MiTunes 9

‘Tis the Season

I submit that there are few tasks more rewarding or worthwhile for the forward-thinking young woman on Christmas Break than perusing the Internet for future wedding ideas.  Refer to my post about wedding dresses for my response to those who would disagree.

Ever-reliable Facebook recommended the website applebrides.com, an offer I of course could not refuse.  Among the honorable mentions of the featured article, "The Best Wedding Dresses of 2011" (how could I not), were two wedding picture books.  Combined, they are my dream wedding.

Which will be classy and adorable, I might add.

What Else Would I Be Doing With My Free Time?

I submit that there are few tasks more rewarding or worthwhile for the forward-thinking young woman on Christmas Break than perusing the Internet for future wedding ideas.  Refer to my post about wedding dresses for my response to those who would disagree.

Ever-reliable Facebook recommended the website applebrides.com, an offer I of course could not refuse.  Among the honorable mentions of the featured article, "The Best Wedding Dresses of 2011" (how could I not), were two wedding picturebooks.  Combined, they are my dream wedding.

I'll be back to applebrides soon, won't you?

Apparently Finals are Good for Something

I came across this quote from Oscar Wilde’s “The Critic as Artist,” one of the abandoned assignments on my Victorian Era Literature syllabus. I’m glad I found it…even if it was in my last hour of cramming!

Beauty has a many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols.  Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing.  When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-colored world.

  

Scruple the Second

THE ARMCHAIR

It was a squash yellow: the velvety corduroy print was the sinewy entrails of ripe pumpkin.  The arms were low and thinly padded.  If they were plush and comely once, years of 1st graders’ sidling bottoms, or ramming knees, or pounding fists had aptly deflated them.  The seat cushion sagged from so many stories told from behind your ear in Mrs. Barbezat’s jean-skirted lap.  She added “r”s to her words: “washed” was “warshed” to her.  The first graders were willing to overlook it: so long as she played the last page of A Very Quiet Cricket more than once. The armchair concealed a “spinney” bottom behind a mustard duster.  The intrepid youth received “yellow lights” on their conduct cards for testing the limits of inertia upon the armchair.

I look back into the closed doors of my memory.  Walk down the pale lemon hallway of St. Joseph’s Catholic School.  Open the wood-stain door with the glass inlay.  And in the dark, muffled, cloudy quiet of a school on Sunday, rests the yellow armchair.  

Gabriel's Hymn (a funny little postcard's song) (12/4/11)

I prophesy

From the dusty wilderness of

The corkboard square she pinned me to:

Next to and off the map-

Which tracks,

In white string and orange tacks

The route,

A yellow star paperclip

Settling above

Each port

Announcing his arrival.

 I: the harbinger from

Cape Town.

It was like Advent,

Sitting in her tiny campus mailbox,

Waiting for the seraphic chorus

Of keys’ teeth chattering into keyhole.

I could’ve glowed

In her smooth hands,

Nail-bitten more than usual

For reasons obvious and unknown.

How blessed to be a herald of the

Good News!,

Gabriel’s hymn:

“Everything is beautiful here:

You’d fit right in.”

MiTunes 8

The Mumph.  I contest that those who dislike Mumford & Sons are 1) musically illiterate or 2) certifiably insane.  What’s not to like about Mumford & Sons?  I have something:  The lyrics.  Those are to absolutely love.

I can’t wait for their sophomore album to come debut.  They previewed this song, “Below My Feet” (craftily concealed in the just-for-kicks picture HYPERLINK…so Blog savvy, guys), and many others at their performance at the Fillmore in Denver, CO this past summer.  Enjoy! 

Countdown!

           

  

MiTunes 7

Finals are rolling around, which necessitate long strings of inspiring, motivating, non-distracting music (Facebook and napping already eat too much into study time).  If  you’re searching, check out:

LAST OF THE MOHICANS radio on Pandora. 

Prepare for some seriously awesome Scottish bagpipe music.  Keep an eye out for the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard (especially “Hector the Hero.”  Tear-jerker.).  They’re boss.

Three Years in the Making

Almost three and a half years ago, I shirked by hiking pack on a hastily laid tarp at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, Australia.  I sat Indian-style on my sleeping bag, pulling towards me the four days’ worth of food supplied to each World Youth Day pilgrim awaiting the Papal Mass the following morning.  Packaged rolls, processed dessert bars, canned salmon and vegetables.  The air was surprisingly cold as the sun sank below the stands.  Candles kept vigil through the night, stuck into the sand of the horse track.

