Renegade Craft Fair!

As you might imagine, it's been a pretty busy week trying to get settled in my new place in San Francisco and also relishing the return of my social life now that I no longer I have to go to bed at 9:30pm to be up in time for a hellish commute. No sir, I hop on the bus right outside my door on Haight for a quick zip downtown and I am THERE.

Here.

Anyway, I promise to share more about my new pad soon, but for now just know that all in all, I'm happy. And the staggering amount of art, vintage, and DIY design at my fingertips in this city is certainly on the list of things that are making me smile right now.

This weekend I'm going to the Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale and I am thrilled. I've been looking forward to it for months and am already prepared to WANT and, of course, to buy. Those of you in the area, I'd highly recommend checking it out. It's free to attend and will be, at the very least, fun and inspiring.

I'll be sure to showcase my finds, unless of course they're Christmas gifts in which case you'll have to wait until January. Though, let's be honest, at this rate you'd probably have to wait until January anyway.

Moving Day

This is it! Today, I move. I am unrested, unorganized, and only partially packed. I didn't get to work on it yesterday until about 5pm, but that's who I am. The bigger the move, the longer I put off the preparations.

But as unprepared as I am, I'm definitely ready.

Image found at CAPow Art & Design.

Little Miss Self-Conscious

My cubicle feels private, personal, like I'm in my own little world, protected from lurking office eyes.

This, in reality, is not at all the case. People can see me. And when they're behind me, I have no idea. They're not always there, but often a few folks will congregate several cubicle rows back behind this little Plexiglas partition. They're facing in my direction, and naturally their eyes wander. There's one tall gentleman in particular who has about 2 heads on the rest of us and an excellent giraffe's eye view of the whole office. This gentleman and anyone else who may be standing there might see me do something I do when I forget people could be looking my way.

Like just now, when I sneezed twice, then grabbed a dirty paper towel off my desk that I'd been previously using as a napkin and markedly wiped the sneeze spray off my forearm before blowing my nose.

When I turn around in sudden panic realizing my error and see people there, crap! there, I have to bank on the hope that in reality the whole world is not looking at me at all times, that they don't actually care what I do or where I sneeze. That they're probably preoccupied with sucking in their gut or taming an unruly eyebrow hair. All those things they think other people notice, when really, we've all got our own noses to blow. Our own sneeze spray where we just don't want it.

...right?

Parts of a Whole

Did you all enjoy feasting again and again on your Thanksgiving leftovers? Each day tupperwares being emptied, the options becoming fewer. At the end of the week you're eating a plate of 3 brussels sprouts, a mountain of sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce on the side. Not a meal most of us would normally prepare, but somehow because those were each part of what was once a whole, we welcome it. Next year I'd like to try something my coworker did with her friends this year: a post-Thanksgiving leftover potluck. Genius, no?

Speaking of genius, and of leftovers, I'd like to direct your attention to one of my most favorite bloggers. Krista's writing is honest and poetic and effortlessly profound. The kind of writing that makes you wish you could peer out at the world from behind her eyes, think it through her brain. Her post today is about who she used to be and who she is now, how those two people are connected, and how they're not.

"i used to be me. and now i'm me all over again. with the dirt and pebbles sifted out. i am what's left over.

the gold in the pan."

I love this metaphor, and I found it resonating with me I think because lately I have been more preoccupied than usual with the direction I'm heading in, the person I'm going to turn into. I know this is a mystery for everyone, and when you ask most people to look back on their teens and twenties they'll say they never in a million years would have guessed they'd end up where they did.

Similarly, I look ahead toward my thirties and forties, and the person I'm picturing is not me. She doesn't have my face, my hair, my body. She's imaginary. Not an older version of myself, but someone else entirely. I already know I'll turn 40 one day and be surprised that I'm actually still me.

Growing up is funny, isn't it? At all stages. My niece, Alice, has grown and changed so much since the last time I saw her in early September that I look at pictures and videos of her now and feel like I've never even met her. Like it's some other baby, some other kid, and I desperately need to make her acquaintance, meet this month's version of Alice. This bright smiling little person who moves and laughs and does things intentionally is certainly not the same tiny thing that emerged from my sister 6 months ago. That is, quite simply, impossible.

