the trouble with lisa

sarah. (you're the poet in my heart-)*

2011-12-28T07:24:00.000-08:00

sarah helen simmons

22 october 1926 - 28 december 2006

it’s been five years since sarah (sarah-spelled-with-an-“h”) died. my grandmother. 1825 days since i saw her last. i remember getting the call from my dad to come now. christmas over, but just barely...lights on the tree persevering, twinkling and dancing as if they somehow still mattered. i left in a daze, didn’t pack clothes for a funeral, don’t remember being driven to the airport. shock? i booked the first flight out and headed to alabama. she waited until i got there and died as i held her hand.

i’m not sure if i thought about where i would be five years from that year -- 2006 -- but i know i am closer. i know that my intentions are right, my aim is true. i know the people i surround myself with are some of the best people on this pale blue dot. i know that my hair is a lot longer (and darker). i know that what is right for me may not be right for you and that is okay. i know that people show you who they are really quickly - best to believe them. i know that there are only two kinds of jeans that i prefer: acne and jbrand. i know that my parents love me very much. i know that pretty is as pretty does. i know that my spiritual evolution has been profound -- not perfect, but profound. i know that fear isn't always factual. i know that a smile from a complete stranger gives me a sense of happiness and peace. i know enough to know that everything i know could possibly be totally wrong. i know how it feels when a friend turns on you. i know that thoughts really do become things. i know that if i run at least 20 miles a week, i feel better. i know that in order to know you, i need to ask more questions and not talk so much. i know that people are mostly good. i know that there a places around the globe i want to get to soon. i know that i really don’t dig getting too caught up in anyone else's bullshit. i know that blaming someone else for your problems is futile; they really don’t care what you think most times. i know that my grandmother would be proud of who i have become. i know that no matter ‘who/what/when/where or why’, i need to strive to keep my side of the street clean. i know that i love rap music and to it, i love to dance. i know that i won’t always do the right thing all the time, but i do try. i know that having two or three really really really good friends is better than have 100+ acquaintances. i know that life isn’t always easy. i know that my reaction to people/places/things is directly proportionate to my happiness. i know the cost of a lost cause. i know the best is yet to come. i know you. thank you for reading my blog. and happy new year, too.

*never change and don't you ever stop...

©littlebrownbutterfly

hostages, et al.

2011-11-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

i have a few (ok, many-) things that i have picked up from thrift stores and random shops all the way from los angeles to austin and everywhere in between. things i love, but things that need to be released, set free, let GO. after all, i bought it all to sell anyway. good stuff. to this end, i am photographing, writing descriptions for and getting ready to sell most of these rad things. things that i have held captive, schleppled around and basically held hostage for too too long.

maybe i’m sentimental. maybe i cling to certain things longer than i should. maybe i'm just a huge pain in the ass. whatever. the point is it takes me FOREVER to make certain decisions -- anyone who has known me/been with me/been my friend/is my friend knows this fun little fact. frankly, i exhaust myself. i hold myself hostage to ideals that can never be met and to tomorrows that may not ever come. its funny how we do that. i know someone who is going through a divorce. this person’s marriage partner won’t sign the piece of paper. won't let it be done. the unhealthy tie remaining intact even though they have both moved on -- held hostage. um...yeah! GOOD TIMES. why do we do this to others? why do we do this to ourselves? why keep holding on to stuff that isn’t really ours anymore? i've been trying to liberate myself from a lot of configurations and arrangements lately. i’ve been the hostage, the prisoner, if you will. starting my own lil’ biz and liberating myself from the corporate jungle/world of hell is one thing. letting go -- really letting go -- of expectations of other people, places and things is another. i have taken my share of hostages, too -- (oh what fun for everyone!). i have held on longer than i should, kept unrealistic expectations alive. in the slow slow SLOW process of awakening, i now know that sometimes it’s best to let go, set things free. that happens to be many things for me, and maybe for you, as well. but today i'll start with few atomic era treasures, remembering that only i hold the key to my version of freedom. and i shall be released.

©littlebrownbutterfly

photo taken by amandapandabananafanafofana elmore.

ghosts.

2011-10-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

with halloween just around the corner, the goodwill's and thrift stores are busily stocking their shelves with costumes of ghouls, goblins, r.i.p. signs and weird candy bowls eager to dispense high-fructose corn syrup in bite sized poison portions. i see it all: adults and kids gearing up for the bedlam, deciding what they want to be, looking for halloween-y knick knacks to adorn their soon-to-be scary porches -- and people like me, souls looking for answers to questions amongst the discarded relics of halloweens past.

a few days ago i said some really shitty things to someone i love. the kind of thing you wish you could immediately take back even before the last word has slipped from your lips. like i was a character from the movie idiocracy, okay? yeah. that bad. pit of your stomach stuff. these words were all wrong...it all came out so so so wrong. horrible. scary. i blogged last summer about some unkind words spoken about me that hurt (rumors). not quite the same as the insensitive comments i made, but this error in my judgement was enough to give me a great deal of pause. i don’t like what i said and much of my time these last 48+ hours have been wishing i could take it back, but i can’t. like a ghost i wish the words would just drift away to their rightful place: into the ether, into the past. we all deal with our own haunted pasts, frightening us with lingering proximity to where we find ourselves now. our ghosts are sometimes closer than we would like them to be, hovering about us, begging to be seen, screaming to be heard once again. sometimes it feels comfortable to listen, to try and make out a figure in the misty haze that encompasses the dark. but sometimes it’s best to just look away. it all comes down to forgiveness. forgive the past. forgive your mistakes. forgive yourself for the stupid things you’ve said. forgive the ghosts that haunt you. it’s all they really want, anyway.

©littlebrownbutterfly

how does your garden grow?

2011-09-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

the drought in texas has left dead grass and destruction everywhere. in an attempt to help my water-thirsty yard along, i decided fall was the best time as any to do a little gardening. not having all the right tools necessary to tidy things up, i set out to find them at my trusty secondhand store -- discarded shovels, rakes, trowels. the coolest apparatus i found was a vintage weed destroying tool called a ‘hula ho’. i know it’s not quite the right season to be planting flowers and such, but getting the weeds out and filling in some spots with flowers seems like a nice idea -- with regard to my yard and my life.

have you ever known someone who turned out not to be such a good person? a backstabber? a liar? it's an unsettling feeling when you finally realize the truth, no? for some time now, i have been in the long, rigorous process of cleaning up - not only my yard - but my own house as well, figuratively speaking...making sure my side of the street is clean, yada yada. the problem with this practice of continual purging is that my tolerance for bullshit is low low low. i don’t like crazy makers. i don’t dig people who only seek to create drama. i’m very uninterested in chaos -- um, let me rephrase that: i don’t/won’t/will never ever ever ever (oh -- did i mention ‘never’?) participate in any version of the Karpman Drama Triangle, ok? so if and when i get a whiff of even a teeny tiny inkling of crazy, i retreat. i back off. i run. i’m the sensitive and somewhat naive kind, so sometimes i get confused when the chaotic creeps its way into the landscape that is my life. why? because i always try to see the best in people. but taking the blinders off a bit earlier in my encounters seems like a good idea these days. this naivety is what sometimes attracts the wrong sort of folk to me: uncomfortable in your own skin? GREAT! want to pawn some of your baggage at my store? DROP IT OFF! wanna go ‘round and ‘round about some issue that is completely and totally insane and keep having the same conversation about it for days on end? LET THE CIRCLE GAME BEGIN! wanna send 25 paragraph emails that have a lot of words but essentially say absolutely nothing?!? FLOOD MY INBOX, PLEASE! anyway, dear reader, you get the point. some people are so kooky that they go out of their way to try to make YOU feel the same. sad. and please believe me when i tell you that i stand on no moral high ground here; i've had/still have my moments. much like earl hickey*, i’m currently working through my own list of apologies to those souls with whom i need to right a wrong. but these days, the lesson seems to be more about serenity and saneness and less about drama and insanity. more about the flowers than the weeds. i guess having to pick through a few weeds every now and again is just a part of having a beautiful garden.

*earl hickey -- from ‘my name is earl’.

©littlebrownbutterfly

a slice of your life.

2011-09-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

memories are interesting little reminders of life as we knew it, especially juxtaposed within the context of how things are now. with summer disappearing in my rear view mirror and an inexplicably wonderful new road under me on which to travel, i pause to consider what once was and that which will always be.

at the goodwill a few days past, i was rifling through a pile of old cookware, looking for some groovy cast iron skillet stuff when i came across a pizza stone. not something i would ordinarily consider, except that seeing it jarred a memory -- a very specific memory -- of my summer’s spent with my grandparents in ft lauderdale, florida. my grandfather was a school teacher and had the summer’s off. my grandmother spent her days at a big concrete building downtown and while she worked, my grandfather grocery shopped. going to grocery stores was a pastime of his and as the only scrawny grandchild he had, feeding me became his obsession. although i was happy to eat mustard sandwiches day in and day out (frealz-), he loved to load up the fridge and the freezer with food -- all for me. the most common food? pizza. specifically totino’s frozen pizza and always always at least four of every kind: cheese, supreme, pepperoni. i always wondered if there was a sale on this brand of pizza as if i ate one, it seemed that is was always replaced with a least one more, keeping a nice even count. to fancy it up a bit, we always cooked it on a pizza stone. funny. frozen pizza became a gourmet dream when shoved in the oven this way: a shitty 95 cent pizza became, for me, the stuff memories are made of.

my grandfather is in a nursing home now. he cannot shop for food anymore. he cannot do much of anything but remember the way things once were. this makes me both incredibly sad and incredibly happy all at the same time. sad because we will each face some eventual reality such as his. happy because i had him then to buy me pizza, to feed me, to love me. i am lucky that i can share a bit of a pizza-esque tradition with my child, my son. i’m not, um, you know, much of a cook, but i am fortunate enough to live in a town with the best pizza this side of nyc. it’s a little place called home slice. my friends own it, my pals work there and my son loves it. it is not quite a totino’s on a pizza stone in a kitchen in florida, but a memory in the making nonetheless. one day my son will remember the days we spent eating our lunches, our dinners there. one day he will remember, and one day, it will mean so very much.

