buoy

my dog ate my motivation

i swear to god i am not as flakey as you think i am.

(long-term friends, please keep your mouths closed right now.  

i have my reasons why i'm consistently AWOL.)

yes, i disappear in real life too.  

it's not just this blog that gets neglected.

the thing is, i really like holing up in my apartment for days at a time making lists of things i need to do, and being entirely unproductive.

next subject:

the stress of this somewhat last-minute decision to move cross-country has caused me to loose my appetite almost entirely, and i've managed to loose that "freshman 15" (which in my case would be more aptly called the "bumble 15.")  

i managed to maintain the same under-weight frame for the first 24 years of my life, and it wasn't until AFTER graduating college and getting a mind-numbing soul-eating job that i turned to food-as-anti-depressant tactics and developed what my friend jake so kindly pointed out as he sat in my room reading "cosmo," "hey diana!  you've got this 'pear shaped' body!"

thanks jakey.

anyway, i'm back down to under-developed pear shape, thanks to a combo of heat/loss of appetite/panicked packing and the fact that i no longer feel the need to take "smoke breaks" throughout my work day, in which i don't smoke, but hide in the private bathroom behind the reception desk and eat as many cookies as i can in four and a half minutes and cry.  

(on an entirely different yet still somewhat related note, i'd just like to point out that this is totally backwards from the way most of america wants to believe: skinny = happy.  i found it to be more along the lines of: happy=eating less crap=healthy body weight.)

but before you punch me, i'd like to point out that my mother, who is in her 50's and has birthed 5 children is ALSO a size 1.  and although she is the most health conscious person i've ever met (she MADE soymilk and whole wheat bread for the whole family through my entire childhood - along with growing a 5 acre organic garden.) she does not follow any sort of regular exercise program.  

genetics are awesome.

thanks mom.

seriously though (and i really hate people who say "seriously though,") i believe that your outside reflects your inside.  and i don't just mean it in that "i feel pretty today!  people are going to notice my confidence and respond to it!" sort of way. 

i mean it like, if your brain feels healthy, your body feels healthy.  and then it just becomes this vicious cycle of health that you can't break free of.

what the hell am i blabbering about?

just look at my van, ok?

one more thing

i'll tell you what's up.

it just dawned on me. 

typepad changed their "compose new post" setup about a month ago, and it's strange and unfamiliar to me, and i don't handle things like that too well.  

i am an old woman, and i don't like to be taught new things.  

dusting off the brain, like packing, is stupid.

this has been keeping me from updating with any sort of frequency.  

maybe now that it's out in the open, i'll man-up about it.

another thing that i've been trying to figure out is where this whole thing is headed.

my original intention was to use it as an outlet for my clothing shop, but startup has been a long (and somewhat slow at times,) process, and in the meantime, i think things have gotten a little more personal around here than i'd like them to be in a "business" project.  i like that outlet, but i also don't want to be that crazy girl who draws absolutely no lines between business and personal.

i had this slightly unstable landlord about 6 years ago who could barely afford to keep the house i was renting, which she had purchased with her inheritance when her mother passed away.  rather than sell the house, (which she referred to as her mother,) when i told her that i would be moving out, she broke in, called me to tell me that she had done so, locked me out, and held both my cats and her 14 year old daughter hostage inside, while threatening to call the police on me if i tried to come in.  

that's where that story went.

suffice to say, since that beautiful example, i have been a bit nervous about mixing business with personal insanity.  

and although each hold equal importance in my life, and both are aspects of who i am as a whole, i feel like, for some reason, putting them down next to each other for the whole world to see somehow just cheapens the experience.  

it frustrates me that brains have to be so complicated that you can't just have one place where it all gets dried out. 

it still slightly baffles me that i can have the desire to write page after page that has nothing to do whatsoever with fashion or the shop or what current underground pop-culture i've been drowning myself in, and then the next day just want to write about skorts.

i need to give these two sides their respective space though.  

they've reached puberty, and now it's time to invest in a folding screen to divide the bedroom.

i think not doing so would probably damage the credibility of both, and ultimately just result in me maintaining a readership of about 3, which is not my goal here at all.

so,

over the next few weeks i'll be starting up a separate spot devoted solely to the shop, what i've been wearing, things that start my fashion engines, and skorts.

and over here i will continue to use this space to exercise my voice as your 15-year-old live-journal writing under-achieving whiney younger sister.

cool?

thought so.