A group of African pilgrims approached our camp.  Clad in an American flag cape, our chaperone,  Josh, danced with the group, and we all joined in.  I traded my last long-sleeve shirt for a yard or two of thin cotton fabric: deep green, patterned with the outline and flag of their country.  That night, the entire campsite frosted over:  I pulled out the fabric  and wrapped it close around me, unwilling to regret the trade of my extra layer for this piece of far-away.

Upon my return to the U.S., that fabric found a waiting place in a drawer with my prayer journals, my hallowed things.  Yesterday, I took it out again.  That piece of fabric is patterned with the words, hued in bold red and orange:

“Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom for Zambia.”

I know little of the workings of Fate, Chance, Destiny.  But I have faith in God’s plan for me, and as I await my journey to Zambezi, Zambia this summer, I cannot help but think that the piece of fabric God gave me three years ago has been closer to my heart than I could’ve imagined.  Closer than it was pulled tight across my heart in Sydney.  Closer than it was keeping vigil with my deepest prayers.  Closer than it will be, tucked away in my duffel this summer, as I bring it home again.

       

Giving Thanks

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

Meister Eckhart

MiTunes 6 – The Avett Brothers

One of my all-time favorite bands.  You’ll see why.                          

 

 

The Candidates

 Here are the nominees for Charity Ball 2012!  Now all that is left to be decided is: What do I feel like saying?:

     1.                                    2.                                   3.                                     4.

1. “Hi.  Yes, I am definitely fashionable enough to pull off these quirky ruffles, this boss fabric, and this oh-so-trendy one sleeve.”

Pair with: tiger’s eye earrings, funky, black sequins pumps, and one of those awesome rings bent out of an antique spoon.  

2. “I know what you’re thinking…I’m pretty much the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen.  Understandable.”

Pair with: heirloom pearl studs, understated pearl bracelet, and off-white retro heels.  Maybe with my hair swept up in some romantic, many-bobby-pinned  do.

3.  “Why yes, my stunningly scarlet, off-the-shoulder, 50’s tribute dress was chosen specifically to honor the Frank Sinatra dance theme.” 

Pair with: diamond studs, mom’s diamond necklace (to be kidnapped over Christmas Break), and maybe a funky, patterned heel to keep the whole thing from becoming costume-y.  Although red lipstick might be a go.

4.  “I know that most girls chose patterns or colors because they were  afraid of looking boring in black.  I’m so happy I didn’t have to worry about that.”

Pair with: Indi statement earrings, metallic pumps, maybe curly hair with one of those peacock feather headbands or one with a bow.

MiTunes 5

Peter Bradley Adams – Between Us

Scruple the First

Things to love: scraping the brownie batter bowl, ice water, old photographs, snow days, childhood attempts at story-writing, college attempts at poetry-writing, cotton, sundresses, rainstorms, ice-skating, star-gazing, rosaries, adoration at midnight, journaling on the pier, kissing in the grocery store, driving with the windows down, reading under a blanket, playing fetch in the dog park, cooking over a camp fire, ski socks, family traditions, watermelon, dreams about people you know, coffee at retreat centers, holding a baby until he falls asleep.

Things to lose: criticism, gossip, old birthday cards, regret, pennies, nail-biting, reality TV, double-standards, one night stands, junk food, inauthenticity, syllabi, inhibitions, facades, “keeping up with the Jonses,” corsages, turtlenecks, blush, “emo,” gourmet sandwiches, planned vacations, hopelessness, relativism, skepticism, “love is a fantasy.”

Things that last:  holding hands, playing an instrument, living abroad, reading a book a week, hiking at dawn, drinking tea at sunset, Levi’s, adventure, curiosity, the backyard garden, old movies, mission trips, family recipes, birthday wishes, song lyrics, wedding vows, resolutions, turning points, creek pebbles.

My Globetrotter

 No big deal, guys, that’s just a big chunk of the Great Wall of China he’s standing on.  Only a couple more weeks left before my honey is home!

The Publishing Plunge

I  sent three of my poems in to the creative writing/artistic expression magazine on campus today.  I’ve been putting it off for a long time, but I decided to rip it off like a band-aid and at least give publishing a shot.  So here I am, gently floating three little paper cranes into the turbulent waters of scrutiny.  The likelihood they will quickly be crunched to death in the gnashing jaws of the prehistoric carp called Rejection?  High.  But who cares?  What do critics know anyway?

Untitled (12/6/10)

All corners of the universe charted on a fingerprint,                                                   

All interminable oceans gathered in a thimble,

All Atlas’ weight saddled on the curl of an eyelash,

All ages of men embalmed in a drop of amber,

All loss crafted in a clay jewelry bowl,

All fear in skidding on the packed-down snow,

All grace glowing in a pearl hairpin,

All love in giving an omniscient, comfortable glance.