©littlebrownbutterfly

i sea stars.

2011-07-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

i have never been given a gift so sweet. a belt buckle with a starfish etching, brass, early 70’s. TOTALLY my kind of thing. as a serious thrifter and looker for things all great and groovy, i give a lot of amazing vintage gifts and i get good ones, too. but what makes this a gift of note is that it has a story: a story that makes it a possession i will never part with. i've carved out a special place in my heart for this buckle, a place where very few things reside -- and also a place for the woman who once wore it, who owned it, who schlepped it around for 20+ years. i did not know the owner this buckle once belonged, but based solely on her seemingly rad style, i’m certain she and i would have gotten along quite famously.

it’s funny how things find us. i’ve always been someone who has been searching. in high-school and college i searched for a religion/spiritual practice/ideology that would suit me: catholicism, the kabbalah, zen buddhism, jungian psychology...you name it, it’s likely that i have studied it, and studied it in-depth. my adult life has involved the seeking of other things. the right car, the right person to
( fill in the blank ) with, the right this, the right that. and in the most dark and desperate times, i have searched for myself. lately, it’s been chill on the search front. a sort of quiet acceptance seems to have lodged itself deep within my being. or maybe it’s just apathy -- differentiating between the two is sometimes, um, let’s say.... a bit challenging. right? right. all i know is that when you stop searching, settle down and stay still, good things can come.

as to how all this relates to a certain starfish brass belt buckle, here it is: i did not go in search of this particular treasure. instead, it found me. and with it comes the knowing that although it took a very long time to get from there to here, from her to me, it finally did. an impressive journey, wrapped up in the life of a woman that i will never know -- but the search finally over, the lost, found. i do believe she would be pleased with where her sea star ended up.

©littlebrownbutterfly

keeping it all together.

2011-06-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

i bought this stapler for a friend. i don’t actually know if he needs a vintage stapler, but i figured he would appreciate the good design and color of it if nothing else.

a stapler is an interesting piece of office equipment, is it not? a necessary accessory used to staple papers together, keep everything nice and tidy and with other papers that by some typed, printed, categorized means they inherently belong. in the macrocosm that is this life, we all need the equivalent of a really goddamn good stapler. something to keep it all together for us. most days, i feel rather adept at handling the various miscellaneous flurry of papers that get thrown my way. i can compartmentalize, put things in the filing cabinet that keeps my little tiny mind clutter-free. i can keep every paper, every interaction, every detail, every THING each within the categories they belong. i can staple it all together and be done.

but then there are the days that i can’t. i get overwhelmed. the overload, the need to do it/anything/everything better and better and better all the time completely overwhelms me and i am paralyzed by the sudden appearance of my good friend -- my longstanding companion -- Fear. as kind citizens of this office space/brain wave/planet, we should all attempt to keep our shit more together. perhaps then we would be/could be nicer and kinder and more sympathetic to the plights of others and the stack of unstapled, unsorted papers that they too must inevitably sort through, prioritize and figure out what the hell to do with. a stapler may indeed just be necessary office equipment. or it could also be a symbol - a reminder - that to keep it all together, sometimes you have to let it all fall apart, papers everywhere, so that the reorganization, the restructuring of life...can begin.

you know what i mean.

© littlebrownbutterfly

light. (or: existential crisis #1141)

2011-04-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

on a recent thrift soiree, i stumbled upon a mass of cameras, discarded into one bin. lots of cameras. it got me thinking about my friends who are photographers, always with their camera’s slung like a piece of existential jewelry around their necks. i have a lot of friends whose profession is photography. i am lucky enough to have surrounded myself with those that look at life through the lens of their cameras. coincidence that these are my friends? probably not. a unique perspective is a quality i consider highly important when choosing pals. how amazing they are, what they each teach me! the one thing that i am constantly learning from them is the importance of light. from what i understand, it is everything: a best friend or a worst enemy. how it affects the photo. how one see things, how the camera sees us, in what light we fall, what shadows we cast or don’t cast. light.

if i showed you the worst part of me, would you still like me? love me? if i saw the worst part of you could i say the same? we all try to portray ourselves in the best light possible. we all want to look good. a hard goal to accomplish every single goddamned day for sure. recently, i have been noticing the people in my life having a hard time, going through something/anything/everything. the best possible light is not available. understatement, of course. i include myself in all of this, too. is it the retrograde of some tiny planet far away casting it’s shadow upon us all? is it us turning away?

arduous as it may be, the best way out of a dark place is to cast a new light on the situation. move around, gain some perspective. look at it from another angle. wait until the lighting is better and take a new snapshot. eventually, we will get the image we want.

‘til next time, happy rummaging through your life ♥.

(this blog dedicated to amanda, josephine, greenblat, levon, suzanne and those whom i have yet to meet-)

©littlebrownbutterfly

stories i could tell.

2011-03-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

this was not the blog i intended on publishing today. i had another one all lined up and ready to go about a vintage stapler that i found, fell in love with and bought. oh well. next time.

i’ve had a real clusterfuck of a week. to clear my mind and try to get a little bit of goddamned perspective, i--you guessed it--went on a little thrift adventure to one of my favorite thrift stores, where hipsters looking for cool shit are outnumbered by real people just trying to find good, cheap clothes for their kids. it’s my kind of place and i find it comforting being there, amongst it all.

as i was strolling down the last aisle, i saw out of the corner of my eye a knick knack thingy that literally took my breath away. like, i stopped breathing for a second or two. i walked in seeming slow motion to it and realized that it was the exact knick knack thingy that my mother had in our house when i was a child. naturecraft, from england, worth about $50. tears. more tears. and then a smile. look at the universe talking to me. (sometimes, all we must do is listen-) it’s of an old man playing the piano. he is obviously homeless, but he has his piano, he is playing and he is happy; cat crawling on him, holes in his shoes, happy. as a scrawny little towhead of a kid growing up in f-l-a, i had no brothers, no sisters - just me. i made up a lot of stories in my youth to keep myself preoccupied, to get through some lonely, only child moments and to fill a little time. this particular collectible was one of those things that made my imagination run wild. who was this man? did he have a family? was he without a home? how did he feed his cat!? as adults we make up stories, too. about our lives, about the lives of others. we tell ourselves what we think we need to hear to make things better. we embellish, we lie to ourselves, we hope we can believe our own bullshit to get through the day. well, today, dear readers, i am sick of the stories i have been telling myself. i want the truth. i want to live in the moment, i want to speak from my heart and i want others to do the same. time’s running out. speak the truth. stop the storytelling. be honest. it’s all we’ve got. are you in?

©littlebrownbutterfly

the missing piece(s).

2011-01-24T18:59:00.000-08:00

i'm a big fan of shel silverstein. his books, although simple, are profound. i’m also a big fan of mid-century modern era flatware. on a recent excursion thrifting i found the most amazing, incomplete set. four tapered forks, one knife, four spoons and three serving utensils all for 99 cents. missing pieces. how could i resist?

it takes losing something to realize that you ever had something, and losing something to realize how much you already have. i have lost earrings, sunglasses, keys, phones, lip glosses...and bigger, more important things, too: people, friends, pets. when things get lost or things leave my life, it’s difficult, perplexing and weighty all at the same time. i once lost an elsa peretti bone cuff bracelet on a delta flight from virginia to los angeles. i had already deplaned and made my way to ground transportation when i realized it was no longer around my wrist. i felt panic stricken -- and hopeless, because knew it was gone forever. a gift from benmont, i wore it every day and it had sort of become a part of me. yes, i can always buy another one, as the piece is still made, but that is not the point, no that is not the point at all. i having been wondering what the point is exactly. when we lose something, the feeling of loss settles within us and makes itself at home. big or small, it's all relative depending on one’s inclinations. what might be a traumatic loss for me (bracelet, friend, et cetera) might not be so big or important in your world. i think the point is that finding the missing pieces in one’s life isn’t the goal. or rather, it shouldn’t be. the goal i think, maybe possibly perhaps, is to truly be alive in the world -- and quite often to really BE happy, we have to have the search. we must not, under any circumstance whatsoever, settle. one piece might not fit. or maybe it fits for awhile. or maybe it's a placeholder for the right thing. i may never ever find the rest of my flatware set - but i might, you know. and that is what keeps me going, keeps me on track and keeps me searching.

the hope.

“so on and on it rolled, having adventures, falling into holes and bumping into walls”.

©littlebrownbutterfly

for a dancer.

2010-12-28T07:30:00.000-08:00

in memoriam

sarah helen simmons

22 october 1926 - 28 december 2006

©littlebrownbutterfly

(damaged) goods, broken ( _____ ).