 

the final countdown...

i've been packing like a maniac and doing all the other things that seem to be never-ending, surrounding a move.  i'm getting/have been a bit crazy.  packing is stupid.

i woke up this morning from a dream where i was already back in tucson, and i was at trader joe's trying to stock up on groceries.  i didn't have a shirt on, and while i seemed to be aware of this, and also understood that it was inappropriate, i didn't seem to be doing too much to remedy the matter.  

in fact, i didn't seem to care that much at all.

i woke up right around the point where i bumped into someone i was trying to do some freelance work for, and in the dream i just crossed my arms over my chest and started talking to them. 

this is not any sort of an indication of my waking behavior.

i do wear clothes.

i spent the evening with these people on thursday.  

(as with the above mentioned dream, this picture is not an indication of what they look like in real life.  i just like it because it makes them look funny, and then i laugh at my awesome drunken photography.)

the one on the right poured the drinks and the the one on the left was my partner in crime. 

i want to take them back to tucson with me. 

need to look into that. 

did i mention that packing is stupid?

other than that, our up-to-the-minute diana update looks like this:

i am wearing a skirt that makes the french fries i gorged myself on in my anti-packing feeding frenzy hurt. 

(yes.  that is correct, the french fries are hurting.)

and i have a lot of things spinning around in my brain that i want to spout out here, but for some reason or another, it just doesn't feel like it's the right time.

soon. 

xo

dear herald square dmv,

you are the most heinous thing i have experienced on the small isle of manhattan, and now that i think about it, the surrounding boroughs as well.

you are even more miserable than fainting on the q train, and that was pretty bad.  

but at least when i fainted on the train, i got to take the rest of the day as a paid sick day.

now, i work for myself, so i got to sit there for five hours for free.

your chairs are uncomfortable.  i think they were made from recycled coffins from the graveyards you destroyed when you sank your satanic claws into the earth and declared yourself "One, Herald Square, NYC Department of Motor Vehicles (8th floor) Please Take Express Elevator.")

none of that coffin/sacred burial stuff is based on anything i heard.  

i just think that you would probably do something like that.

also, just so you know, i sold a woman my "C211" ticket for her "B438," because she had to get back to work, and she offered me 20 bucks.  

so there. 

despite how hard you tried to make my afternoon a total waste of time and money, i did get something

out of you, even if it wasn't the 30-day in-transit vehicle permit i was after.

i bought sushi with that $20, and i sat on my bed and ate it and stared at the overwhelming number of emails in my inbox (it's into the quadruple digits, ok, herald square dmv?  and i was going to tackle that project this afternoon, but you kinda messed that one up, didn't you?), and i though about how, in retrospect, from the safety of my bed, i wished i had pissed on your floors, or maybe slapped a stack of paperwork off that "sally" woman's desk, or at least hadn't sobbed on the phone to my insurance agent, because i think that really damaged my reputation as a "stable human being" with Progressive.  

but there are a lot of things that i wish i'd done differently, in retrospect, from the safety of my bed.  and in the end, it's usually a good thing i hadn't.

so with that, dmv, i want to wish you a good night, and remind you that i will  see you again in the morning.

 

yes, i'm pms-ing. how did you know?

i just woke up to some incredible thunder and rain storm action going on outside my (single pane glass) windows.  it's the middle of the afternoon.  i don't usually take naps.  

these are my thoughts:

- thank god for advil, sudoephedrine and any kind of medication that makes my muscles stop doing that painful squeezing thing.

-also, thank god for coffee, omega 3's, vegetarian multi-vitamins, grapefruit seed extract, acidophilus bifidus, emergen-c drink mix, and primal strips.  

-why didn't i think to get this hard-case for my poor little macbook two years ago?

