erryday

Or at least it feels like it. We have these neighbors who fight. ALL THE TIME. Maybe not everyday (definition of quotidian), but it sure feels like it. Usually we only hear it muffled so it's not that big of a deal, just sad. But one day I came home from school and he came home at the exact same time, he flings open the door and they just go at it. And they don't close the door. It's okay though, because I ran through mine. I was so uncomfortable. I mean not that arguments don't happen but incessant screaming matches? Something has to be wrong. And then, like clockwork, after pretty much each and every fight, he comes out, sits on the stairs, and enjoys a nice, long cigarette break. I walked by this little beauty and just had to snap it. Looks like he didn't get to finish that last break, but don't worry, he'll be back. 

And, ya know, sometimes I just want to ask her why they stay together. Not that he is the only one to blame, in fact, it seems terribly unhealthy for the both of them. And, not to be a complainer, but the cigarette butts and smell I could do without. 

We're moving to a different apartment this weekend and this couple will forever be out of our lives but there were definitely times when they reminded me how good we have it.

Quotidian

There you go Rach. Bring it. Tell your mom she better have seconds at Sunday Dinner! :)


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Oh-my-gaudy!

My room mate Amanda is engaged. Planning a wedding is the consequence of marital engagement. Being the love cynic that I am, you can imagine that all the hoopla regarding these events is regarded with a snarky attitude on my end. In fact, my other room mate, Kelsey and I find the hysteria about weddings and love bizarre enough to have joked about starting an anti-wedding blog and titling it; "Nauseated at Nuptial Bliss." (Don't hold your breath).

Amanda is a far cry from a "Bridezilla." She's relaxed and finds our musings about these things entertaining and relatively understandable. However, we do have copious amounts of bridal magazines in our house (which, in my excitement over Chase and Amanda's engagement, I'll admit I contributed to our lot with gladness. I mean, it's absurd to expect a girl to plan a wedding without at least five of these handy manuscripts.) Karma really is, as they say, a "bee-yotch" or, fate has a cruel sense of humor, because one morning I stubbed my toe so hard on a tall pile of those magazines and drew blood. After whispered profanities in the early hours of the morning, trying not to wake my house mates I thought; "Now if that wasn't a metaphor for my life, I don't know what is."

One night Kels and I flipped through a magazine and neither of us could find a single dress we would ever agree to wear. The contents of these magazines are oftentimes; gimcrack, unbelievably gaudy.

Amanda found her dress yesterday!


And no, it doesn't make her look like a cupcake with those paper Asian fans hot glued gun all over the place like the one on the cover of this magazine. Nope, Amanda's classy with a great sense of style and a heart I'm going to miss a whole heap when she move's out this month.


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cheap

Don't get me wrong, the only expensive piece(s) of jewelry I own are my engagement/wedding rings but there is something about fake pearls that just make me want real ones. Whenever I see a woman with a string of pearls resting at the base of her neck, she just seems so classy. I want to be that classy. I want to be that put together. I don't have any pearls real or fake. Maybe I'll get these ones. I'll pretend to be that woman, that one who looks so perfectly coifed and elegant. And maybe I'll have some real pearls someday. 

Because I'm twelve

Next word: gimcrack

Which surprisingly does not refer to the unfortunate viewing of random derrière during that lame required class where they make you run. Like you're a runner. 

Definition: \JIM-krak\

1. (n) A showy but useless or worthless object

2. (adj) Tastelessly showy; cheap; gaudy.

capiche?

Blameless

Flowers and babies, that's what I thought of when I considered the word, "inculpable." Oh, and of course, Jesus (but he's hard to take pictures of).

I thought of flowers because they're lovely. Their sin is making things smell nice and captivating us aesthetically. Aside from existing in a fallen world, they perpetuate goodness and beauty. These stopped me on my run this morning and asked me to revel in their magnificence.


I'm serious, they did, it was as if I could hear them.

Babies, because they have nothing to be blamed for yet. They've just sought nurturance inside a safe place. They have stayed cozy, warm and fed as they've grown.

This is Alex, with a little one, already loved and almost ready to greet the world. I think Alex will mother thoughtfully, fully and grandly. I think this picture demonstrates something that maybe only a pregnant mother can. She is not only literally pregnant with a child but figuratively pregnant with expectancy, hope, life, love and innocence...FULL of all these things. I think that's why pregnant women "glow."



The day will come when "inculpable" won't be a word used to describe this babe. But for now "she" (for some reason I feel convinced it's a girl, which either means my intuition rocks or I'm crazy for being so certain of something so unfounded) is without guilt. But the wonderful thing is, that even when she is found guilty of some sort of wrong, she will be fully loved. And if it's a boy, he will too.

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Location:The airport, where I saw a couple exit their gate holding two babies from Africa with the whole family waiting to welcome their new members. I love airports!

"Uh-uh, not guilty."

Weirdly, when I saw Julia's word pick I immediately pictured the Hungarian woman from Chicago. 

I took this picture at Joann's fabric store, the most prominent reason being that I feel less guilty about spending money on clothes if I am going to make them than when I buy them. I love clothes but they can get pretty expensive and justifying a new dress or skirt is difficult, but if I spend money on fabric then not only am I getting a new item of clothing but I also am improving my skills in the craft of sewing. 

Theoretically. 

Realistically, I spend as much (if not more) on fabric, zippers, buttons, etc., that it probably loses all value. Which led me to my next reason: the reason many stores are able to sell their clothes so cheaply is that they are made in other countries by children or adults who are grossly underpaid and, in many cases, endangered in the work place, this fact is nothing new. Sadly, that fact doesn't really stop me from shopping at said stores (although I wish I had the means/will power to do so) but each time I make a new article of clothing I am, at least in that moment, not contributing to the mistreatment of people in sweatshops both here and overseas. Maybe someday I'll be able to fully clothe myself and thus be inculpable from perpetuating the system. Or, make enough money to only shop at stores who don't use sweatshops.