2010-12-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

the great about thrifting is that you find a lot of really good stuff. the not so great thing about thrifting is that sometimes, most of the time, the really great things one finds are damaged. i once found the most amazing cream-colored fox-haired coat from the early 70‘s. it had a few tiny yellowish spots on it and i knew i could never sell it in my vintage store, so i had to let it go. and then there are the books with torn covers. rare record albums with scratches. knick knacks with slight chips. it’s a rigorous game, thrifting. the good stuff is hard to come by and gets snatched up by the lucky few. fortunately, we are all not looking for the exact same things; each of us have standards and some idea of what we can and cannot live with. if i find something that i absolutely love and it has minor imperfections, i will keep it for myself. if i am shopping for my online store, or getting a gift for a friend, i only choose the best of the best. and this fact - how i settle for things that aren't necessarily the best for me- has given me great pause of late, my dear loyal reader. i will seek it, i will keep it, i will rationalize it, i will make it okay even if it is not, thrift store find or otherwise. cracked? OKAY! broken? BRING IT! damaged goods? I'LL TAKE 100! selling myself short is getting me nowhere and yet, it’s such a comfortable place for me to be. when i was a little girl, my great grandma edna ross would make cornbread in this little orange bowl. (i grew up in the deep south and cornbread was/is a big part of every southern meal). the bowl turned out to be a fire king, and a brand that i covet and delight when i find in my rummages these days. this particular little bowl is what she “started” the cornbread in and was not perfect as it was a bit too small and much of the glaze had worn off the bottom. she complained about this little bowl every single time she made cornbread. i always wondered to myself why she would continue to use it -- she had many other bowls perfectly suited for her cornbread-making needs. maybe it was just easier for her to complain, rather than change it. maybe she had grown used to it, even though she knew she could have picked something a little more appropriate. i guess sometimes we go deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to seeing things as they really are. sometimes we settle for the torn, worn, cracked and imperfect. sometimes that’s okay. and sometimes, it may be a better idea to look inward at our imperfect selves and strive, strive! to correct what is broken, what is damaged within us. after my grandmother sarah died, i took possession of her mother’s little fire king bowl. the glaze is indeed gone, but my memory of it’s meaning is still very much intact.

©littlebrownbutterfly

let it bleed, please.

2010-11-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

my friend ramona gave me a really rad housewarming gift a few months ago. a container of groovy colors and sections that holds the following: popcorn, chips, pretzels and nuts. but i don’t use it for that. i use it as a catch-all thingy in my kitchen. i am compulsively neat
(read: slightly ocd) and don’t like little bits of stuff all over my house. so this container -- with it’s separate compartments -- makes my life a little more neat, a little more tidy...a little more manageable. sigh, sigh, sigh, oy vey. if only all things in our lives were this easy to organize, devise, compartmentalize, categorize. but you and i both know dear reader, that this is just not the case. there is no rest for the wicked, no way to stop the constant flow of endless little bits of one’s life: bills, relationships, jobs, children, friends, ups, downs, et cetera. until recently, i have tried in vain to make everything fit into a myriad of aptly named little categories of which only i know the definitions. tried to keep everything separate. tried to keep everything together. keep it all in it’s place -- for me, for everyone else. FAIL. it’s a set up for failure. all things are connected. loosely, tightly, and every tension in between. i see my heightened neurosis* in this regard. it’s where i get stuck. i think that maybe liberation and freedom come from letting it all go. letting it all just come undone. bleed together. i am learning (EVER so slowly, ahem-) that nothing in this life really belongs in a box, within a compartment. i may like to keep my house a certain way, but out here in the real world, keeping everything in line -from running together- is a fruitless effort and to keep on trying just seems like going against the natural flow of life. the only thing i can really do is to keep my side of the street clean. be honest. be gracious. fearless and in the moment. no separation necessary.

the chips and the pretzels cannot stay apart for long.

©littlebrownbutterfly

* from a lecture by pema chödrön

darkness on the edge of.

2010-10-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

if there is one single item in my house that could sum up the majority of my thrift store experiences ‘til now, it would be my 1950’s, double bullet gooseneck floor lamp that i found at a catholic charity thrift store. very hard to find the originals of these types of lamps while thrifting, but reproductions at stores like restoration hardware and ikea are everywhere. there are two lights on this particular lamp: both can be on at the same time or each light can be turned on separately. it is the first light i turn on when i come into my house at night. i depend on it to light the darkness, to allow me see so i don’t trip and fall over everything (i’m kinda clumsy anyway to begin with-). light travels and takes away darkness at the speed of 186,282 miles per second. nice to know when in need of it. it’s fast. lately, i’ve been feeling a little more like the dark of my house at night, instead of the light of my lovely lamp, which, as my true friends can attest, is typically not the case with me. i am a positive person most of the time. i see the good in people most of the time. i can find the bright side of any situation most of the time. i can laugh at myself and my many many mistakes most of the time. but lately, i have been heavy-hearted. too serious. dare i say depressed? uneasy about some of the choices i have made. ugh. i know i am not unique. i know that others get down about their lives from time to time. i know that we all don’t have/get the Perfect This or the Perfect That. sometimes, we are all just trudging the road of happy destiny, stumbling in the dark, looking for the light. it’s an uncomfortable place to be. scary. black. i’m currently trying to remind myself that the fix i need is actually a fairly simple one. a light switch. a decision. when i’m lost in the darkness of my own particular vacuum, all i really have to do is flip a switch, and in 0.000005 seconds or less the darkness will dissipate and i’ll be able to see yet again.

©littlebrownbutterfly

*thanks to bruce springsteen and his amazing record ‘darkness on the edge of town’ that i listened to repeatedly while writing this blog-

two.

2010-09-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

when i lived in the city of angels, i would go antique shopping with my dear friend elizabeth mellor. not thrift store shopping mind you. antique shopping. completely and totally different animals. those who do either (or both) know: thrifting is a hunt, an art -- it’s work. antique shopping is looking in lovely shops for beautiful, curated things. things already chosen. see la différance, dear reader? except of course in the case of this painting. summer house. painted in 1972 by a lady named waldrip taylor. not much is known about this painter. i have done a fair amount of research on her and there is just not too much to find. so...i was with elizabeth this day and there we were -- in LA, antiquing on a saturday afternoon, la brea avenue. although it is long gone and i cannot recall the name, i do remember there were two parts to this particular store. the inside part with all the really fancy stuff -- and outside -- where all the shit that nobody wanted lived. and THAT is where i found summer house. outside, hiding conspicuously behind 27 other pieces of art haphazardly collected and leaning against the back wall. and there we were. my friend elizabeth inside, deciding on THIS 18th century couch or THAT 19th century side table, and i outside looking through the seeming rubbish. summer house was my taste. it was my style. it had to be mine. i bargained with the shop owner...”i mean, come ON, man...it’s OUTSIDE for crying out loud!”. after much back and forth, he reluctantly agreed to accept my price. it was mine. summer house has been with me since my s-s-s-single days in LA and has seen me through the all the other things that happens in one’s life...marriage, child, divorce, a move to another state, et cetera, et cetera.

the interesting thing about this painting is how it changes for me, how it evolves, how it continually transforms into something other than what i initially saw that day long ago on la brea avenue. or maybe it's me who changes. the person i was when i bought summer house 15 years ago is gone. my eyes have seen so many different things since then. my heart broken, healed and broken again. my being has travelled far and wide. my feet have walked on lots of different soil. my mind more open now. yada yada. i feel like i've made it to the proverbial 'other side'. full circle, kinda. summer house. birds. two. in the center. (they are my favorites-) one. near the top. looking and waiting for the friend in flight to join. to become two. sigh. someone very close me used this painting as album art for an EP his band just released. how could i have known then that it would inspire someone in my present life as it inspired me in my (not so) distant past life? the answer is that i could never have known. the tricky part about this little life we get to have is that none of us ever really know anything. we just do it. we buy art. thrift store shop. fall in love. look loneliness in the eye. travel. take risks. be a good friend. listen to music. take care of our families. with regard to summer house, the circle back from some antique store in LA circa 1995 to album art in 2010 makes me really happy. it reminds me that sometimes the path taken from point a to point b is not a straight shot, but a winding, lovely road lined with birds and the brightest color green you've ever seen.

©littlebrownbutterfly

photo courtesy of amanda panda elmore

sticks and stones may break my bones, but words shall never hurt me.

2010-08-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

so i recently had the misfortune of reading some very shitty things about myself. someone else’s opinion of me. via email. nastiness all the way around. this particular perpetrator had an agenda of course, and as i scanned her hateful words (it was, frankly, too venomous to read all the way through-), i wondered why any of us would take the time to try and crucify -- by hearsay -- another human being on this planet. why? jealousy? envy? fear? ugh. what terrible motivators. i mean, REALLY. don’t you have better things to do with your day? or hey! here’s a good one -- The Golden Rule. oh you know, Jesus, Bible, Book of Matthew? ringin’ any bells? no? i guess not. the irony of this is that i really really really try to be a kind person. i do. i would never go after another in such a way. yeah. i have better things to do with my time.

one of my favorite all time records is Rumours, by Fleetwoood Mac. breakup inflicted, Rumours captures five people going through some pretty heavy and tumultuous times. he said, she said, they said. the title of the record says it all. rumours...could be true, could not be true...all rumours. the thing about these rumours, about hearsay is that 10 times out of 10, the victim, the object of the lies has no way of defending oneself from the ugliness, the opinions, the untruths. defenseless. i am not an innocent. from my mouth have fallen not so nice things about others. i am not proud of admitting this, dear reader, but we have all done it. we think we know things about other people and take the liberty of speaking when we probably should not. words hurt people, sometimes. this little incident (with me being the object of the lies, the rumours, the hearsay-) has given me pause. about hurting others. with my words. getting caught up in the lives of others. why? what is the point? most of the time when we drum up drama, it is to make ourselves feel better in some way. lay blame elsewhere. pass the buck. the next time i feel the need to speak ill of another human being, i will put down the magnifying glass and i will pick up the mirror. life is messy and people are not perfect. emotion rules and sometimes wins. but i think that there is a better way. i have not quite forgiven this little circle of people who felt the need to defame my character, but i will. you see, it is better to forgive than the live in anger and hate and hostility. they win, then. i will forgive, but i will not forget. i know them for what they are and it saddens me. oh well. it is better to be the bigger person and move on. i know who i am and now, i now who they really are. i win.