-woo hoo for getting my camera back (fixed!) from best buy!

-i need to do about a million and a half things store (and moving) related, and right now i'm taking orders from my ovaries. 

-this is not a blog post diana.  this is a space filler, because you've been shirking your duties as a good blogger, and now you feel guilty.

ok.  fine.  when the above-mentioned meds kick in, i'll try again.

WOO HOO!!

(spoiler alert: notice anything different 'round here?  possibly the button in the top right corner?

click on it.

NO! WAIT!  

read this first, and then click away.)

so the insanely exciting news over here in the my (not much longer!) 400 square feet of rented williamsburg, is that i totally, entirely, officially, ecstatically am no longer an "employee," and as of 10:01 pm (est) last night, am totally, entirely, officially, ecstatically self-employed.  

um, WOOOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!

let's recap:

1. i no longer work for someone else

2. i am still working

i know i've spread a lot of rumors about this big day coming, but after 9 (yes, NINE!) months of exhausting (but mostly enjoyable) simmering, (and by simmering i mean tearing wads of hair out over software and image hosts and HTML and lugging bags of amazing vintage clothes home with me on busses and trains and air planes, sometimes - no, most of the time - with a cast on - and working with some really awesome, helpful people who know a whole lot more about all these things than i do), well, i've finally birthed it.

and it is a thing of beauty.  

(but that's just my opinion.)

so, i've got a few more auctions up with the old templates and layout and such, that are ending over the next few days, which i would really appreciate if you would just ignore.  ok?  but it's cool if you look at the new ones.  

cool.

other than that?  

1. we have moved into the living room.  where the ac is. 

yes, the mattress is piled on top of the futon. 

2. i have some major wisdom toothage going on.  

so if you know anyone in the tucson area who wants to practice their surgerating skills on some impacted chompers, i'll let them do it for free.

otherwise it's gonna cost me a couple thousand...   

a conversation, through technological advances

asher: you'll be prove of me.  today i learned a life lesson.  there@s a small but very important difference between peeing in the pool and peeing into the pool.

diana: wow asher.

asher: that last text was a little retarded.  i don't know what being prove of someone means.  or there@s...

diana: yeah.  but those two things were the ONLY reason it was retarded.  the content itself was surprisingly mature.

diana: you should check out bon iver.  i think you'd like him.  i'm impressed...

asher: well maybe you need to expand your taste.  you know, maybe listen to some jack's mannequin with me...

diana: no.

diana: and that lesson can actually be applied to most instances - bed, work, your soup...

asher: party pooper.

diana: pool pee-er.

diana: you know asher, you'd be proved of me too - i learned a life lesson today as well - there's a small but important difference between pooping in the party and pooping into the party.

our mother is so proved of us...

huge thrilling news: a lesson in nonchalance

i'm sorry for my silence over the past few days.  

some things have come up which required immediate attention, which then resulted in my total distraction from...  pretty much everything in my life.

i can't even begin to describe how totally thrilled i've been since the boy and i made our final decision late sunday evening...

we're moving to tucson.

back to tucson!

sunday evening we decided at the very last possible minute not to renew our (over-priced and getting more expensive) lease, and less than 12 hours later we "signed" a new one for the most perfect little 3-bedroom adobe in barrio viejo.  

(by "little" i mean more than 3 times the size of our current apartment, for about half the price.)

my parents, thrilled beyond words, immediately offered to loan us enough money to buy a cargo van so that we could drive our belongings back across the country without dealing with shippers.  (and so that we could make a road trip of it...  the boy and i have actually never done a road trip together...)

my mother has been calling me on a fairly consistent basis since then to shriek into the phone when i answer, and then ask me ten to 12 times if i'm still serious.

in a month, i will be going home.

have you ever been so happy you cried?  really cried?  not just said it - "i'm so happy i could cry," but really did it...

i suggest you try it.  

find something that makes you that happy.

i don't really know what else to say right now.  my brain is already in tucson, and i still have three more days at bumble + bumble before i really can even start focusing on pulling everything together that needs to be done before a person can move across the country...  (tuesday is my last day at the job!!)

but i'm happy.  

so happy.

i have never felt so certain that everything in my life was falling into their perfect places before.  

tucson!!

i'm coming home!

sun city

i learned today that fresh sunburn + macbook on bare legs < fun.

