In the Backyards of Our Neighborhood

Sometimes we wander amongst the city twilight, losing our souls to the beginnings of winter.

Domesticity is Delightful

She's coming to understand that there can be joy in simple things, things long forgotten by many. Traditional things, old-fashioned things.

She's come to appreciate turning the pages of a book, for she'd rather have something tangible rather than digital.



She's come to appreciate brightly colored threads and dexterous little needles, for she'd rather come up with her own patterns than settle for something sold in a store.





She'd rather eat apples that are red and ripe, for things in noisy packages seem uncannily artificial.



She'd rather draw and dream, for sitting in front of a television seems a waste of intellectual potential.

Domesticity can be a delightful thing--not archaic relic meant to confine one to the home. Rather, it's a return to simple pleasures, a revert from the digital age, a revisiting of dwindling crafts that, if not practiced, will surely sink into forgetfulness.

All Hallows

It's almost upon us! Choose your costume wisely and light the candles! Cover the windows, keep an eye for spirits, and prepare your wits lest you have a run-in with goblins!

She's decided to dress up as Ash Ketchum this year--a trip to Goodwill and a few snippets of felt went a long way.



The apartment is cold now, filled with the sorts of smells fall ought to have. Emma got her a pretty candle that smells like spice; it sits on the stove, by Mr. Elephant, accompanied by bright orange pumpkins. Her apartment is small, and she's afraid smallish pumpkins will have to do when it comes to festive ornamentation!



Happy Hallows Eve, everyone!

Snippets, Drawings

She's been quite the domestic dame lately. She's attempting to do needlepoint. It's been quite an adventure, indeed! Her pieces strut proudly across the fabric, little trophies of her efforts.







What lovely things should she stitch next?

Drawings, like daydreams, rise from blank paper with unexpected lines, miscalculated emotion.

Pretty Red Lips, Driftless

Today she visited a little town with art galleries lining the main street, called Mineral Point. It's Fall Art Tour weekend, where all the artists open their shops and display their very best pieces. For the occasion, she decided to do her lipstick and makeup and wear a checkered dress she bought from the mall in the city.

Her mom gave her earrings with spiders in them; she said that they were too "Halloweeny" to be worn everyday. She thinks they're just right.





A friend picked this book up for her a year ago, and she's decided to read it recently. Funny how the book is about the area in which she lives. What a coincidence! The small villages, rolling hills, and sleepy country roads are so very familiar, yet they seem from a faraway dream...

Vacation House

She wants to find herself a little niche somewhere in between city and the countryside. There she'll construct a house made of paper, woven together by bits of daydreams and snippets of longings. Inside will smell of fallen leaves, and she'll watercolor the walls with songbirds and dandelions. There'll be tea in the cupboards and cakes in the fridge; cats will lounge flatly against the windows and somewhere, salvaged from her grandmother's centenarian dining room, a record player that will only tolerate Pavarotti and Swan Lake will be housed comfortably.

Mornings here are greeted with golden dawns and dark mugs of coffee. Evenings are celebrated with a fireplace and chamomile. There is plenty of time here for those menial things one leaves behind, those domestic little delights that newer generations have chosen to forget. Here, in a house of walls as thin as flesh, there is little separation between obligation and whimsy. One does as one wishes.
Stay here for a bit. Lounge and contemplate. Read and wonder.

But remember.
This is only a vacation house, a little oasis for troubled times. You mustn't come here too often. Beginning with the very tips of your extremities, you're sure to disappear bit by bit as soon as you hop the return train to Reality.

The Door Tree

The door tree stands at the center of the world. Its branches pierce the veil that is the heavens, its roots wind deep into the layers of hell. When the time is right, the windows and doors open. They are mirrors of humanity, reflections of our own souls. At the seat of the tree a demon dwells, pulling strings and opening doors, beckoning to passerby.

Come, look inside.

Please, Please, Please

Just before morning, just before she's fully awake, and also when the spot on the bed next to her is cold and empty, she curls under the covers and lets her mind fly. She thinks of cities. Not towns, not villages, not suburban wastelands--no. Cities.

Skyscrapers that tickle bloated clouds, playing with the blue of the sky. Neighborhoods with menial little parks and singular trees. Sidewalks. Benches. Galleries. It makes her want to bite her cuticles to a pulp. Cities seem so big and scary and crowded and lonely.



She misses Chicago. It's odd how, in her mind, a city can at once be a place of new beginnings and romantic notions, and at the blink of an eye, a dwelling for only heartache and lonely existences. Paradox, paradox. She doesn't dream anymore, but rather frets until her stomach knots.

Hear a Punk Rock Song, and We Sing Along

There are no better nights for punk rock than those precious few at the summer's end. Her heart aches. The music blares. She rubs the toes of her boots together so the pleather squeaks.

Academia looms just around the corner, and soon these little pains will be masked by books and studying and running. It's all so exciting, so frightening, that it runs tingles up her spine to linger across her sternum.

She helped give Sir Charles a mohawk. The results were ever so fantastic!



Hey, Suburbia!

Drawings, but Colored

Did she ever tell you that she drew pictures? Lots and lots of pictures? Pictures to fill sketchbooks and stick on the walls and take up all the musty corners in one's life? She's one of those fantastical girls, you see, who dreams of ferocious beasts and realms of fantasy.