...listen to the wind blow, down comes the night...run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies.

©littlebrownbutterfly

the things we carry.

2010-08-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

i was in new york city recently, and i was on a mission to find myself a vintage purse. not just any ‘ole vintage purse. it needed to be big, so that i could carry lots of stuff in case i need to carry lots of stuff. the truth is, i don’t really carry too much in my purses, but i do like to have the extra room, just in case. i sought out the best vintage shops in the city. i dragged my man (hi k!) to several of them, and so patient he was with me whilst on my quest to find it. eventually -- and after schlepping back and forth amongst the city, i found it...at a lovely store on the lower east side called edith machinist. a fendi bag from the early 80’s. perfect in size and exactly what i was looking for, with plenty of space to carry all of my little sundry items should i choose to. pristine, oversized -- almost like a perfect little piece of luggage. after proudly making this this bag my primary one and transferring my goods into it, i got to (oh no...here she goes...) thinking about the things we each carry around with us. in our hearts, in our heads, in our lives. one of my all time favorite lyrics is from -- guess! a bob dylan song from the bootlegged record, blood on the tapes. (if you aren’t familiar with blood on the tapes, you should be. outtakes from blood on the tracks. find it. get it. listen to it over and over and over until it is ingrained in you.) anyway, the line goes like this: i noticed at the ceremony that you left all your bags behind/the driver came in after you left/he gave them all to me and then he resigned. and so it is. in life, we carry our things, our own little bits of baggage and sometimes we are left holding things that belong to others. whether heavy in nature or light in weight, what we pick up and choose to carry around daily can weigh us down or at the very least, make us stop and realize that we need to lighten the load a bit. for now, my fendi is rather sparsely furnished. my wallet, a make-up bag, my iphone. i like to keep it light.

©littlebrownbutterfly

and i ran.

2010-07-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

in addition to all other simply fascinating things that i am, i am a runner. certainly not the fastest, and i’m not always the most diligent about my little feel good hobby -- and that’s okay with me. i cut myself some slack. i run. i do it. i’ve been running for several years now and my runs are sacred to me. it’s the time i take for myself. i process stuff. or i just listen to my tunes and zone out...way out. which is good for me since my brain is usually on a perpetual spin cycle of “what do i do about this situation/how could i have done that thing better/why does my cat merlin follow me to my mailbox like he is a dog/what the fuck am i doing with my life...and the Big and Daunting, what are we all doing on this pale blue dot anyway?” i exhaust myself with my thoughts. you get the point. sometimes during my runs i have little epiphanies, little insights that i take with me into my day, into my life. on my run today, for example, i thought more about the esoteric and abstract nature of my chosen sport. i have run away from a lot of things in my life: shit gets hard, i bail, i run. i simply run away. lisa has left the building. mary chapin carpenter says it nicely in one of her songs: “i have run from the arms of lovers, i've run from the eyes of friends, i have run from the hands of kindness, i've run just because I can...”. but the act of running does not always lead anywhere. sometimes running is counterproductive. if i am running away from a particular person, let’s say, i have probably not dealt with the issues that probably, quite possibly, most likely-- would cause me put down the magnifying glass and pick up the mirror. evaluate. reevaluate. look at my part. we are drawn to certain people because we need them. we need the experiences and the lessons that perhaps only they can teach us. so i have become very conscious of my tendencies with regard to bailing out on people. choosing the easier path. running. most of the time it is the easier, softer way. but you know what? i’m not really interested in the easiest route out these days. i want the 10 miler that is hard, that sometimes hurts a little...the run that may be kind of arduous to get through. because, at the end of each mile -- at the end of each little step -- is a lesson that is taking me to exactly where i am supposed to be. it feels good to run for sure, but it feels really really really good to stay and to learn. so stay awhile, would ya? my vintage nike roadrunners would like that.

©littlebrownbutterfly

for him, for me, for you.

2010-06-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

the painting associated with this blog is what my bed faces, so i look at it often, ponder those two unfinished horses a lot -- it is one of my favorite pieces of art. i purchased it at a hipster/groovester estate sale and fell in love the moment i laid eyes on it as well. i don’t know the title, but in an ode to the stones i call it “wild horses”. i’ve always been a bit of a wild horse myself: here (but not really), seemingly grounded (kinda), and ready for flight (rather than a fight) at any given moment in time. but something has happened to me this go-round, with this love. i’m not scared. i’m prepared to fight for it. i want to. this is worth it. but love is a complicated, wild beast itself and sometimes there is a bit of taming to do: the past always seems much closer than it really is, the heart sometimes longs for the familiar and oftentimes the beast wins and the drag backward is the easier than the forward motion of the new, the light, the love. if we are lucky, we all must come face t0 face with the decision to let go and to love at some point in our lives. some of us will win, some of us will lose. but the ones that try are my heroes. those who say, ‘fuck it’ and go forth into the dangerous battle of the unknown are the brave ones. they know that love -- true love -- is worth the good fight any day. because sometimes, it really does work out. people stay together. sometimes the heart knows and understands what the head does not: that only love is real...not fear, not the pain of the past. love.

wild horses couldn’t drag me away-

©littlebrownbutterfly

simple subjects, salinger and silence.

2010-05-11T21:30:00.000-07:00

so, i love jd salinger. i love him because -- for whatever reason -- his use of the english language makes me want to read his words, crawl inside the psyche of his characters, understand his viewpoint, read once and read again**. it is because of his book, franny and zooey, that i write, even if it is just this meager offering of a blog. i often sift and search through the used book section of my favorite thrift haunts, looking for no book in particular, but one that will surprise me enough to make me have to have it. i typically prefer fiction genres, so when the “instant english handbook” caught my eye, i was taken a bit off-guard by my own weirdo brand of delight at discovering it -- an english handbook,
copyright 1968, published by the career institute at 555 east lange street, mundelein, illinois, zip code, 60060. truthfully, i think it to be the cover i really like, but i digress. this handbook has many of the little rules about the english language and how all of its aspects should be properly used. chapters such as, “agreement of pronoun with antecedent”, and “simple subjects and sentence fragments" are some of the fascinating gems contained within. yawner read, but i love it. i love it even though i know i am a mad, sad abuser of grammar-related rules. but still, i do really get excited when the english language is used correctly, when what can not otherwise be expressed must be spoken. words form sentences and sentences are spoken to significant others, strangers, adversaries, children, friends. people hear, people react -- to words. politicians begin wars with words. poets write of love with them. how lucky we are to have words. most of the time. i'm actually trying to choose the words that fall from my lips with much much more care these days. practice not speaking all of the time. listening more. really paying attention and tending to the kind of conversations i want to engage in and removing myself from those that i don’t. i'm finding that it’s definitely a bit quieter this way and that going inward and listening to oneself is...well...sometimes the quiet and silence is...um...unnerving. weird. i think someone like salinger would probably appreciate this silence, this introspection. touché.

**i know some of you may abhor salinger and that those same some of you ("same some"? what??? whatever.) may be reading this blog as well, so if that is the case, please feel free to substitute an author that you really like -- but might i suggest: gore vidal, david foster wallace, hemingway or...oh, ahem, sorry. someone you really like-.

totally random fact: jd salinger died on 28 january. my day of birth.

©littlebrownbutterfly

art and the imitation of life.

2010-04-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

“That's one thing that's always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it and that was it.” Joni Mitchell,
Miles of Aisles (1974)

i love art. okay. not true. i love some art. and i can’t stand most art. admittedly, i am probably the least well-versed person on the subject that i know. i find it compelling (read: irksome) that many people talk ad nauseam about artists, the famous and not so famous among them and that they can speak intelligently about sub genres (are there even such things as sub genres? i just made that shit up. see..?) and stylistic differences. contemporary art. modern art. abstract impressionism. pop art. aboriginal art. art madi. ugh. i typically check out (waaaayyy out-) and stop listening when such conversations begin.

all i know is what i like.

on saturday, at goodwill, i found the kind of art that i like, though. i hung it in my bedroom. i have absolutely no way of knowing anything of the provenance, but it doesn’t really matter. it speaks to me in a way i cannot describe. like a song. when i look at it from my Big Brass Bed, this painting --this piece of discarded art-- makes me really happy. it grounds me with it’s shades of brown, with the moon that is placed and painted so perfectly. when i look upon it, i feel settled. i’ve, um, not been feeling so settled as of late. i’ve been spending quite a lot of time alone, by myself, with me. it’s been a couple of years since i have been so unattached and so untethered. it’s an interesting feeling. kind of like when you are a kid and you get separated from your ‘rents at a big department store. alone. left wondering where the hell the important people in your life have gone. (down another aisle? to the bathroom? to another city? to another person?) yeah. like that. i am an aquarius and being completely and totally grounded is not really in my nature. i like to float around city to city, friend to friend, goodwill to goodwill. BUT sometimes even i need a little grounding...and sometimes, my untrained eye finds something created by someone i’ll never know that helps me feel just a little less lost, both feet on the ground. what i like.

©littlebrownbutterfly

poetry in motion (maybe, baby).

