Amazing Links

~Watch an incredible video about the behavior of water droplets on superhydophobic surfaces.

~Grover spoofs the Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercial from Old Spice.

~Reasons I love 30 Rock: the creators always flesh out the throwaway side-project jokes somewhere online. Case in point? Jenna's Muffin Top song and Tracy's Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.

~I am in love with the design of this incredible vintage chocolate box.

~Avocado Ice Cream? I want to try it!

~Mediated Mortal Combat, courtesy of College Humor.

~Behold above: the cake I might make for my birthday (from the incredible Saveur)

Being Sick...

I had a tickle in my throat last night; tried to drink lots of liquids (hot and cold) to make it go away. I tried to send it back from whence it came with Echinacea and Airborne.

What do you know? The middle of the night, I wake up with a completely swollen throat and a headache and start tossing my dinner (to put it delicately). I miraculously didn't wake John with all this, but decided at 4:30 in the morning that I probably would not be going to school today. In retrospect I think that was a good decision.

Being sick makes me want to curl up on the couch with somebody taking care of me. I get supremely helpless when I'm sick, though you wouldn't know it. I don't really whine or say anything to anybody, just sort of inwardly whimper and wish.

Being sick makes me want comfort foods like tomato soup and grilled cheese, or ginger ale, or ice cream (preferably vanilla soft-serve). I am really craving a Dairy Queen cone right now. Sigh.

Instead, I slept until two, stumbled around, showered, made split pea from a can, ate it, slept, slept, ate dinner that John made (chili, it was good), sat on couch, stared.

I want my head to fix itself. Blahhhhhhhhhh.

Devil in the Details

My form of wedding escapism is to focus on minute details that ultimately won't make a difference unless the photographer happens to zero in on it and it ends up on a wedding blog where they start oohing and ahhing over your attention to detail.

This is something the wedding industry is very, very good at. The aforementioned (though not named) blogs focus on things like seating cards and handmade ceremony programs and cute alternatives to guestbooks. They have to do this. What else could possibly sustain a wedding blog? They have to focus on little things that set those weddings apart. And it IS fun to see those things. But it can cause a lot of bride angst because they think they have to have a calligrapher write everybody's name on a river rock for their place setting. They panic, and spend money.

Have you ever perused theknot.com? I have an account. Got one right after getting engaged, because they have those really useful guest list and budget tools. I tend to avoid the rest of the site like the plague, though. For one; it's too much volume. I don't like flipping through page after page of incredibly similar, out of my price range dresses. There's just too much chance I'd fall in love with a cake by a baker across the country and be completely inconsolable that "the one" won't ship me a cake in dry ice the day before the wedding or something.

Do I think this would really happen to me? No. I don't even particularly want a cake. But I do love Ace of Cakes, so I've seen those bakery wizards work their magic.

The point? The more you allow that sort of thing into your life ("that sort of thing" being wedding porn), the more chance you may turn into annoying type-A bride who drives all her vendors crazy trying to execute her "vision."

I don't know, maybe I'm paranoid.

Anyway, on to the current distractions. I don't have a date, a venue, a caterer, a photographer, or anything that indicates I'm actually getting married (yet), but I was thinking to myself, "wouldn't it be pretty to wrap my future bouquet in a really cool lace?"

So I did a bit of hunting. Almost all the ones I fell in love with were black. I may not have a defined color palette yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to avoid the whole black-and-white wedding. I wish they had this one in off white, because I love the swirls. They seem like they'd work well in a 1930s sort of affair:

Sultry.

But I am leaning towards incorporating peach. So this one fit the bill:

Pretty, but expensive.

However, the one that has my heart right now is this beauty:

Love.

I think it's because it looks sorta vintage with the gray and taupe. And it's not really like other lace that I look at. I like things that don't look just like other things.

Seriously, why do I fantasize about things like what I'm going to wrap my (non-existent) bouquet in? Is this normal?

Well Said

A brilliant video that puts the grammar nazis in their place. I love language: I love the shape of words on the page and their taste on the tip of your tongue. I've never been much for grammar-Naziism; many of my favorite wordsmiths throw caution and grammatical correctness out the window for the sake of poetry.

Old Piano+Pretty White Lace

How can you resist that image (you can't). Check out more gorgeousness by clicking on the image or right here (via Grey Likes Weddings).

I love the styling of this shoot. The white lace gloves with that amazing dress, a perfect birdcage veil, and the gritty surroundings.

Long Engagements

Weddings are ridiculous. I mean it.

But this doesn't mean I don't love them. I wouldn't be in a friggin' wedding string quartet if I didn't enjoy the vicarious thrill of watching other people get married, and contributing something to their happy day. I wouldn't look at so many wedding blogs and bask in the beautiful outcome of all the stress and planning. But as I begin to plan my own, I find many years' worth of buried ambivalence about the wedding industry and all of the conspicuous spending that goes into one's "big day."