I guess what I'm saying is we never really know what time is going to do to us. It is both the most constant, predictable and unchanging truth of our existence, and our greatest mystery. But whoever we become, all those versions of ourselves that take shape over time? What we can know is that they will always remain part of a whole.

Jump

It's time I break the news. Drumroll, please! There. Shh.

I found a place to live in San Francisco. I'm moving on Sunday to a flat on Haight Street. The building is 100+ years old and the apartment is nestled above a record store. There are 3 friendly flatmates, and my room has pretty blue walls, a window, and a closet. What more could a girl want?

So, friends and loyal readers -- here, as they say, goes nothin'. I'll be sure to let you know how it all turns out.

*Beautiful (and inspiring) print found at the Etsy shop of Jessica Swift. If you want to see many, many more beautiful things (or buy me a Christmas present), go and have a visit.

The most fun you can have with your trousers on

What is...The 32nd Annual Great Dickens Christmas Fair & Victorian Holiday Party?

Yeah, I went there. With my mom. And it was -- you guessed it -- awesome. It's at the Cow Palace for the next 3 weekends and I'd recommend going if you fancy a little "magic, mirth and mystery," being wished a Happy Christmas! by everyone you see, and herds of people dressed up exactly like this:

We feasted on hot cider, meat pies, Turkish coffee, shortbread, sausage rolls, copper ale, and butterscotch candies all while scanning the crowd for the likes of Oliver Twist, Fagin, Dickens himself, and my personal favorite, Uriah HEEP! I recently finished reading David Copperfield and I was simply tickled when that devilish Heep walked by slowly, his hands hanging limply folded at his chest, his back slightly hunched, whatever current evil scheme no doubt hatching in his twisted sweaty head.

We also enjoyed a number of performances including but not limited to some Scottish and Irish dancing (HELLO kilts!) at Mr. & Mrs. Fezziwig's dance party.

My, how this fellow could leap..

Also, a performance of The Mikado during which I may have fallen asleep if it weren't for the quite authentic-looking Victorian gentleman at the end of my row who kept chuckling heartily and shouting "Here here!" in a thick British accent. When the play ended, the gentleman deemed it the most fun you can have with your trousers on. And by jove, he was right! Speaking of trousers, we also saw The Saucy French Postcards Tableaux Revue featuring...live nudes! Yep, nudes. It was racy, and there was a man with an eye-patch patrolling the aisles for cameras.

Actual beggar children. I don't know where they got them.

Some of you may not have known what a huge geek I am, but there you have it. Don't ever tell me I wasn't open with you. If you want the whole truth, this is actually my second year in a row as a visitor to the Cow Palace's London. I remember thinking last year it was something fun to do once, but somehow, I couldn't stay away.

I even imagined a romantic scenario (something I do a little too much lately... time to up the social life!), in which I meet and fall in love with a hot man in character and a tailcoat, perhaps with those giant sideburns indicative of the time. We'd have a great story to tell our friends -- we'd pretend to be embarrassed about having met at the Dickens Fair, but we'd keep going back year after year. I'd dress up like a proper lady with feathers in my hair and we'd stroll through the foggy streets of London, arm in arm.

Hey, thanks!

Well, everyone, I hope you had a super lovely Thanksgiving. As heartwarming as this American holiday is, the funny thing is that the best word I can think to describe it is gezellig, a Dutch word that we have no translation for. It means... cozy, warm, friendly, homey, inviting, fun, etc. Any number of tasty English adjectives the combination of which doesn't even cut it.

Here's what some of our gezellig looked like yesterday (not pictured: a rousing game of Jenga, stimulating table conversation, catching a yellow jacket in a mason jar, and a family trip to see Disney's new Tangled):

The short list of what I'm thankful for? My family, obv. They're nice to me even when I'm a horrible little brat (yeah, that still happens), and every day I can't believe how lucky I am that I have parents who understand, and siblings who I can call best friends. Oh, and the most beautiful little niece you ever did see.

Now it's time to set our sights on Christmas! I'm at home getting inspired by handmade goodness rather than out with the terrifying masses on Black Friday. I mean, who wants to participate in something with a name like that? It sounds like the plague. But instead of locusts, shoppers.

This, however -- this is little more like it.