometimes we fill it with the right person but all I see around me lately is a lot of wrong..So I probably won't lower my standards which means I will probably be alone for most of my life but like my father always told me... "It's better to be alone then in bad company."

Watched this before work now I am ready for my day.

chasing amy

 

Netflix you are good to me..

What is the cure to boredom ? Netflix instant watch ....
Days off consist of more time to watch movies that I have been meaning to watch and movies that I love and want to watch over and over.

Manhattan

                                          

Gentleman Prefer Blondes

                                                       

Reality Bites

Annie Hall

Diane Keaton is my personal hero. If you were to look up quirky in the dictionary you would find a picture of her and her endearing smile. I admire her carefree personality and I just wish that I could bottle that energy and add it to my everyday life.

Tonight we went to the New Beverly Cinemas and watched Gentleman Prefer Blondes on the big screen. Growing up this was one of my favorite movies and even though I am not a big Marilyn fan Jane Russell owns this movie. I might get a few Jane Russell movies on the movie queue and have a mini marathon.

Oh Lubitel 166 B

Can a piece of plastic really make me feel so hopeful? The answer is yes when it comes to how much I have fallen in love with this camera... I bought it off ebay a little more than a year ago and it just sat in my room not bothering anyone. I am a true 35mm film lover and even though I get the advantages of 120 film it was always hard for me to lose those extra frames when I am so price conscious. That went out the window with my first roll from my Lubitel. I love the detail that this camera can capture and even though it's no Rolliflex or Seagull it still gets the job done. It is also completely made of plastic which allows me to lug it around everywhere. I am taking it out tomorrow and cannot wait.



In shopping news : I have yet again bought a new pair of shoes. My new years resolution this year was too buy more shoes! I think that new years resolutions should stop being so negative and restricting and they should let us indulge. I have now bought at least a dozen shoes this year and I am glad to add these to my collection 

Deena & Ozzy Harness Boots at Urban Outfitters.com


I don't think any of the shoes I have purchased lately really go with my style but it's one of those things where I think they might eventually. So why not?