Everything known and felt and dreamt in a word.  

Grass to Be Walked On (6/2/11)

I wish to know the names

               Of all the vines, and mosses, and clustered alpine flowers of Chautauqua.

And I wish to know the names

               Of all the wheeling birds and hiding beasts in Estes.

And I wish to walk

               Where no trail is tamped down,

               And no man has left broken branches and stripped leaves in his wake.

But instead-

               I stick to the sidewalks

               Along the manicured, iron-bound lawns of Josephine, St. Paul, 
               Observatory Park.

I keep my half-blind, three-year Golden leashed.

               I make him sit at corners.

The street-sweeper scatters the fine dirt of La Plata.

               I look up at the Rocky Mountains

               Grid-locked in telephone wire.

A jack-hammer drowns out

               The thinly clouded morning of a once proud, and inhospitable land.

Tobit Walked with Dog (9/12/11)

               for John and Maddie

We truly mourn the dead when a dog dies.

Soft-spoken, Swiss grandfathers passed away

In nursing home chairs,

Neighbors’ toothy-grinning sisters

In creek drownings:

It is in dog-deaths that the Deluge comes.

It is when our blue-eyed Huskies

Slip through the dog-door

To die amongst boughs of pine

And our Aussies

Shake off their belled bandanas for the last time:

Verily, bereft

Of saintly love and sinless life. 

And when we bury their remains under

Backyard aspens,

Or reverence their ashes in little painted pots,

We know

That in their eyes

We beheld the look of God,

And

In their tail-thumping,

We heard the might

Of angel’s wings.

MiTunes 4

I miss driving down University at midnight.  I miss the volume up and all the windows rolled down.  I miss the Colorado air, that even in the summer carries the chill of the mountains on it. 

“One Day:” The feel-good song (to be sung as loud as is humanly possible)

“Sometimes I lay under the moon

And I thank God I'm breathin'
Then I pray don't take me soon
'Cause I am here for a reason.”

 

 

 

“Passenger Seat:”  The crooner (we all love ‘em)

“I roll the window down
And then begin to breathe in
The darkest country road
And the strong scent of evergreen
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.”

 

“Madder Red:” The German rave song (as far as Meg and I are concerned)

“Even when my luck is down
I take joy in knowing that our love grows
But if my vices are a burden
Please don't let me off
Cast me from your home.”

 

 

“Polyamorous:” The awesome, angry yelling song   

“Just when you think that you're all right
I'm calling out from the inside
I never hurt anyone
I never listen at all.”

Posting from Portland!

I braved the Portland showers to go adventuring in the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon with an intrepid group of Gonzaga University Choir members.  The mission: eat sushi, explore Powell's Bookstore, and experience the zaney and delectable wares of Voodoo Doughnuts. Despite losing our way several times in the drizzly mire, we accomplished all of the above!

Powell's Bookstore is a many-floored, many-roomed labyrinth.  How cool is it to actually be able to lose yourself in isles and corners and crannies full of books? I bought a copy of "The Once and Future King."  I hope the sentimental pull of purchasing it in Portland will induce me to read it over Christmas Break.  

Off we went to Voodoo Doughnuts, a little shop hawking some of the weirdest and wackiest creations I've seen lately (Just realized I keep talking about doughnuts in my posts...oh well, I'm a fattie).  Come on, a doughnut with marshmallow frosting and Berry Cap'n Crunch?  Almost gross, but still delicious!  I invested in the "Dirty Old Bastard" (ironically one of the more appropriately-dubbed doughnuts): chocolate frosting, Oreos, and peanut butter.  Oh: the maple doughnut with BACON on the top of it (pictured), yes, that exists.  Did I try a bite of one?  Why, yes, I did.

Cheers to globetrotters everywhere!

MiTunes 3

Happy Friday one and all!  It is a beautiful afternoon here in Spokane, made much, much more wonderful by the fact that my dear mother is visiting for Fall Family Weekend here at GU!  We are off to soak up some autumnal ambiance sipping apple cider and munching on pumpkin donuts at Greenbluff.   I hope this music gets you through whatever you have going on before the weekend begins. 

“Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap

Slammin’

If you have the time, listen to these slam poets perform some seriously righteous rhymes. The Old Testament prophets would be so proud.  I think Jeremiah and Isaiah understand the “angsty monologue for a cause” better than anyone.  Pardon these expletives.  I said they were slammers, not saints.   