(is it natural for plastic to get that hot?  or skin to get that pink?)

gettin' ready to leave my apartment for the first 

time since...  ok, last night:

i'm wearing the cutest, most faded vintage keds (they were black once, but now they're navy blue-grey,) with tan laces, which i found at a thrift store in tucson.  

they make my feet smell funny, and i get a little upset thinking about it, because my feet have never smelled funny before, (ok, once, in vegas,  in november 2002.  but see?  it's such a rare occurrence that i remember not only the location, but the month and year as well.), so i know this funny smell is a gift from the previous wear-er.

ew.

it gives me the same skeevy feeling as my stimulus check.

wanna see pictures from the boat trip i took with sarah today?

    

after above mentioned boat trip sarah had to go "do something," so i had an ice cream cone by myself, and then walked over to B&H to oogle the nikon's, but they were closing.

sigh.

it was still a good day.

(one more thing: who thought recording scarlett johansson was a good idea?  it kinda makes me want to go buy that paris hilton album that came out a year or so ago, because at least no one tried to take it seriously...  just sayin.)

 

things i have been avoiding...

putting pictures in my posts.

i think this probably makes for a very boring read.

i'm sorry.  

i will attend to this immediately.  

and now, a little bit about my apartment.

when i was in college (back in t-town az...) i lived in an apartment i fondly dubbed my "turtle shell."

it had an enormous kitchen, living room and bedroom, a small "office" with a closet, two decent size closets in the kitchen and bedroom, and two (yes, two) bathrooms.  

it had saltillo tiles throughout, level floors, windows in every room, shelves set into it's thick adobe walls, lots of counter space, and beautiful antique trim on everything, (which happened to be painted the most perfect turquoise color.)  (this looked especially pretty against the golden browns of the tile.)

i had enough space in my bedroom to set my bed at an angle and still fit my bookshelves that my father built me, two antique night stands, and a very long vintage dresser.  

i forgot to mention the little nook in this bedroom, which perfectly fit my wicker lounging chair with all the pillows, where i could curl up under the window and read. 

i paid $450 for this apartment, and that included all utilities.  

i was six blocks from downtown.  

sometimes when i can't sleep at night, i lie in the dark and cry for this apartment.

now i live in a fourth-floor walk up across the street from the maujer projects in what the boyfriend and i have not-so-fondly dubbed the "shipwreck."

we pay three times what i did in tucson.  we have 400 square feet.  this does not include utilities.

sometimes mike and i play a game where we sit on the living room - i mean futon - and try to figure out which direction our building is falling in.  this is not an easy game, as it appears that our building seems to be falling in many directions at once, which gives the appearance of the apartment being "bumpy" rather than "tilted."  

i no longer drink at home, as after one drink the combination of the alcohol and the angles of the windows and the doors create an overwhelming sensation of motion sickness, and i vomit.

out lease is up at the end of june, and for a couple days mike and i forgot that we lived in reality, and discussed the idea of moving into a bigger, cheaper, more luxurious and level apartment somewhere near by.

"somewhere near by" turned into "bushwick," and "cheaper" turned into "many hundreds of dollars more."

after a few days of this, we remembered that bushwick is terrifying and we're broke.  

so we decided that for now, we will cling to our shipwreck.  

we will rent a life boat from avis, drive out of the city, we will spend a weekend at antique stores and ikea, we will return with cheaply made "organizational systems for small living spaces."  

we will read "domino" and "ready made" and "blueprint," holding the sacred issues above our heads to keep them dry as our little apartment continues to sink and sink and sink.  we will over-analyze our limited options and try hanging curtains, artwork, blinds, at different matching angles with our window sills and doors, we will try to create the impression that the space is larger, strangely usable, uniquely perfected, and most of all, level, even though we already know there's only so much an optical illusion can do, and we will continue to try to figure out exactly why the universe brought us here.