fast times

Summer is absolutely whizzing by. Do you ever get that feeling when you're so immersed in your life that it feels highly detailed, that so much is happening and changing, but time is moving quicker overall?

Paisley is always a cute pattern, so I grunged it up a bit with torn tights and combat boots.

(dress: h&m; tights: american apparel; boots: boutique 9, nordstrom)

I'm excited for Alice's Summerthing tomorrow, a massive in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. I absolutely love people, crowds, and live music. The energy is like no other.

sunshine yellow

(dress: forever 21; raincoat: michael kors; boots: hunter, wellington)

I'm in San Diego loving the gorgeous weather, all the bright sunshine sans humidity. San Diego zoo today!

dualism

(leotard: american apparel; lace shirt: vintage; shorts: american apparel; socks: american apparel; headband: gymboree; shoes: converse)

Sometimes I feel as delicate as the lace I love to wear.

Lace is an openwork fabric. It is formed either by removing thread, or by leaving space intentionally. Its transparency, delicacy, and fragility are its appealing qualities, what make it definitively feminine. I think one can be delicate and fragile, but still strong. One may possess an elegant strength, a graceful resilience, a quiet endurance.

I came across this and I adore it. It looks so Dalí-esque, but painted by Vladimir Kush.

"We're both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We're connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me."

refined cataclysms

Some people have a vendetta against leggings as pants (leggings without shorts or a skirt over, basically), but I'm down with it. I prefer tighter fits when I wear black denim, pants, leggings, and whatever else, so I wear sweaters and thicker shirts over just leggings all the time. The cleaner fit typically juxtaposes the looseness of whatever top I'm wearing in a balanced way.

Thematically, I'll admit I let myself go a little random here. Golf cap, nautical sweater, equestrian-looking boots... Let's just claim 'eclectic' and call it a day.

Some lives are cataclysmic: think Allen Ginsberg, River Phoenix, Elliott Smith, whomever your favorite tortured artist whims may fancy. While they lived lives of utter chaos, they produced such beautiful works of art, music, film. Wild creativity permeated their beings, and transformed into impeccable aesthetics: the only controlled and edited things about them.

We are all sunflowers-- bright-eyed, shiny, and shimmering. Forever, and never never.

And I will leave you with this: Sunflower Sutra, by Allen Ginsberg.

sun blurs & modern love

Light and breezy with enough zippers to zip a kindergarten class of backpacks, this top lets me roam around with enough room to spare. And, I'm digging the bat wing effect I get when I spread my arms.

(top: boutique in los gatos; pants: express; flats: gianni bini)

I'm listening to Bloc Party and feeling nostalgic, but for what I'm not sure. I'm exactly where I want to be but sometimes the human condition tugs us towards things we cannot comprehend.

I've been reading the Museum of Modern Art's blog lately, and loving it. Maybe I'll pay a visit before the summer ends. But first between now and then, I'm setting up shop to curl up and watch Au Revoir Les Infantes with green tea and honey.

look at all the love we've found

Blue is such a calming color and wearing it always puts me in a calmer mood. I love feather jewelery, so I was incredibly stoked when I stumbled upon beautiful azure earrings and a matching headband the other day. I pulled a paisley patterned silk skirt over a black leotard, and to cover up the exposed back I wore a navy blue pull-over. 

Anyways, I've turned the concepts of love and gratitude over and over all day in my mind today.

I am so grateful for all the love that I've received in and throughout my life. Whether I am in Florida, the east coast, or the west coast, I feel it surrounding and permeating every thing that I encounter, and it makes every nuance of my waking life all the more vibrant. I appreciate that I meet such an eclectic mix of fascinating people each and every day. As humans, we are irrevocably gregarious, and I embrace the interpersonal aspect of the human condition wholeheartedly as a key to happiness.

We all exist consciously in our individual lonely bodies but we can connect. And we connect through a global lattice that is our minds, through conversation, the arts, the visceral. I tend to see the world in colors and shapes, and one of the things I always strive to be is prismatic: it brings me happiness to reflect love, empathy, colors, and life onto others, and to be reflected on in return. Life is a constant self-progression, and that progress includes bringing others along.

One of my hopes is that my blog will keep those that I've met and loved over the years, even though we are physically apart, in loop with my life. Each and every one of you have helped shape me into who I am today, and words cannot express how lucky that makes me feel.

Love, love, love,

Michelle

dusk & simplicity

Hi, hi.

So, I do make an exception for denim with shorts every once in a while, but only with knits. I love that the knit is unhemmed and moves freely against my skin; plus, it's airy, which is great for summer. It's so comfortable and I love pulling the sleeves over my hands like a puppy. I do always have a nightmarish vision of getting stuck on a fence, though, but we won't think about the potential that disaster right now.

(knit: urban outfitters; shorts/belt: vintage; flats: giani bini)

I have a few projects underway that I'm trying incredibly hard to transform into concrete realities for and over the summer, but I won't harp since they're more matters of time and effort. I'm getting my Outside Lands festival ticket for August over the weekend. So sweet.

I've been writing so much more poetry lately, and I'm hoping to get back into writing short stories. I feel like there's something about the transition of seasons that causes upheaval in the balance of the soul. Upheaval isn't always positive or negative; I think it's something that can just exist objectively. And if it inspires me to write, then I'll take it... Anyways, imagery, projections, nostalgia, pretty feelings-- they all come together when we close our eyes at night. The beauty of life is making a sensate understanding of it all.

"the truth has this way of answering all of your questions
without even having to speak
like the first time you set eyes on the first love of your life
as they were just walking down the street"

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