Hopelessly Lazy but Not Altogether Hopeless

I have very little concern for my personal fashion identity.  Blame it on my Catholic school upbringing clad in uniforms, my four years at an all-girls Jesuit high school, or the fact that my boyfriend tells me I look beautiful even if I am in a pair of athletic shorts and a ratty t-shirt….I just put very little effort into my outfits and general appearance.  Do I look like the Crypt Keeper?  No, that’s just gross.  Do I look like Zooey Deschanel? I’ll keep dreaming.

Of course, none of this means I can’t dream.  So, here’s a little look at what I would wear…if I actually cared!

1. Hair/Sweater:  Of course, a classic and oh-so-boho braid.  Classy, but not over-the-top.  And yes, it turns out I CAN be considered stylish without relinquishing my love of comfy, over-sized sweaters.

2. Vest:  How can a Colorado girl pass up sheepskin and suede?  I love this because the fit is chic, but the fabrics are understated.

  3. Boots: I have a weakness for awesome booties and Indian-print fabric.  The fact that these shoes include both makes them categorically irresistible. 

4. Pack:  Well…. it turns out I have a lot of weaknesses for something I claim to care nothing about.  Canvas bags (especially the leather-accented backpack) cannot be beat.  This bag makes me want to trek off into the Swiss Alps with a pair of those tennis racket-looking snowshoes.

 5. Accessories:  Turquoise is my favorite kind of jewelry.  I love the earthy, indi look of these earrings and ring.

 

So there you have it!  The most beautiful outfit in the world.  It shows a little promise that I at least THINK up pretty combos.  If anyone feels like financing my endeavors and acting as my personal stylist, I’m open for applications! Until then:

Yours Fondly,

 Frumpy

Saturday Morning

I woke up under my fleece blanket to the finger-stiffening briskness and foggy-damp of a fall morning in Spokane. 

My favorites- Alexi Murdoch, Mumford & Sons, the “Once” soundtrack, Ben Harper, and Yeasayer (for a little flavor)- played as I read a long email from my honey.  He’s abroad, leaving India today and headed for Malaysia, but still finds time to answer every question in my emails and devise new ways to make me the happiest girlfriend in the world.  He’s a special man.

I pulled on my favorite grannie sweater (so they’re calling the fashion these days) and celebrated the autumn day with a cinnamon latte and pumpkin bread at good ol’ Starbucks.

Oh, then I returned and gave the blog a facial.  Isn’t she pretty now?

Really, what else is there to do on a Saturday morning other than browse the Internet for awesome pictures, listen to the best music, hide from the mist  in slippers, and miss someone in a way that only you and he understand? 

Enjoy the only day God gave you that will ever be today.

MiTunes 2

Due to my choice to watch far too many episodes of “Firefly” this weekend, I am now headed off to a day in the locked-away turrets of Foley Library.  However, before I go, I’ll leave you with this song: seeing as I will be bereft of any sounds save pencil scratchings and keyboard clickings, at least someone should be enjoying it.  This is from “Last of the Mohicans,” and is quite possibly the most heavenly music ever created.  Enjoy!

What a Girl Wants

Well, if you are of the mind that girls my age should not be focused on weddings and obsessing over high school boyfriends and “Men of Their Dreams,” but instead should be enjoying the dating scene, independence, and the urbane lifestyle of the young professional female, I apologize.

Because this is a post about weddings.  Wedding dresses to be exact, and yes, when I’m perusing the many sites peddling petticoats and pearlescent pictures of perfection…I do have someone in mind waiting at the end of the isle.  Call me naive, call my priorities skewed, all of the above may be true.

But that doesn’t really matter, does it? :)

So, without further ado, here’s the top picks from an afternoon spent researching…just not philosophy!

View Full Album

MiTunes

There’s nothing like music to make an already good Friday simply splendid.  The first song posted here is from Regina Spektor.  Anyone who hasn’t seen “500 Days of Summer” (in which this song is featured), you haven’t lived or set your cinematographic priorities straight.  The second song is from a band called Dawes.  Love me some totally awesome lyrics. Thanks Dawes.

 

Studies in Scruples

 This is a study in scruples; in bathroom floor tiles, in seashells, in foreign coins, in jars of buttons, in votive candles, in missing earring backs, in bookends, in italics, in pine needles, in coffee grounds, in tea stains, in Polaroids, in family recipes, in  bird songs, in fog over the water, in memories.
This is a mobile of my eccentricities.
This is a consecration of authenticities.
This is my identity

Captured in a baby food jar;
Glowing softly, clinging to blades of grass from the backyard.