2010-03-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

so big trash collection began today in my ‘hood and a teeny-tiny part of my weekend was spent cleaning out my garage, hauling crap to the curb. love doing it. so metaphorical. as jackson says, “you go and pack your sorrow, the trash man comes tomorrow, leave it at the curb, and we'll just roll away...” oh jackson browne. anyway, i came across my old justin roper boot box that is filled with poetry and such that i began writing when i was 11 or 12 or so. always fascinating to see such ruminations of me, then. (and my handwriting was so much better, too. jeez.) it inspired me to pick up my gibson and write a little. just now. and here ya have it. in the key of G with C and D along for a little fun:

why’d you go and disappear again?
why’d you go and disappear on me?

everyone i know these days is running,
looking for something they already see

so why don’t you go and write me that letter?
lay it all out so i will finally know

that leavings just another part of your story
and that really you left long long ago-

everyone i know these days is running
looking for something they can already see-

everyone i know these days is running
everyone i know but me

standing in the center of nothing-
and i’m gonna run myself, eventually

everyone i know these days is running...

©littlebrownbutterfly

perpendicular lines (a love letter, kinda.)

2010-03-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

there are times when i stop, i take an objective look at my life and am amazed. amazed at the Not So Great things i have been through in this little life of mine. the things i thought would absolutely fucking kill me and that i have survived them, somewhat, kinda sorta, still intact. but i’m also seeing the amazing things, the life experiences that appear out of left field that catch me positively, unambiguously, totally, 100% off guard. the things that i could not have planned, orchestrated or controlled. you know, the stuff that counts. these little moments, these big moments are what make the unbearable times worth it all.

i recently reconnected with someone that i have known for around or about 14 years. parallel lives for certain, just the players, little details, nuances, in each life different. the thing about this reconnection, this meeting of perpendicular lines, is that it has brought about an immense amount of self-reflection (surprised, dear readers!??! i thought not.~). 14 years. 1996. oh me oh my. not quite vintage, but close. i don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

bukowski’s says in “the laughing heart”, “be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them.”. i take every chance i get. i go against the grain a lot to the amazement, dismay and wonder of my family of my friends. i know no other way. i’m a gypsy at heart, a fool for any kind of offering that may lead to adventure, love, heartache, heartbreak, laughter, happiness... so when i was reintroduced to my old friend, it put me back on the never-ending who am i?, where am i going?, what does it all mean? track. as a result, what i am finding is that the last 14 years have been - maybe possibly perhaps - leading me exactly where i am supposed to be RIGHT NOW. this moment. this day. a revelation of sorts for moi. i am not asleep, this i know; i am awake to the possibilities that can exist even when i cannot see the direct line from the past to the future. it all seems to be such a relentless trudging though sometimes, does it not? but i’m learning that the ‘trudging through’ is absolutely parallel to the amazing things, the things that take your breath away, that give you pause, that enlighten, that heal. the parallel becomes perpendicular, eventually.

14 years is not so long to learn such a sweet sweet sweet lesson.

(photo with davey faragher taken 14 years ago, courtesy of benmont tench. hat courtesy of andy slater.)

©littlebrownbutterfly

the way of a pilgrim. (salinger had it right.)

2010-03-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

so i talked to my grandaddy grant today. he has been having a hard time since my grandmother died, but also kind of doing ok, too. My dad, al, moved him to to a nice assisted living place. al, (aka, "G", aptly named by his grandson, my son-) painstakingly thought about this decision for months. it's been hard. yeah. and now my grandfather seems to me to have given up. heartbreaking for me...words don't matter in this context. there are no words to explain these feelings; they just are. he doesn't have to give up. i know him very well. it is a decision he is making/has made. so i went ahead and made a decision to go thrifting. i bought this nightgown yesterday. "Travel-Lite" by Boutique is the label, late 60's, early 70's probably.

grandma sarah would really like it, i think.

©littlebrownbutterfly

is love so fragile and the heart so hollow?

2010-02-22T15:18:00.000-08:00

it’s been pointed out to me recently that i fall in love with everyone i meet. while i will agree that i do indeed have some very aquarian humanitarian traits that would lead one to construct such a paradigm, it’s more complicated than that. sigh. isn’t everyfuckingthing?

i’m recently single again after a couple of years of consistently having a beau in tow. it’s an interesting place to be. i do what i want. i wake up alone a lot. i eat what i want, when i want. i like it. for now. the truth is, i have always had this rather grand, idyllic idea of a Soul Mate/my Other Half...finding each other across the centuries, all that. is it hope? ridiculousness? does some magical destiny of fated love await me? god, i hope so. i’ve actually been quite lucky at love: really great men scatter my past. i’ve dated the most accomplished of musicians (hi my sweet benmont...i love you still!). real estate developers. rich kids with huge trust funds. architects. lawyers. i’ve loved each, i’ve loved every one. but now that i am alone (again) i have been pondering what makes a great love. a love great. do you know? have you had it? do you have it now? i recently came across some fantastic old romance novels at my fave thrift haunt. i was actually looking for a julia child cookbook, but as my fingers grazed across the bindings, they stopped--oddly--at a couple of harlequin romance novels. i have never been one to read these (i’m more of a carl sagan gal), but seeing them in the stark light of my newly found single-hood, gave me pause (freaked me out, really). all the questions i have about the world of dating/love/loss that i am, ahem, hesitantly re-entering flashed before me. does he like me? why hasn’t he called? will he call? do i even like him at all? will i ever meet anyone with whom i share a connection AGAIN?!?!?!?!?!?! these questions presented another, single, unnerving question: am i doomed at love? because, let's be honest: all the best past beaus (and one ex-husband) aside, i’m single. again.

so i bought both of the books. i’m hoping to find within the pages some hope, some cheesy answers, some inspiration. some magic. something to hold onto as i march forth in search of love...of something i can't see.

©littlebrownbutterfly

she wears a new pair of glasses.

2010-02-11T19:27:00.000-08:00

this blog was meant to be about something else entirely. about how i found a vintage crystal ashtray that said “united states senate” on it a few weeks back here in austin. about several other weird D.C. ‘coincidences’ that foreshadowed the week of 1 february 2010. about how i just started working for The Most Amazing Company with The Most Amazing People. and how, because my Most Amazing Company is headquartered in D.C., i was stranded there during the worst snowstorm of modern times. (snowmaggedon!, snowpocolype! huge snowball fight in public park...everyone come!). and how i think that maybe my whole life has changed based on a certain person i met whilst stranded at the W Hotel during said storm. but that is for another blog, another time. this blog is about my new pair of glasses.

i’ve been looking for a new pair of glasses for a while now (i'm nearsighted). friends will attest to this. i’ve sent text photos via iPhone to both bonnie and amanda. i’ve gone to the hip, vintage optical place here in Austin (Gene Rogers Optical...amazing.). I’ve searched prada's website. I’ve gone into ritzy frame shops. i’ve asked strangers in line at whole foods. i’ve given up. until...i found them. tonight. levon. xbox. with cathy (ramsay making record in LA). i’ve got two hours, plus trip to grocery store. must buy food. must remember to eat. the frame is made in france. sophia loren-esque. big. metal arms a bit scratched and faded. slightly awkward. clear, but sort of a pale yellow as well...99 cents. i will take them this weekend, back to the ritzy frame shop and i will have my own prescription put in. i will put them on and i will wear them and i will see my life and what i am making it and i will see good. and i will look east to the district of columbia and smile.

©littlebrownbutterfly.com

my very own neverending math equation.

2010-01-21T17:10:00.000-08:00

i have fallen behind on writing my blog. i feel badly about this. i sometimes (read: very often) feel badly about a lot of things: not so stellar things that i have done in my past. things i have said that have hurt others. not taking my passat in to the volkswagon dealer to have the oil changed in a timely manner. not sending quickly enough the freshly-ground peanut butter that i buy at whole foods for my 86-year-old granddaddy grant in florida. not being patient enough with my son. not being nice enough to my ex-husband, who is so very very very nice to me. not visiting my family enough. not meditating enough. not making "enough" money. not making it in LA as an actress. not not not. i am a worrier, too. worry worry worry worry, that’s me! add this to my somewhat constant feeling shitty about stuff and i’m a walking, talking Bad-Feeling Worrier (Warrior?). for what? my birthday is next week and i’ve really been trying to put things such as worry and feeling badly into perspective. from where does all this stem? (i don’t have an answer on that yet, but i’m close to solving this fascinating riddle...) i don’t want my 40’s be consumed with bad. i want my life to be consumed with good. doing good things. helping people. feeling good about my good choices and leaving the rest behind. leave what belongs in the past. tonight i went to the goodwill near my house. my son wanted to go play xbox live at his dad’s and i had a little time to kill. i found a 60’s print of the desiderata. i went straight to it, as if it were put on the shelf for me. a sign? maybe. maybe not. a gentle reminder to be a little nicer to myself? absofuckinglutely.

(ps-the sun kil moon version of neverending math equation is DEFINITELY worth a listen or an itunes download...)

©littlebrownbutterfly

requiem for an ashtray, a requiem indeed.

