Hola!  Coma estas?  Bien, y usted?  Muy bien, gracias!  How was everyone's Thanksgavan?  Mine was mas o menos.  I didn't eat much because i'm having those weird appetiteless streaks where i lose mad weight.  Plus, i know you cooks out there know this--but when you're the one who slaves away in the katchan, you don't feel like eating your own cooking most of the time.  So i ate other peoples' leftovers.  Is that sad?  WUTever.

Because of this ubercold weather, i find myself breaking appointments to meet friends and putting off grocery shopping or eating out.  Is this why they say that winter is the season of sitting at home, watching football, and abusing

Cuz that's what i hear.  That's what a knowledgeable birdie tolt me.  ahdunnoes.  *shrug*
All i know is, it better start getting warmer fast because i cannot tolerate the cold.  I can tolerate anything BUT the cold (tattoo needles pokin 'n shading me for 3 hours, root canal nerve pain that shoots through the entire side of your face and down your arms, bullet wounds ~ jk no bullet wounds).  I remember the one single time in the history of the Life of Liz that i was so cold that i started becoming disoriented (like how they say it happens in those disaster movies like Alive-u know, that movie where their plane crashed and they et each other) and i started hallucinating and had to keep telling myself not to go to sleeeeeee~eeep.... don't close ur eyes Liz!! don't close your eyes!!!!.....  This was at the Georgia Dome for the American Idol auditions.  Not me, u crazies!  I cain't sang worth jack!  I can't even sing at karaoke when i'm drunk and get all brazen thinking i'm the fifth member of 2ne1, the OLDEST BITCH IN THE GROUP *SADFACE SADFACE SADFACE* *SOLITARY TEAR* No ~ I graciously volunteered to go with my friend Karlos to support her dreams of being a supastaaaa!! *cue molly shannon kneeling VICTORYYYY*  It was about 13 hrs of Saw XXVII JIGSAW TORTURE.  We shivered so hard that suddenly we didn't shiver anymore and delirium set in as we began to see rescue helicopters dropping hotpockets and hot chocolate inside the dome and ryan seacrest looked uberly hawt and the lawn was actually sand on a caribbean beach.  It's crazy that Karlos was freezing because Karlos is NEVER cold since she has the blood circulation of one of those penguins in Antarctica that chills on an egg in minus 30 deg weather.  it's because she is evil. 
jk.
Omg. longest tangent ever.  This post is actually supposed to be about interior decorating.  
Moving right along... 
When it comes to interior design, it's not that difficult.  Simple and clean is best.  Minimalism is my preference.  And i love, love LOVE dividers, whether it's curtains (my fave) or bookshelves as room dividers, or actual dividers (i like the asian panel shoji screen dividers ~ tres exotica and cute-ica).  Here are some pictures i've collected of room setups that i <3.  i take great pleasure in maximizing the functionality and personality of a space and i like to flip through catalogs and am one of those weirdos who goes nuts in furniture galleries.  remember that Ikea scene from (500) Days of Summer?  ahhalmostbustedanutyo!  i sometimes fantasize of hiding in one of the showrooms until the store closes and popping out when everyone's gone so i can play house.  like natalie portman did inside a tent at walmart.  COOOL!!!!!

ps. i want a bookshelf with a ladder.  i love bookshelves with ladders.  MY FAVE!!!  i'd SO roll around on it and belt out a tune like Belle.  i wish i could have a library!

OK WAIT! TIME OUT! TIME OUT!  i dunno about this one up thurr. ^  This layout looks a lil TOO modern/contempo for me.  like if i look out the window, i might see aliens or something.  this is the shit that we will look back at ike, wuhhhh?  *like how we look at the interior design of the Brady Bunch house (those weird stairs) and That 70s Show (the browns and greens and oranges ~everything looks like it stinks of mold and weed)...

Peas and I are selling our home and acting as our own real estate agents.  So please buy our home! :)

<3, Liz!

All Hail! *bow, and then continue to fall flat down on face*

V i v i e n n e    W e s t w o o d

aka Vivienne Isabel Swire 

aka My Hero and Goddess of Cool

     

  

• She doesn't watch TV or read newspapers or magazines b/c she believes they are a waste of time.

• She has two sons: Ben Westwood, a photographer of erotica and Joseph Corre, the founder of Agent Provocateur, the creme-de-la-creme of undies and all things sex.

• She dropped out of art school after one term and said, "I didnt know how a working-class girl like me could possibly make a living in the art world." Instead, she became a primary school teacher. 

• Her clothes became were first seen on the sex pistols.

• John Fairchild (owner of Fairchild Publications and Editor of WWD) rates Vivienne Westwood as one of the world's six best designers in his book Chic Savages.  She is the only female on this list.

• Westwood is an activist for several causes, among them: anti-consumerism, climate change, civil rights, and nuclear disarmament.

• Westwood walked out in the first ten minutes of the London premier of Sex and the City because she says that the clothing Patricia Field featured in the film were "frumpy" and "boring". Also, Sarah Jessica Parkers character, Carrie Bradshaw, was gifted a Westwood wedding gown.

SPRING/SUMMER 2011: Lookie Lookie, she STILL gots it. i love her signature gaudiness.  all that color.