But there's a little problem.

She despises coloring her own work. But it is so good to have a dear friend who colors her work so willingly! Emma took colored pencils to her linework, and here are the beautiful results to show!





Here's an elephant with squid's legs. He's looking a little plain. Who will color him? ♥

Smells like Autumn

She had an adventure in the city with a dear friend. There she saw Mr. Elephant on the store shelf, and decided that he must come live with her immediately. Mr. Elephant enjoys tea and perpetually spouts it from his nose. Now he sits, content, with Earth Mother and magick incense on the stove.



She also purchased some orange candles, in accordance with the coming autumn. Such smells! Potpourri, candles, and incense make for a delightful concoction of seasonal scents. She suggests an earthy blend; try some patchouli and sandalwood and pumpkin spice for crispy fall nights and wriggling toes beneath fuzzy blankets. And to top it off, brew a pot of warm, cozy tea--compliments of Mr. Elephant.

Magickal Dolly, Itty Bitty Spider

Tis a time for charms and enchantments. She's found an escape in the countryside, away from the crowds and dust of the city. Loud music is replaced by the chirping of crickets and cicadas and the whistle of the wind through the trees.





She made Earth-Mother dolly of yarn and scrap fabric. In Earth-Mother's head, she placed a spell on thin piece of paper, a reminder to keep nature close to her heart. Earth-Mother sits on her couch in Apartment Eight, tsk-tsking every time one forgets to recycle.



The apartment has a new resident. His name is Ben and he lives in the upper-corner of the bathroom. He comes and goes as he pleases.

Veronica Hates Me

On a whim she scrambled to the drug store and bought an electric razor. How many people does it take to give one girl a mohawk? Sir Charles measured with a keen eye, while Grahm snip snipped her hair away and Lord Philip wielded an Iphone and hairpins. The results were worthy of a photoblog and a playlist.

She's ready for stomping. Never did her knee-high combat boots suit her so well. Just another East Bay night in the Midwest.

Gray, Sticky, Awkward Summers

Misty mornings that melt into nowhere. Foggy streams and dewdrops on the leaves. Trees murmuring to themselves. Ancient tales, magic herbs, spells and lore from ages long lost. Laughing children, musing women. Broken glass and concrete.





Unyielding nights. 24-hour diners. Sunken eyesockets, purple and bruise-like. Combat boots and safety pins. Eyeliner as dark as coffee. Relentless car rides, jarring music, open windows, city lights. Concerts until the wee hours. Sweaty bodies, writhing pits. Chords and beats that rattle your bones, vibrating up from your collar bone, causing your teeth to chatter.



For her, summer lies somewhere in between childhood and adulthood--an odd gray area where the only certain things are late nights and early mornings.

Keep your hearts nailed to your heads. Keep your hopes lofty. Keep your eyes glazed and wide. This is a time to run barefoot and blow bubbles and believe in dragons and light candles and make wishes on stars. Because, really, most of these pretty things will be gone as soon as the leaves grow crisp.

Putting in a Word for the Count...

Oh, so many books to be read! Her shelves are full, her eyes are sore. But how wonderful it is to have things to read.

The pinnacle of her summer reading revolves around a certain swashbuckler by the name of Edmond Dantes, but most of you know him as Monsieur le Comte d'Monte Cristo. Tall, somber, and all that is dashing and dark, our entrepreneuring earl seems a static figure through the layers of years. He is unchanging, yet constantly evolving, sinking through the fabric of time like rot through a fleshy fruit. For in his eyes he holds the promise of revenge, the insanity of imprisonment, the pure heart of a sailor.

The girl insists you read this heavy gem of a book, for hardly has she come upon a book so grand, so impossible. It leaves one rather breathless. What else can be expected of the Napoleonic years? An unstable environment makes shifty, extreme characters.



She gives it 5 hearts. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Apologies for the lacking of posts. She promises that there's more to come.

Foggy Stream

There are fruit flies in the house; they're secretly pesty fairies in disguise, seeking shelter from the rainy outside. It's been raining a great deal, and the flowers have been coaxed from their hiding places. In the mornings, the sky mists over in a tearful fashion.





The streams are sweating, fogging incessantly. The fairies tell of summertime. It's time to hide a holey stone beneath the door. She doesn't think she can stand anymore fairy-flies.

City

Cities are big, tall things with many eyes and streets for legs. They don't scare her--not one bit! They loom over the horizons, lurking and silent, and hold secrets close to their bellies. They seem cramped, overcrowded, but upon investigation, there is enough room indeed--

enough room for kites to get lost in trees,


enough room for cupcake shops on lost alleyways.


And also matutinal runs in sprawling parks.
She's going to be swept away again, she reckons. The windy city won't leave the mind easily.

Boxed

She is too living a parcel to be packed up and stowed away in the corner. That kind of treatment is left for broken toys and old ladies. Not yet.

There is a sincerity to her walls; no one but herself put them there, and now she defies them, scraping her fingers, flesh to cardboard. She is not plastic.



She screams and writhes and cries out, pushes and cranks.

It's time to wake up; It's time for bed.

Enough.

Where is the girl with the smile? Her return is overdue. Look, for outside, the world lives. Spring alights gently, softly, casting a green cloak about the snow. There is no such thing as plastic.