Something that makes me smile

I started my new job about a month ago and I have periods of downtime which allow me to do certain things, like keep updated with the blogs I follow or drool over pretty things but my favorite thing to do is to read MLIA otherwise known as My Life Is Average, and to send the ones I like the best to make my friend Violet smile, she has significantly less downtime! The website consists of submitted very short stories detailing occurances, however often these seem to be not very average. Things like teachers rewarding the non-academic creativity of their students and the surprise of stereotypes being broken are regular themes and while some are very cheesy and some just plain unfunny there are some that connect in a small way...also this is where ninjas beat pirates and yahoo cowers in the corner having been mercilessly beaten by google. Here are some recent examples:-

On the last page of my science textbook is the periodic table. Today I saw that someone had drawn a new square for the element of surprise. MLIA

Today, I was sitting in a booth in a restaurant. When I looked to my side there was a little kid looking at me at the exact same time I was looking at him. This happen about 5 times until the 6th time I looked at him and he said to me, "Stranger, i am your reflection", in a darth vader voice. I have never laughed so hard in my life. Thank you mystery reflection boy. MLIA

Today, I learned that my dad has special striped "snow socks." Not because they are warm, but because if he gets buried under a snowdrift, he can stick his foot out like the Wicked Witch Of The East and be rescued faster. I love my dad. MLIA

Today, I was teaching a Daddy-and-me class, where fathers can bond with their baby children. During one exercise, they were to ask their child what an animal says, and see if the child can answer. Most asked what a pig or a cow says, but one man asked his little girl, "What does Mr. T say? What does Mr. T say?" She then said,"Ah piddy da foo!" Perfect. MLIA

Today, my sister was complaining about my baby niece's recent strange behavior. I spent all of Thanksgiving break teaching her that tackling people with a "RAWR!" is an acceptable form of showing affection. My nephew has begun calling her his dinosaur sister. I'm so proud of those two. MLIA

Today, some of the school computers were broken. Most said "could not log on" but one said "Possessed. Mouse ran away." MLIA

Today, some Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door. My three year old son, dressed in all red ran out of the door started kicking and hitting them. without missing a beat, my wife called from inside the house, "Lucifer! What did Mummy tell you? You work inside their minds, not by kicking them!" The men all stared wide-eyed at my son and said good-bye. MLIA

Today, I tested the good ole Google versus Yahoo war by typing in 'dinosaurs were'. Yahoo told me "dinosaurs were exctinct". Google told me "dinosaurs were invented by the cia to discourage time travel." Oh hey google- you win again. MLIA

Today, I was walking down the street when I felt several small bits of snow sting the back of my head. I looked up and saw a squirrel next to a pile of snow. I believe I am the first person ever to have had a squirrel throw snowballs at them. MLIA.

The BAFTAs attendees are currently gathering and I am looking forward to curling up to watch the ceremony while munching on fresh pineapple but here are just a few lovely clothes which have given me pause while flicking through all the gorgeous clothes.
P.S. I bought the new issue of Lula yesterday, and my goodness I can't help but love it!














































1. Philosophy
2. Marc Jacobs
3. Erin Featherston
4. Betsey Johnson

All pictures taken from Style.com

A Little List

So here are some things I love:-

• Biffy Clyro
  

• Starting to learn to make my own clothes so I can attempt rather than pointlessly admire so much of the clothes I see on the Internet.

1 & 2 Modcloth - www.modcloth.com

• Lilacs. They're blooms signify the arrival of spring to me, and everything from their colour to their smell make me smile. When I was a child we lived in a house with a big lilac tree which I could climb and I spent days up in it's branches reading, dreaming and watching the neighbourhood. My one request when we moved house? A lilac tree. Which I didn't get.
  

3 http://www.countryliving.com/outdoor/expert-gardening-tips-and-advice/lilac-bushes-pruning
4 berrimbillah - http://www.flickr.com/photos/8252200@N03/2914521324/
5 Peezy of Jael - http://www.flickr.com/photos/peezybeezy/3608791544/
6 Linda Groendal - http://www.samfur.us/spring_flower_art_prints/lilac_flower_rustic_art/

• Anais Nin's journals, I'm reading vol. 5 at the moment and they are the most beautiful inspiring books. I have scraps of paper and sections of notebooks from bits which I've copied down and have drawn from. She was a glorious woman, constantly searching and honest, serene and giving. Nin writes not about the mundane goings on in her life (which I am terrible about doing in my own journal) but the intricacies of her interactions and attachments to the people in her life, the nature of her own needs and demands and the development of the new style of writing she developed.

