not false or copied; genuine; real: an authentic antique.
having the origin supported by unquestionable evidence; authenticated; verified: an authentic document of the Middle Ages; an authentic work of the old master.
entitled to acceptance or belief because of agreement with known facts or experience; reliable; trustworthy: an authentic report on poverty in Africa.
Law. executed with all due formalities: an authentic deed.
Music.
Obsolete. authoritative.
- from dictionary.com
"With 'slow living' as the newest incarnation of the simplicity movement, the search for fresh inspiration on ways to live a more authentic life is as pressing as ever. Turning to Eastern traditions, people are discovering the Japanese concept of wabi sabi."
- from an amazon.com review of some wabi-sabi book or another
even more fodder for my hatred of this term, "authentic". does anyone else find this sentence ironic, oxymoronic, even? "with 'slow living' as the newest incarnation of the simplicity movement, the search for fresh ... ways to live a more authentic life is as pressing as ever."
as pressing as ever.
isn't the whole idea of 'wabi-sabi' to relax and not feel "pressured"?!?
not to mention that, sorry to say, no life is authentic. we're all copies. imperfect copies of imperfect copies. and using the term "authentic" to describe the way one lives is, simply put, absolute fucking bullshit.
you live your life, i'll live mine. i'll try to eat local, recycle, consume less, travel abroad, enrich my experiences. eat squid and snow pea leaves and pork floss and enjoy tasty, tasty duck. use turkish toilets and wander odiferous meat markets in china (the noodles here are amazing, btw). you go ahead and eat at chili's and lonestar and applebee's. never travel outside the country and out of state maybe once in your lifetime. but that doesn't mean that my life is more "authentic" than yours. we're both alive. and, hopefully, we're both enjoying our lives. enjoy your children, i'll enjoy my cats.
the wabi-sabi concept is intriguing, however. very simple and refreshing. kind of "duh", but maybe that's just me. the term rhymes too much for me to take it seriously and it just reminds me of the feng shui fad a few years back.
i have lots of thoughts about jimothy's post, however, nothing i can put into cohesive words. lots of detail thoughts, but no big picture.
edge cities. suburban vs. urban. local vs. chain. i'm not always good at taking one side or another. the fence top is lovely and one can see for miles. i can see the benefits and loves of both sides. maybe if public transportation were better, such sprawl wouldn't be so painful. and there you go, that last sentence perhaps sums up my thoughts on it all.
this post is getting less cohesive by the moment. i'm fraying, i fear.
*le sigh*
last night, something painful squirrelled its way into my eyeball and after frantic maddened rubbing and an attempt to flush the offending pine cone out from my socket, i awoke today with the eye almost sealed shut. not so pleasant and the right side of my face feels sleepy.
i'm looking forward to: dinner with anthony, wine and mr. darcy with rachel. and an ice pack for my eyeball.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. i normally don't watch videos online, mostly because:
1) i don't have the time and 2) i feel like i'm wasting time when i watch stuff online.
possibly because that's what all the homeless people do at the library. (callous! snap!) i need to be DOING stuff. READING blogs and SCROLLING and UPLOADING pictures and engaging in social NETWORKING.
what a bunch of hooey.
and so i watched the above video and totally learned how to actually use bias tape. !!! it was SO eyeopening!
camera bags have been driving me INSANE lately. or rather, my lack of a good one. it's been occupying my thoughts for the last 2 weeks.
it's very frustrating when i have the WANT, the NEED, the DESIRE to carry my camera (my beautiful new and soft and gorgeous camera) with me at all times, but i have no way to easily keep it with me.
i do have this one very supportive bag, with the nikon logo all over it (aka STEAL ME), which is big and bulky and difficult to open. it's like a mini pirate's chest. when i carry it, it catches on all manner of things - chairs at restaurants, small children, bushes, animals, my legs. basically, i loathe it.
this is what i want in a camera bag:
+ i want it to be fashionable (not this year, or last year, i don't care about fashion years; i just want to look at it and not feel the urge to set it on fire).
+ i want it to be a purse AND a camera bag (i already carry enough bags as it is; add our cats and i'm well on my way to being crazy-cat-bag-lady).
after 2 weeks of searching, i have discovered that no such bag exists. my needs are too specific and i am one finicky bitch. there are some that come close, but not ones that i love.
my options from here:
1 - buy a bag i love and convert it.
2 - attempt to make a bag.
because i am lazy, i'm considering option 1. seriously seriously considering spending the moolah on this amazing bag which makes me cheeks glow pink with happiness. and then also either buying or making a protective insert. vegan bags be damned.
i'm trying hard, REAL HARD, to stop myself from going to the store today on my lunch hour and buying it. anthropologie is SO close to the downtown library! SO DAMN CLOSE!
i keep flip-flopping, mostly because we're really trying to save for a house downpayment.
house........... bag... house.......... beautiful bag... still hypothetical house... beautiful camera bag + purse ...
and sometimes he's not. although he was pretty pissed at the 10 second light-blinking delay for the timer on this one. he's trying to sleep while we're spending a lovely friday night with killer metal robots, joss whedon, blankets, sicilian pizza and beer.
remember yammie's bed? thomas is disgruntled that he cannot fit within. LOOK AT THAT BELLY! though truthfully, it may be thighs, i'm not sure. he is my pigeon-toed muffin top.
turning 30 wasn't anywhere near as painful or hard as it's put out to be.
no trip to vegas, no drunken orgies (no drinking, actually), no hangovers - just a picnic in the park. lots of food and greek salad and little ones.
i'm still a little out of it, mostly because tuesday, wednesday and thursday i had intensive all-day training at work and my brain is positively the texture of 3 day old oatmeal (with the same mental processing capacity).
it's all i can do to breathe, work, breathe, drink some water, blearily blink, work some more, take off my shoes and peck listlessly and my keyboard.
i let go of all my "by-30" goals and i'm enjoying some good and satisfying couch relaxation. it's not going to hold itself down by itself, is it?! hell no! i'm posting bad high school photos on facebook and have plans to re-clean and purge my craft room. it's not going to clean itself, is it?! hell no! unfortunately.
did i mention that we treated ourselves in march? a lovely big-screen tv (1080 p, whatever that means) and a nikon d90! the camera takes video in hd, people. it's amazing, incredible, and my hands melt around it's little camera body in a very pleasurable and titillating way. i have plans. plans within plans. it's going to require getting off the couch, but that's doable.
we've also been biking more! tuesday we biked 1 2/3rds miles! i am so VERY out of shape. you wouldn't think it, but biking and then carrying my bike up the stairs to the apartment means that i sit on the floor with my head between my knees feeling dizzy and nauseated. i think it's the low blood pressure combined with my unhealthy physical self. pathetic! we plan on biking more now that the weather is crazy beautiful.
awkward things to find on your husband's socks AFTER going through the wash.
backstory: with my trusty dymo label maker, i made labels for my spice jars which are kept in a bin in my pantry. it's SO MUCH EASIER to scan and grab when you know what they are instantly. and some spice lids are just too tiny for the entire spice descriptor. hence, cumin = cum.
unfortunately, dymo labels are surprisingly untacky. i'll probably have to go with round stickers and my trusty sharpies!