I got engaged on June 6^th, 2009. I realize that’s over a year ago. Most girls would have had the wedding by now! After all, it will have been two years (perhaps more!) by the time we finally tie the knot. People ask you constantly about when you'll set the date, and you encounter scrutiny for holding off. It's as though there's something wrong with a long engagement, as though it reflects negatively on you as a couple and conceals some sort of dramatic relationship issues. Being engaged in our culture is something that is seen as ephemeral; running the gauntlet to get to the aisle.

I like to think of our engagement as an important process, a transitional phase that will prepare us for many other transitions throughout marriage. After all, in the midst of all the chaos of making a guest list and budget and booking one's vendors, I have to become a bride. I have to ready myself for a legally binding commitment to love for a lifetime. I have seen so many women who seem to forget themselves in the details; the ceremony floral arrangements, the paper aisle runner, the napkin rings. I see so many women wrapped up in throwing the lavish party where they get to play princess for a day.

I am not saying these women always approach marriage lightly (though that is also quite prevalent in our culture). However, I am saying that their preparations for the wedding day are largely based on the superficial aesthetics.

I wanted to take time to write and reflect on our vows and their enormity and weight. I wanted to use this transition to really think through the meaning of commitment and what that means for us. I want to use this time to think and to question and to examine tradition. I want to question Canon in D down the aisle, the pristine white David's Bridal strapless ballgown, 1 Corinthians 13, saving the top tier of your wedding cake for your first anniversary.

However, this doesn't make me a cynic. Seeing a groom get choked up will get me, every time. I love the vows-even the standard ones. I love how weddings bring together so much love and support. I love the party. I love the anticipation of the groom before his bride walks down the aisle. I have been lucky enough to witness these moments dozens of times. But it's a terrifying journey (particularly financially).

Walk with me?

A blog about many things

I believe this blog will be many things to me: an outlet, a place to gawk at pretty things, a chronicle of my wedding planning and my life experiences.

I do not know how often I'll post or what I will post about. As for right now, I will let this blog be. I read a lot of blogs and they all have a focus-décor, or food, or weddings-and I package them up neatly in my google reader into little categories to skim through with the morning coffee. Sometimes I want to think about other things. To dream, to reflect, to geek out, to share.

I tried blogging with a focus-music-but it was hard to find the time or energy to devote myself to one topic on a blog. I found the well running dry, and then flooding when I had things to say. I always have things to say, and so I realized that the issue was not my lack of the muse, but my focus. Just like a good research paper (which I hope I have many, many of in my future), a focus can be too narrow. Music, as much as my teenage self may disagree, does not wholly define my character. I chase beauty, I choose poetry over prose, I make things with my hands, I love, and I live a life of joy and passion. My little short-sighted blog couldn’t captivate me because it couldn’t contain my love of comics, my penchant for vintage costume jewelry, my insistence on using candlesticks on a regular weeknight meal. It couldn’t contain my shapeshifting wardrobe, my nerdiness, or my inner monologue.

If I am to have an online home, I’d like it to feel like home. I’d like it to be multifaceted, a space where I could share a funny video or a beautiful picture, or talk about my dreams. A place where I can be myself, instead of feeling pressured to shove myself into a little box to have streamlined content. Screw that. If you don’t like my blog, you can ignore it. There’s thousands out there clamoring for your attention. I don’t plan to shout from the rooftops, but I do want to share and articulate what I’m thinking and feeling and express myself verbally from time to time.

Walt Whitman sums it up best in his Song of the Open Road. Allow me to quote/truncate:

I do not offer the old smooth prizes,

But offer rough new prizes,

These are the days that must happen to you:

You shall not heap up what is called riches,

You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve…

Afoot and lighthearted, take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before you,

The long brown path before you,

Leading wherever you choose.

My manifesto

I believe...

...in myself.

...in music

...in daily laughter.

...in the sheer quirky joy of the perfect ampersand.

...that poetry is transformative.

...in being young at heart.

...in being earnestly in love.

...in a good cup of tea.

...in being a nostalgic junkie.

...in collecting affection.

...in letting my mind wander.

...in stuffing my brain with new ideas.

...in staying in school as long as they'll let me.

...that there are miracles in the mundane.

...in eclecticism.

...in handwriting and snail mail.

...in trying new things, from Vietnamese food to cross-stitch to a surreal foreign film.

...in domestic bliss.

...in taking joy in the little things.

...in whimsy.

...in a stubborn sense of DIY (you know; the "I can make that myself" attitude).

...that the glass is half-full.

...that every day is an excuse to break out the candlesticks and good china.

...in comic books and video games.

...in scented candles.

...in jumping on the autumn leaves just to hear them crunch like potato chips.

...in living passionately.

...in vinyl records.

...in sitting in a coffeeshop with somebody you adore.

...in the first snow and the last kiss.

...that I can eternally improve and grow.

...that adventure is born of the spirit and not one's surroundings.