the title actually covers quite a bit of ground. talk amongst yourselves...

accidental potter #1: monkeydad and monkeybaby and i were at generic crapland today buying some hair product for monkeydad. they had the latest, or lastest, installment on sale for 40% off, so we've now completed the set. we say it's "for monkeybaby one day". monkeydad's hair products were far cheaper than restocking my bumble and bumble. it's been the same since college - i may not have money for much, but i will have good soap/shampoo and good coffee. my clothes shopping today consisted of $24.99 at the thrift store for 2 pairs of jeans and 4 shirts. (last time i scored a lucky brand jeans skirt, a long one, for $7. supersweet.)

accidental potter #2: there is actually some hugely (HUGELY) cool video on you tube of stuff like shoji hamada - clay god for the uninitiated. last weekend we were on a walk and passed by a man going into a ceramics studio at seward park and he was friendly, and just that little glimpse made me yearn for my hands in clay. they have classes of all sorts, but the reality is, i can't find time at home (unless it's about now) let alone find time to trundle off to an expensive clay class. but i can dream. i can stalk heath ceramics on ebay, i can admire beatifully formed dirt all day long. i can pet my heath mug several times a day. obsession is free.

accidental potter #3: speaking of hamada, this book by bernard leach looks interesting. lately aesthetic living has taken up residence in my brain. there's something very desirable about having a rather zakka / wabi-sabi kind of thing going. i think it's my emotional reaction to the turbulence and lack of control having a child brings. none the less, that peaceful zen thing is sooooooooo appealing. thinking about that and looking at the vignettes in the sneak peeks on design sponge pretty much get me there. i prolly need to get out more. or go to burningman, or something. i think it's great to appreciate what is not perfect (although as for the wabi-sabi thing, the 'appreciating the not perfect' really translates to buying very expensive one of a kind imperfect things which are aesthetically just-so ) but if you get too caught up in the design of it all (and believe me, I'm first in line for that kind of thing) I think you can get serious stick-up-the-butt-itis.

i think the previous version of the aesthetic thing was my favorite purple book. Originally $3.33, and moved up in appropriate monetary increments over the years: Be Here Now. I think being here now is really where it's at. whatever your gig is. floppy japanese tea cups or chinet. just BE.

Posted by talkingcrow at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

mmmmmm. ok. danger danger. my lovely friend donna sent a package - it just came, the doorbell didn't even wake up himself, who has been napping an unusual amount today, and inside the package (perishable, open upon arrival) were the most yummy buttercream cookies... seriiously, i had to force myself to leave the kitchen. i could have just eaten the entire box and hidden the evidience. i have a deep and heartfelt love affair with sugar these days. it's better that i pace myself with what i actually have in the house. so good though. butter. cream. buttercream. yum. in a cute tin no less. yay for UPS.

speaking of friends and influences, etc. i have to admit i'm a bit of an enabler. i love to shop with my friends because my friends are good shoppers. i've 'helped' spend half a million dollars on a whim in an afternoon with grace. lately it's a bit more low key, but my supershopper friend annick is fun to enable. :) we went to flower world the other day - i have heard about it for decades and never gone - and i helped her fill in her garden. i did buy a couple of things, but my budget is seriously limited since this mom gig isn't paid. the payback, of a sort, is that she's got me fixated on weeding the damned yard. for the first time in many years, i'm on a weeding frenzy. hopefully that will pay off in a nice enough yard for little man to play in and for the grownups to have drunken croquet parties in.

we have faced a spectacular amount of poop lately. that's always fun. i decided to bail on the whole PEPS thing. i konw it's luck of the draw, and i wasn't feeling it so much with the group i was in. monkey junior is very very funny these days. i'll have to get some video up here. he laughs, and it's like babycrack. making him laugh is the best thing in the world.

speaking of which, the sleeping tiny giant has awakened.

Posted by talkingcrow at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)