2010-01-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

i sat down and had a little talk with myself today. about all the things that i have accumulated while thrifting that were cool, neat-o, rad and awesome at the time of find and purchase, but aren’t really serving a purpose in my life anymore. things such as: the haeger ashtray that was purchased only because it was a haeger, not because i smoke (i don’t), the impeccably tailored high-end women’s jacket with a collar that is just a little to clown-y, garish, looks-more-like-a-vintage-costume-than-a-cool-piece-of-clothing i can seamlessly integrate into my existing wardrobe. oh and let’s go on ahead and throw in all the negatron (that one's for you, ted shuttleworth in New York!), thoughts and people and places and things that once served me, but just simply do not anymore. things that need to just go. bad thinking is a habit. toxic people become habits. i have a very good pal in la, who told me that he and his “friend” of 2+ years had finally, totally, once-and-for-all, absolutely this time lisa, ended things. he said that he was in excruciating emotional pain and that the truths he had to swallow about himself were hard hard hard to admit to, but that he knew he was better off without her. the right thing. goodbye ashtray. you are taking up room in my house. goodbye negative person, you are taking up precious room in my psyche. as humans, we have a lot of room for error, but not a lot of time to dilly dally and live with the constantly blinking-in-red error message once we know The Truth.

oh and also: the truth is there, always. right in front of you. that’s what i know. little signs, things everywhere leading you to what is right, what is true for you, what you REALLY want. our Subconscious Wildest Dreams are possible, even though--sigh, sniff, scream--we are not always awake enough to pay attention. i have been guilty of being asleep and not receiving the messages. it saddens me when i see others in this slumber.

spiritual beings, human experience.

it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah. things don’t have to be so hard. just as hard as we make them. fact. fiction. your side, my side. the truth.

(the end is always the beginning.)

©littlebrownbutterfly

the persistance of memory (dali would understand).

2009-12-31T07:11:00.000-08:00

there is no escaping it. it is always present. it taunts the old and teases the young with it’s seeming forever-like quality. but it does not go on forever, not on this plane, anyway (new age-y much, lisa?). it has a name: time. and time is going by. my son turns 10 this new year, i, 40. i am on the precipice of something i do not know and time is part of the tomfoolery. manage it, waste it, pretend that it doesn’t really matter all that much. time is a verb and time is moving. fast. or slow, depending on your inclination. time is also a noun in the form of a commodity that we are constantly selling with recklessness and trying to buy back with remorse. what have i done with it all?

i found a rather nice vintage clock today. a phinney-walker. it’s collectible, worth upwards of $200 and i paid $11 for it. i have ‘clocks’ on several things in my house. three computers tell me the time. two (too many) cable boxes. iPhone. various watches. timepieces everywhere. time time ticking, ticking away...but here is the thing: the phinney-walker clock makes time and the passing of it seem so much...better. no digital reading. real hands. second hand. a very clear picture of 24 hours. the numbers on it are mesmerizing: some long-forgotten style of font that makes a harvey milk-toast numeral come to life and show you his Real Numeric Personality. but, to me, the most special thing about this clock is that someone else’s eyes have witnessed the passing of time on it as well. many eyes, maybe. a whole damned family. long before the digital/computer/wired revolution, someone else's eyes have looked at this clock and gauged their life by it. measured out their lives with coffee spoons under it’s continuously moving hands. where did time take them? where is it taking me?

closer to what is real, closer to what is true...
the precipice is quite an interesting place, let me tell you.

auld lang syne 2010.

2009-12-26T12:05:00.000-08:00

2010 is going to be an interesting year for all of us, this is my prediction. i think “fast and furious” would describe how i think it’s gonna be. i hear some of you now: why? why, lisa? what will make it so? i will enlighten you, but first i need to tell you about a song that i listen to every year at this time: same old lang syne. those of you that follow my blog will know that the angst-ridden, handsome, floppy-haired singer-songwriter’s from the 70’s touch my heart and get me all warm and fuzzy. and sentimental. and melancholy. this particular dan fogelberg song is no different. you see, when i was 11, my mother turned me on to this song. we would listen to it in the car on, on tape, whilst we travelled the day after xmas to the many many shopping malls just outside of our zip and area code (sales! specials! buy it and it will make you feel so much better about your plight on this earth for 10 minutes!). my mom and i shopped a lot. it was our activity. judy would be quite wistful as she listened to this song, but i was too young at the time to really understand why. but the way in which my mother changed when she heard the lyrics to this song made my 11-going-on-2000-year-old-soul very happy. this song touched her. i saw a side of her that i never got to see: the side that was real, that hurt, that wondered, “what if”. it is only now, as my 40th year runs to greet me and meet me (hellooooooooooo, lisa!) that i understand. i get it. each new year seems like a new start, does it not? yet often, we are plagued by our own self-doubt, our own inadequacies, the old bullshit that just keeps on talking to us despite how far we have come in so many other areas. this self-imposed doubt comes, i think, from the bazillions of choices and subsequent decisions each of us is tireless making, oh...every moment of our lives. “she said she married her an architect, who kept her warm and safe and dry. she would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn’t like to lie”. dude. heavy. i know that my mom felt dissatisfied a lot of the time. and i know that this particular song helped her. helped her define her own particular brand of melancholia a bit. and here is the other part: as i recount this story to you, i understand only now, that as i sat next to her then in the front seat and was the sole observer of her taking in, singing along with and ultimately becoming a character in the song, that i was witnessing a sea change within my mother. a seedling of unhappiness, expressed in the very real emotional association with a song. the foreshadowing of a divorce from my father some 19 years in the making.

my point is that is NEVER too late. decide what to be and go be it. make 2010 your year. decisions, choices, whom to marry, whom to become, what to do with your time...it really is all up to you. “i said the years had been a friend to her...and that her eyes were still as blue, but in those eyes i wasn’t sure if i saw doubt or gratitude.” have the latter. gratitude. it’s an easy choice. look around you. be grateful. go forth. laugh. love. surrender to the Great Unknown. surrender to sappy, silly songs that make you remember what is you always wanted to be. or not be. do it. i will if you will. and 2010 will be our year. fast, furious and full of choices.

(dedicated to my mother.)

©littlebrownbutterfly

christmas, xmas, whatevermas. (or: i’d rather just be jewish, thanks).

2009-12-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

so remember the blog about me not being so crafty? well, this is applicable to xmas, too. not that one must be crafty at xmas, but...you have to do the whole tree thing, which would involve a whole decorating thing, which would lead to a whole christmas spirit thing. oy. so EVERY single year, i stress out about a tree. and this becomes the conundrum my tiny little mind gets into: should i buy a live one? is it bad for the environment to grow, cut, use and then throw it out on the curb like a dirty little secret for everyone to see? should i buy one from target? they cost a small fortune and are kind of ugly. and fake. should i go to home depot and get a rosemary bush and decorate it, so that at the very least i could use it and replant it? no. i cannot do that. stupid idea. a tabletop tree? no, too small and screams that i don’t give a shit about christmas. which is...peculiar because as a child i LIVED for xmas. LIVED for this holiday. my mom, in particular was/is very high on the xmas idea. she loves it. decorates all kinds of shit around the house. lampposts on the outside, bathrooms on the inside. frealz. so, as a kid, i would ask for One Big Thing every year. one High Dollar Item. the one Thing, that if i got it, would make me happy for the rest of the year. of course, every year it was a different Thing. one year, i really wanted a garnet ring to wear on my 10-year-old finger. another year it was a barbie corvette. and this was The Game my parents played on me each year: first, i would open a number of small gifts in succession...things i liked, things i had a mild interest in. girly make-up kits, little gift-y stuff from spencer gifts. i would pretend, of course, that i did not know of The Game, but i always did. and THEN...judy and al would go to the back of the house, to their bedroom, always under the guise of getting another cup of coffee. they would then emerge and i would be presented with my Final Gift. i would squeal in elation! the Gift i really wanted! the Gift i really wanted! you GOT it for me! sounds taxing and slightly showy and dramatic, but it really wasn’t. my ‘rents loved this little holiday tradition and it was fun. i loved it, too. so now, as an adult (yawn) i feel the need to create an exciting xmas for my dear son every year...but, um...yeah, this is me we are talking about. so, at this point in my grown-up life (again, big yawn) i am now in “it’s after thanksgiving and i am panicked because i think this is when i am supposed to put up an xmas tree” mode. my mind goes blank. then my mind goes to the live vs. fake vs. rosemary, should i replant it debate. paralyzed with indecision and starting to feel the guilt of being a Horrible Holiday Person creep in, i go to one of my good ones. the thrift store that never lets me down and i find it: the vintage aluminum tree circa 1960 that i have waited my whole adult life to find. my tree. the one that fits my life. my style. these particular trees are rather hard to find, mind you, and go for a pretty penny on ebay. no color wheel, but that’s okay. it’s the christmas tree i really wanted and thought i’d never find. and i decorated it. with love i decorated it. when it was finished, i squealed with a bit --just a bit-- of christmas delight.

next on the wish list: a groovy magical menorah.

enjoy yourself. it's later than you think.

2009-12-09T09:14:00.000-08:00

i have finally, after many, many attempts, MASTERED my great aunt margaret’s pound cake. seriously. it has the same taste, the same texture, the same color. margaret lives just across the, ahem, corn field from the house that my parents and i lived in. my dad is now remarried, his kitchen has gone through a complete remodel and the corn field is now gone, but when i lived there, i would RUN through this field every saturday in high anticipation of eating margaret’s pound cake and drinking some good sweet sweet sweet southern style iced tea. she’d cut me a nice sized slice and i always wanted another. sensory memories: they really are the best. i became slightly obsessed with mastering this recipe after my grandma sarah died, which is kind of weird since my grandma had some really good recipe’s herself. but margaret is my grandmother’s sister, an aquarius like me and although she was/still is a Super Duper Christian, i really related to her growing up. the same sweet soul my grandma had, she has. anyway, i’ve been looking for a really good piece of bakeware in which to make -to master- this pound cake and i finally found it. goodwill, at the bargain basement price of $2.99. it is perfect, red flame colored. it seems have been used quite a bit already and used with love. it has a nice energy about it. but my thrifting adventures always lead me back to the question: why was it at goodwill? is this what will become of margaret’s things? of mine? of yours?

yesterday, i found out that a mutual friend of a friend died this weekend. her name was andrea. she was 40. two small kids. meningitis. quick and it was over. i don’t understand but i am trying to. although i did not really know her, i had seen her around. kind eyes. sweet smile. one of the good ones. i struggle with the idea of death daily (please refer back to my first blog post, entitled “pyrex and prufrock”). it’s all around us. and yet we go on smiling. we go on hurting. we go on working, playing, singing, dancing, pretending, being angry, being rude, being nice. being. i am realizing that i’ve always wanted to be somewhere else, no matter where i am. figuratively and literally. i’ve not been the most present person, you know? the look in my eyes has been described to me as “faraway”. ha. but andrea’s death has got me thinking. about life. about living. the moment. being in it. rolling around in life and getting dirty. about baking. about pound cake. about what margaret’s pound cake really means. it was her recipe and now it is mine and i will share it. i will pass it on.