7 bakroots - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakroots/1479263817/

• Libraries and book stores. They are the first things I look for when I move to new place (I sometimes think I moved here because Manchester has a wonderful, large domed library in it's city centre). I have been to New York Library, the Bodleian in Oxford and the John Rylands in Manchester before the limited access to name my favourites. Bookstores are a more dangerous love, I have so many books that are on my to-read list I could shut up shop and read for the rest of my life and still not be done. I long to go to City Lights in San Francisco and Shakespeare and Co. in Paris and my answer to what would you do if you won the lottery is to move to America, buy a car and road trip using book stores as my guide and then set up shop by a beach in the Virginia/ North Carolina area and live out my days there. Grand plans I know.
  

• Lying on my bed with my legs up against the wall while listening to music

8 http://www.jackielee.freeserve.co.uk/discog5.htm

• The Fall, directed by Tarsem. This film is visually stunning and has a wonderful way of playing with the nature of story-telling, the relationship between Lee Pace and Catina Untaru is touching and wonderful and the costumes are insane. To talk about it too much would take aways it's magic but for me it was the best film of 2008.

9 http://www.projo.com/movie_reviews//lb_thefall_07-04-08_20AMAF5_v12.1ec6be9.html

• Blogs and bloglovin! Obviously I'm new at this but I have been reading blogs for years. I started with a list of bookmarks that I visited but the list became unmanageable and so I turned to bloglovin, which is so wonderful and easy especially since my internet usage moves around a lot more than it used to. Increasingly I have the confidence to comment too!

• My new membership to Cinema Paradiso! Bought as a gift by my lovely brother it seems very much like lovefilm, there are loads of films on offer including loads and loads of old movies I have always wanted to see! Speeding to me at this moment though is A Haunting in Conneticut, a modern horror starring Kyle Gallner which I haven't yet seen and An American in Paris which I watch for Gene Kelly.

10 http://marianna68.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/an-american-in-paris/

Radical Self Love

I am taking part in the lovely Gala Darling's month of Radical Self Love. Beginning this month I promise to my self to keep moving forward, to live openly, honestly and healthily.

So to that end I have started this blog (something I have been considering doing for a while) and been giving things some thought. So here's me:-

I'm 26, I live in Manchester with two housemates (more on them later). I'm interested in films, reading; I get geeky about a few TV shows and love hanging out with my best friend who lives about 4 hours away. Over the past year or so I have started getting more interested in clothes and am learning, slowly, to make my own. I have had issues with depression in the past and social-anxiety at the moment. Also I suffer from seasonal affective disorder but this year wasn't so bad thanks to Bertie, my light therapy box. And yes, I name technology.

So there. That's more than my current workmates know about me.

Also this1 is a brilliant :- http://www.raptitude.com/2009/03/the-one-ingredient-necessary-for-accepting-yourself/

1 Found at http://eves101.wordpress.com/

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The Red Shoes

As a ballet obsessed child The Red Shoes was a much beloved movie of mine, although not as much as Singing In The Rain, and my lasting memory of it was the vivid colours, the 15 minutes ballet segment and the company director Lermontov being very Mephistopheles-like. My local independant cinema screened a restored print recently and I went to see it hoping to relive my childhood. Instead it all got a little murky!

Lermontov: A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts ofhuman love can never be a great dancer.

With the simplicity of the childhood Lermontov was a creep, Julian was the friend (separate beds) and Vicky was just fantastic and the red pointe shoes moved her feet in the end. However, my recent re-viewing changed one vital element. Vicky is still amazing, she is determined and lovely, talented and polite. Julian is still bland as her lover/husband, but Lermontov was a revelation to me! He was suave and distant but the underlying passion and vision was like an ocean next to Julian's well. The man lived his life in pursuit of an ideal and in Vicky saw the possibility of it's realisation, he asked her she was capable of dedicating herself to it as he had and having promised and later renegaded on this promise he trusted that she would remember herself. All he did was hold the door open for her return and it was Julian who forced her to choose. He is by no means likable or blameless; he has sublimated his connection to other humans on a personal level, is harsh and but is a wonderful example of an artist holding to the highest standards in order to fulfil his vision.

Lermontov: When we first met...you asked me a question to which I gave a stupid answer, you asked me whether I wanted to live and I said "Yes". Actually, Miss Page, I want more, much more. I want to create, to make something big out of
something little - to make a great dancer out of you. But first, I must ask you
the same question, what do you want from life? To live?

Vicky: To dance.

• Brian de Palma and Martin Scorsese have both said this is their favourite film.

• Jack Cardiff, the cinematographer, broke the rules laid down by Technicolour to create the wonderful and vivid colours.

• Hein Heckroth was both production and costume design and both are spectacular.
  

• Most of those acting as dancers were professional actors rather than actors with some knowledge of dance and Robert Helpmann, who danced as lead dancer of the company, chorepgraphed most of the work. Leonide Massine is the exception, he choreographed his own role of the Shoemaker.
  

• Moira Shearer was second to Margot Fonteyn at Sadler's Wells at the time she was approached and was not struck on the idea of working in film; it took her a year to agree to it.
  

Lermontov: Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the Red Shoes go on


Pictures from:-
1.http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk
2. Ibid
3. http://www.bard.edu/