  

* Listen carefully to the paradox she says toward the end of this clip.  jaw droppingly faboosh. I mean, seriously, how ballsy is this 69 year old grammy...the quintessential personification of cool.

"Geometry's easy, yo."
--Artie

OMyfreakingGAW~ that slightly manic smile.... that personality and voice... those CARDIGANS... i think i'm totally in love with Artie from Glee.  He is so freaking adorable!  I love him!  i just want to sit on his lap and let him wheel me around the hallways!  AAACK!!!  I can't handle it... anyways, Astrid and I are currently 100% makeupless (quelle horror!) in our beloved sweatpants and curled up on the lambskin rug in the middle of the living room floor in front of the huuuge HD screen watching Glee and eating Yummy Earth organic gluten free gummy bears and i'm drinking a burr.  i drink burr a LOT these days.  yep. forgot to tell you that.  i have this weird thing with soda ~ like i need that painful carbonation in my throat and when i'm out of soda, i have to drink beer.  well~ i've been out of soda for like 2 months.  so's i drink burr every other day.  one burr makes me feel purty good.  two makes me feel a little tipsy but it only lasts like 30 mins.  strange, it only makes me tipsss when i'm @ home but if i'm out and about, it doesn't work at all.  i just HAVE TO order a jack and diet or a shot of something to start off.  i have to.  anyways, back to Glee and Artie.  I just cried my eyeballs out watching today's episode with Kurt and the homophobic bully who is secretly gay.  i love Kurt, also.  he has such a dainty voice.  he'd make a pretty girl.  he is so adorable also!

kay, back to tv vegetation time.

I thank everyone that has caused me to suffer, without you I would have no reason to express myself.  --anonymous

Since my sister's been home in Atlanta for the Fall/Winter for her extended holiday, we've been catching up and watching dvds, and mostly just chilling indoors in her attempt to steer clear of the booze + temptations.  We went to see the ocean and watched dolphins and basically tried to imitate shaolin monks.

And then it all fell by the wayside once Halloween rolled around.  and i mean "rolled" around.  jesus. ayudame!

Now the Asterisk is deathly ill with something... and my mum candidly admitted to me that she peeks into her bedroom from time to time just to check and see if she has stopped breathing.

Anyhow.  It's almost Winter now.  Usually i hate the cold weather, but these days i've been loving the gray, colorless sky and the snapping cold winds.  It matches the mood i've now begun to escape from.  For the past few months... well... since late August, i was in what i refer to as my "dark hole."  On the outside, i am quite normal, but on the inside i am like a walking shell.  So, dear readers, that explains my absence on this blog and even out in public.

Since i was about 19 or 20, i began to get hit with these depression spells where i can barely get dressed and don't put makeup on and can hardly eat anything.  It's so debilitating that I tell everyone i'm sick or not feeling well and hide out.  I don't sleep well and the thought of going outdoors gives me massive anxiety.  I think a lot of people are like this?  The reason i call them "holes" is because my life is peachykeen and these are the inexplicable blemishes.  Smooth roads and then BAM! pothole!  Smooth sailing and then BAM!  freak storm!  I've dealt with this for almost a decade.  This time, it lasted for over 2 months and i'm finally, slowly crawling out of it.

I tried fluoxetine (prozac) and amitriptyline (tricyclics) in my late teens and early twenties,  but all they really did is make my pee neon green.  Now i'm in my late twenties and it's really embarrassing for me to even talk openly about my holes because i feel like it sounds made-up and people might say, "isn't she way too old to be emo and shuffling her shoes?"  I don't treat these spells anymore ~ i more or less let it flood over me and wait til it leaves and let my mom put her hands on me and pray it away.  They happen a lot less frequently now.  This might sound sliiiightly scientologist of me, but in some cases like mine i feel that Rxs are totally avertible and extraneous.  Ya just need ur mom to put her hands on you and tongue-speak it out of you.  (my mum's speaking in tongue sounds like this:  "WA SHA RI MA lalalalakamaraka..." etc. etc.)

Anyhoos.

Something that i've been TOO often reading about in the news is the influx of teen suicides, especially that of gay teens.  It makes me so sad... like, despairingly sad.  It makes me burst into tears just writing about it.  I'm an empathetic person by nature and when i read these things, i mull and agonize over the magnitude of hopelessness and pain you have to be in to want to end your life... and it eats me.  People should never be in that much suffering.  Not even animals--not any of God's creatures.  I just want to help them somehow.  I am so thankful when i see public people banding together for the "It Gets Better" campaign and it makes me think there is still some humanity left in a world where currently we have genocide in North Korea and nobody seems to bat a motherfreakin eyelash.

Well, i'm happy to be back to my normal happy self!  I'm in an amazing mood despite these skies that look  like they're about to unleash hail or snow.  I'm thankful to God that i have it better than so many people out there, even when i'm down in the dumps.  I'll leave you with this beautiful quote i read today:  

When I look at ugliness, I see beauty. When I am far from home, I see old friends. When there is noise, I hear a robin's song instead. When I am in a crowd, it is the mountain's peace I feel. In the winter of my sorrow, I remember the summer of my joy. In the nighttime of my loneliness, I breathe the day of my thanksgiving. But when the sadness spreads its blanket and that is what I see, I take my eyes to some high place until I find a reflection of what lies deep inside of me.

 --Navajo saying