©littlebrownbutterfly

that's what friends are for (lesson in survival).

2009-12-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

so i have been plundering a lot. at thrift stores, of course, but also into my own psyche. oy vey. joni mitchell says, ‘“when you dig down deep, you lose good sleep and it makes you heavy company”. yeah. totes joni. i have been digging down deep with regard to many areas of myself, my life, my decisions, my beliefs, my world, my legacy, who i am, who i am becoming, where i’ve been, what i know and much more importantly, what i don’t know. heavy company. who do i think i am, fucking socrates? my oldest and dearest friend sent me an email last night about my blog. i have known brooke for longer than i have known any friend...since jr. high. 7th grade. she transferred in from colorado and we became the best of friends. we would visit each other whilst in school, she at Colorado State and I at Florida. we’ve seen much together: loss, love, families, marriage, divorce, all of it. this is, in part, what she wrote to me: “There is this one thing that kept occurring to me as I was reading your blog- As long as I've known you--let's see 26 years--you have always been searching. Whether it was for a man, your happiness, your knowledge, your spiritual path, your family, etc. It has been a theme in your life. Interesting. I'm not sure what you will do with that information, maybe one day you might find something/someone you can TRUST and then the search will be over.”

hmmm.

i hope my search is never over though. it’s why i believe we are all here and what keeps me going. back to thrift stores. back to old friends. back to myself. in search of everything. that’s me.

sarah and me (polyester bride).

2009-11-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

my grandmother sarah had the best polyester nightgowns. a whole collection of them from the 60’s and 70’s. i spent each summer of my youth in ft lauderdale with her. every night would be the same: i would go into her top drawer and excitedly search each slippery, shiny nightgown for exactly the one i wanted to wear to bed. it would vary. sometimes, i’d go with a short little nightie with matching robe and sometimes a longer version, sans robe. it was our little bedtime routine, she and i. i’d try them on as she gathered her pink hair nets that she wore EVERY night to protect her hairdo...but that is another blog and i digress as i often do. these nightgowns were amazing...so grown up! too big for me, yes. but they belonged to my grandma sarah and i loved them. you see, my grandma sarah was everything to me. every thing. the sweetest person i have ever met on earth, she was. i always search for polyester nighties while thrifting. an ode to her, to me, to those days of my youth spent without care in ft lauderdale, florida. how easy it was. i have my own little collection of vintage nighties now, but none as special as the ones she had. i was lucky enough to be holding my grandmothers hand as she died, recounting to her softly and slowly little polyester memories like these as she moved on to a different place. i cannot tell you how much i miss her. no words. my heart aches every day for her. i am lucky lucky lucky to have known such a person in my life. sarah helen simmons: you are with me still, this i know.

the future hides and the past just slides...

2009-11-18T08:15:00.000-08:00

so... right now whilst on this planet earth, i happen to reside in austin, texas. it’s home to lots of great stuff, but for me the most impressive thing it has going for it is the television show austin city limits. i grew up watching this show. as a kid, i would stumble upon it randomly and be so in AWE of it. i never knew what time or what channel. i’d just find it, shimmering like a diamond amongst the rubble of the love boat and fantasy island. i had never seen music so raw, so...alive. with the skyline in the background...were they really outside? (no.) on monday i went to my third taping. the avett (AY vit) brothers. i was very excited to see these guys because a few nights earlier during my Emotional Breakdown Fueled By Love, i heard the song, “i and love and you” and it, you know, helped me....”one foot in and one foot back but it don’t pay to live like that..”. super excellent song-writing. and i know a thing or two about that, thank you kindly. the last artist i saw at an austin city limits taping was jackson browne. a couple of years ago. with karen. such a different experience this time. why? because i am different. what i am looking for to help me through shit isn’t always “out there somewhere”, this is what i am learning. yeah, so anyway, jackson has always had the power with song to heal my wounds, cure my ills, make me feel like it would all be alright. i’d take daddy’s chevrolet pickup and just drive and drive and drive and sing along with jackson, duets and harmonies separated by time and space--but still a song. i started listening to him when i was 12 or 13 and i will tell you that his music changed me, became part of my soul. got me through a lot. i had the good fortune of knowing jackson when i lived in LA. super great dude. the avett brothers were good, don’t get me wrong. but during the show, i started to feel...a little preached to. like: their songs were kinda preach-y. i didn’t get healed the same way that jackson can heal. and this is just a time thing; i’ve known jackson longer. i’ve collected the feelings from his songs, made them into what i was/am going through and now they reside inside of me. what can i say? i’m a sucker for love and a good tune. and a good drive that takes me absolutely nowhere.

©littlebrownbutterfly

through it. (ugh).

2009-11-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

i’ve had a bad week. really bad. totally shitty. changes. changing. transition. hurt. letting go. the only way through it is through it. my best friend in my life is going through some big life changes, too. bonnie. she turns 40 on monday. i, in january. could this monumental age bring about the shift that is occurring in both of our lives? possibly. bonnie lives in my former town, LA. great thrifting there. about a week ago, she scored a rad 60’s bookshelf from Out of the Closet, a thrift store charity that donates money to people living with AIDS. knowing how hardcore i am about great finds, she took a picture of it and sent it to me. low, slanted shelves, metal feet. she needed it because she has recently moved into her Very Own Place and was looking for something on which to store her books, etc. i have lots of books. the shelves that have held them since december (when i bought my house) are your standard bookshelves, heavy, dark wood, square rather than streamlined. heavy. i’ve been meaning to get rid of them and get something lighter in their place, but just have not done it. huh. imagine that. knowing that i need to do something and not doing it. last night, i was at one of my fave stomping grounds...a goodwill located in the ritzy-er part of town. my eyes, puffy from having cried all day searched aimlessly, looking at everything and seeing nothing. without direction and for the fourth time, i circled the store. then i saw it: the low 60’s bookshelf. slanted shelves, low, metal feet....could it be? no...could it? $4.99. i picked it up without a second thought, carried it to the cash register and it was mine. i called bonnie. oh my god. i just bought this...oh f*ck it, i’m sending you a picture. i did. same EXACT bookcase that she bought in LA. i went home and immediately cleared out the books from the old, heavy shelves, struggled to get them out into the garage, their weight and cumbersome nature barely making it possible for me to move them. but i did. i managed. it was hard, but i did it. in tears. i am unsure today what the significance is of bonnie and i both finding exactly the same bookcase in two cities separated by 2000 miles. i am unsure of so many things right at this red-hot second. but i do know that she needed that awesome little shelf to fit her new life, her new space. i found the exact one when i was desperate for a sign, for SOMEthing to show me the way. maybe my tears are not in vain. maybe all this hurt is leading me to something better, something lighter and less heavy. the weight has been exhausting. maybe i'll continue to be able to see the good through these tears and maybe, just maybe, the universe will lead me to exactly what i need.

(note: picture one is bonnie's shelf and picture two is mine-)

made for walking.

2009-11-09T18:32:00.000-08:00

i see a lot of really cool stuff when i thrift. i can’t buy it all. which sucks. eventually i want to get to a point where i can sell all of the groovy, wonderful things i find through an online store such as ebay or even through this blog, but, alas, the time is not right for that just yet. SO, yesterday i found an extraordinary pair of boots. zodiac. ankle boots. slouch-y. heel, but not so high that they could not be considered for “everyday” wear. $19.99. now THIS particular thrift store has 1/2 off sales, depending on the color of the price tag. Blue, pink, white, yellow tags all on sale---all 1/2 off---but only on certain weeks. the yellow tags were on sale yesterday and my rad zodiac boots were tagged pink...SO...i let them go. i walked away. did i mention they were actually my size? a 9? yes, yes they were. experienced thrifters know that really good, really awesome vintage boots are hard to find above a size 7.5. so you see, it was kind of a big deal for me to turn my back on them. but i am learning that i have to do this occasionally, uh, no, hmmm, er, uh, yeah...VERY often in my life. very often as of late. to keep my sanity. take thoughts for example. we all have random thoughts that pop into our head out of nowhere. negative ones, positive ones...but if you’re anything like me, it’s the negatron ones that ruin your day/hour/minute/second/life. they are hard to stop. one begets another and another and another until...my existence has been reduced to a complete and utter farce. the simplest questions i thought i had figured out become the truths on which i base everything else. um...counterfuckingproductive, okay? not seeing the forest for the trees. it’s ridiculous. i am learning to ‘turn my back’ on these shitty thoughts. walk away renee. let them go. get into the flow of life. stop going against the current. oh. my. god. it is taking me so much practice, so much patience. i am no master yet. i feel ill-prepared some days to take on this constant challenge of letting go; life is a big ‘ol let go though, is it not? so when walking away from the zodiac boots, the 60’s haegar planter, the cute pearl snap shirt, a crappy thought---whatever the the ‘IT’ may be, i have to know that sometimes it’s just about the looking, the seeing, not necessarily about the owning. i don’t own those groovster boots. i let ‘em go. i’ve let a lot go lately. and i know that it’s all a part of what i am learning about the bigger picture that i am slowly creating. my own little masterpiece, me.

people who need people.

2009-11-06T14:05:00.000-08:00

it’s a funny thing, thrifting. the variety of people that i see in the thrift stores, especially. i think one of the reasons i like this second job, this habit, this passion, if you will, is because it makes me feel...in touch with those salt of the earth peeps. we are all looking for different things, but we all looking for something: me, cool mid-century modern pieces. steelcase. mccoy. lane. others search for clothes at bargain prices. cheap patio furniture. shoes. i see a different kind of person in each store i thrift. mexican families with lots ‘o kids. hipsters. old women. old men. a random assortment of office workers looking to escape the monotony of a boring desk job on their lunch hour. i like them all. they make me feel more...human. like them. not like a white, tight-ass, upper middle-class, college-educated jerkoff. thrifting humanizes me. i talk to everyone. the managers have become my friends. i hug them. i bring them food sometimes. i know. it’s really my own little make-believe, but oh-so-real-world. in the south where i am from, racism runs rampant. mexican, black, muslim, underprivileged...these are big strikes against you. and your importance on this earth is greatly diminished in many of the eyes that glare upon you. even now, even still-yes. born that way? too bad. i never liked it. it never felt good to me. as a kid, i had a really, really good friend named andy (we have recently reconnected on....you guessed it! facespace!). andy was black. andy was awesome. but i caught a lot of shit for being his friend. football coaches daughter (me) hanging with a black kid? but i didn’t care. andy made me laugh. he was kind to me. his family was sweet. i think my friendship with andy made me realize early, early on that i was...er, very different than the people i grew up around. they cared about what other people thought and ultimately, i did not. i made my own decisions about the company i kept even as an 11-year-old. black, white, yellow, purple, green. i’m still this way to the astonishment of many of my friends (WHY are you friends with her/him, lisa?). the reason, i guess, is because i try to look for the good. the good stuff in people. so when i thrift, i feel a kinship of sorts with others who maybe come from a different perspective/place/country/social demographic than i do; how else would i ever get to see them, befriend them and them me? i think we hole up and get comfortable in our little paradigms/mindsets and i think this is not so good. we are all the same. looking for different things maybe, but all the same inside. you want newer Calphalon cookware and i’m looking for vintage flame orange Le Crueset...and somewhere out there exists something all of us can use.

© littlebrownbutterfly

arts. crafts. gross.

2009-11-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

paint by numbers fascinate me. i see them and they look so simple. so simple to do, so simply done. i picked one up today for $3, but i gave the guy $5, because it’s a catholic charity thrift store and because there was some lady in front of me taking too long and i had to GO. i am not a painter. not really an artist either. certain people have pointed this out to me. “YOU’RE not an artist”. it’s insulting, yes. but also true. i did not like art class. i colored outside the lines. did not like crafty “projects” as part of homework assignments. i don’t do them with my son, either. i know some moms relish in this. good for them. as for me, i am tired of pretending. i can’t draw, i can’t paint. i can’t sew. i can’t do one goddamn crafty thing. you’re right; i’m NOT an artist. when i lived in LA and was acting (but not really acting because the acting gigs came few and far between for me) it was the same story. “you’re and ACtor? well, what are you ACting in”? the presumptive tone meaning this: if you aren’t in any sitcom or doing commercials on a regular basis, then you are just a big fat loser asshole nobody and NOT an ACtor. my LA friends will understand and will know exACtly what i am talking about. ugh. i hated it so much. i never felt good enough. i would go into an audition with 30 other girls that looked just like me and be mortified. and say some bullshit lines that i had to make sound the right way. can you, try it, um, this way, lisa? no. no i can’t make it how you want it to sound. and no, i cannot draw a fucking fruit portrait and then do a cross-stitched, knitted rendering of it and sew it into a skirt/make it into a pillow.
i’m a writer, thank you.

i finally accept this about myself. feels alright.

© littlebrownbutterfly

(an aside).

2009-11-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

dear current and future readers: i want to clarify a couple of things. about me. my outlook. i am a grateful person. i believe in the inherent good that i think really, really exists within all people. ok, so i have been down lately. been sad. been depressed. this blog started as the logical progression for me to work out some stuff, form my own creative outlet, write as an artistic expression and explore things, try to answer some big-ass questions. but make no mistake: as shitty as i feel sometimes about life and love and money and the seemingly unanswerable question, “What Does This All Mean”, etc., i am blessed. i’m kinda big into spirituality. some people probably don’t know this about me. i converted to Catholicism when i was 16. it was a big deal. i studied relentlessly. took classes. read a lot. took two years of classes at the UJ in california. studied lots ‘n lots of the kabbalah. other things, too. the thing is, i am still on that search. for me religion is a touchy subject. i grew up in the bible belt and deep deep south. kkk and shit down there. serious hate. gross. i may not crave religion, but i crave meaningful spirituality. i have started on a new path toward my spiritual endeavor. a path well-suited to me now. the glove that fits. i feel good about it. closer. you know, to some thing that is greater than me. anyway, i strive to be nice to everyone i meet, to be an honest person, to do well at my job, to be kind. all that stuff. my blog may be about questions and longings and the stuff melancholia is made, but i am trudging the road of happy destiny and that is really the point. and i just wanted to mention it.

the blue refrigerator pyrex container was my sweet thrift-store find yesterday. a little thing? yes. a materialistic item? yes. but it is the little things that count, you know. every single little one of them.

© littlebrownbutterfly

donnie, marie, stevie and me.

2009-10-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

music is my savior. i was saved by rock and roll. those lines actually come from wilco. today i found a record player at a thrift store very near to my house. very near to my heart. i did the usual: looked it up on my iPhone, checked around to see the value. hemmed and hawed a bit internally, “i can’t spend $10 EVERY time i find something somewhat cool, can i? no! i cannot. but i NEED a record player..., oh, just fucking GET it, it’s only $10, you are MAKING money on this, lisa, jeez.”). it’s a pioneer and listed between $70 and $250 depending on where one searches on the the interwebings, but none of that is the point. two weeks ago, i began having a serious existential crisis. this was the real thing and truthfully, i think i am still muddling through it. who am i kidding? i know i am. the EC, as i will now call it, led to the genesis of this blog. i started writing a poem about a little brown butterfly who was afraid to fly. and by “fly” i don’t mean cruise around in the air aimlessly. i mean fly. excel. do it. be it. what the army ads say. since my pregnancy and ensuing marriage and the dissolution of my marriage, and my move to texas from los angeles, i have been, after NINE years, (think about how long nine years is for a moment, please-) having a hard time getting my ducks back in a row. my groove back. i took it all a lot harder than i really knew. anyway, blah blah. when i was 11, i discovered stevie nicks and her record, bella donna. before this pivotal point in my life, i was buying shit like the osmond brothers and donnie and marie, when they wore those pink and purple matchy outfits. and then i saw that record cover. camelot music in the mall. panama city, florida. black with the white silhouette that was stevie nicks. the bird. the look on her face. the magic. who WAS she? how was I so lucky to be seeing this? does anyone else know about this? this record was a treasure and I was finding it. i discovered it all on my own. 11. everything became about that record, about stevie nicks. i was totally enchanted. corny, i know, but really the only way i can adequately describe my years between the ages of 11 and say...oh, today (i’m 39-). i would lock myself in my room with the old sony record player that my parents eventually stopped listening to and eventually found it’s way to my lonely, only child room. Note: when the ‘rents stopped listening to their record albums together, i knew on a subconscious level their marriage was over; they would later divorce when i was 30. i still listen to bella donna. ‘think about it’ is my favorite song. soon, i’ll be listening on vinyl. i need a receiver. and i will find it. i will search with patience. and i will find it, one day, eventually.

© littlebrownbutterfly

pyrex and prufrock.

2009-10-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

the trouble with me is that i am bored. i thrift store shop A LOT. i so need a creative outlet or i am so going to go completely and totally mad in the house i have just bought by myself, on my own. i am sad. i feel alone, different. ugly and gross on the inside. Other People must surely understand the way i am feeling. Other People and the massive junkyard of discarded memories at thrift stores in somewhere, texas.

a blog is born.

here i go.

does it occur to you 500 times a day that you are dying? well, it does to me, hence my pain, my anguish that you are now half-heartedly reading. actually, i’m probably the goofiest, silliest person you will ever meet; i laugh often. thus the irony. more pain. comedy is harder than drama, that’s what actors say. so i thrift. it makes me feel close to people of times past. emotions past. people’s lives. past. now present. i’m holding it or hunting it. why i take comfort and refuge in these cast aside belongings is a goddamned mystery to me. only child. raised in small town. college. moving, moving. drinking. stopping. child. husband. move. divorce. you know, the same shit everybody goes through. i know i am not unique. but the things i find at thrift stores are. like, for example- the Pyrex Find. in the right colors and shades the Pyrex Find is the one of the biggest a seasoned thrifter can achieve. conditions must be right: no cheating. must be found at a low-level thrift stores, i.e., goodwill, salvation army, weird looking store in a small town that you are just passing through to get someplace else. price has to be really cheap or really reasonable. large yellow pyrex mixing bowls become a coup. oblong turquoise refrigerator containers priced at $1.99 are purchased in a dream-like state, the find is so rare. no ebaying. cheating. like going to DWR to get a herman miller shell chair. NO! that is not the point, that is not really the point at all. i’m looking for the point. do i dare to eat a peach? i am searching for the meanings, for the past and future lives of these things i seek out. who knows what -if anything- i’ll find. i’m looking, though, that’s for sure.

© littlebrownbutterfly