Happy Halloween from an unamused Kaede and me a.k.a. Leon and Matilda:
“Stop saying ok!”
More writing soon!
Happy Halloween!
From your basic Coachella bitches!
(And yes, she hated me for this.)
Tank top pattern is available (for free!) here.
For my dog’s crop top, I used a pattern for a doll’s bikini, available here, and jazzed it up a bit, and made it longer.
The crochet pattern for the roses are heres://moaracrochet.com/easy-crochet-rose-free-crochet-pattern/, for the daisies here (although I modified these a bit).
The Postcard Project
“Do you read a lot?” A then-new friend asked me a few months ago.
“No, not really,” I said, almost with guilt, because the question sparked a memory of an acquaintance who seems to finish a book a week, broadcasting her consumption via Instagram. In comparison, I am a practicing anorexic, selecting to sip and savor tropes at a deliberate pace. I read, re-read, and watch sentences slowly unfurl into rich, bittersweet storylines. By the time I lumber through the last page – and they have to be real, paper pages – I can’t think of peeling back the cover of a new book until everything inside has settled.
I didn’t used to be like this. Until a handful of years ago, I faithfully relied on my slim Kindle, a nearly ancient version featuring the miniature keyboard and absolutely no touch screen. You had to click through the pages, back and forth, via oblong buttons on the side of the device. “Flipping through” a book meant furiously clicking back a page at a time and hoping you’d land somewhere near that sentence you really liked but forgot to bookmark. And then repeating the process to get back to where you were. It made recalling passages nearly impossible. You simply couldn’t go back to something you didn’t have the foresight to highlight. On the other hand, it encouraged progression like any good electronic device; the meter at the bottom of the screen encouraged me to read faster, consume more, and hoard titles – instantly delivered via wi-fi! – in my slim, gray bank. I bought into it, becoming the ideal Amazon customer. I bought e-books because “they’re so much cheaper than the print versions,” and left them to hibernate. I became those people who buy books – print or electronic – as if purchasing literature would also include the instant download of the thought and intellect required to actually read and comprehend what was inside. Books, by virtue of their ability to be consumed in bulk, were the new intellectual status symbol.
Somehow, through this era of enarmorment with an “electronic reading device,” I was able to retain enough self-awareness to realize that I wouldn’t be able to read anything remotely thought-provoking in an electronic format. Those books remained out of reach, simply because recalling themes and paragraphs would either take several days to click back to, or the process would be so frustrating that I would invariably drive my head through a wall. This, coupled with the purchase of an iPhone that turned my life into a parody of human interaction, switching from screen to screen to screen to screen, finally broke me. I ricocheted back to real books, embracing the ability to literally thumb through creamy pages fat with words.
Recently, that focus on the real has leaked over to email, Facetime, Skype, texts. So much of our lives is filtered through a screen – both literally and figuratively – that communication, while instantaneous, becomes less meaningful. “It erodes,” Noam Chomsky once said in an interview, of the Internet, “normal human relations.”
Separated by most of my friends by an ocean and several time zones, it’s never clear whether anyone who is unfortunate enough to be closely associated with me truly understands my gratitude for their company. In a world saturated with emails and texts, lines declaring that partners in crime are missed, that five year old custom-made frames are still dearly loved, that I still think of that ride when, or how grateful I am that certain people stuck around until I clawed my way out of a vortex of depression, seem to risk getting lost in the deluge. And because I think the world of my friends, and because I am stubborn, I started to make postcards.
Measuring 10.5cm by 15cm, they’re small collages of memories patched together from piles of old magazines. They’re fun to make between food portraits, and layering paper on thicker stock gives them a nice, tangible weight. They’re real. Hand-made, hand-written, and hand-sent. Three have arrived at their destinations thus far (the wait is excruciating, compared with the click and send of email), with more (hopefully, lots more) on the way.
Fingers crossed they have their intended impact. And even if they don’t, each one is really the best 70yen I’ve spent.
birthday portrait
I've never been one to celebrate [much less acknowledge] my birthday, but my sister drew this for me this year:
Not only does she have a mean, fast jab, but my sister is also cool enough to depict me without my stumpy, thunder thighs.
[Larger version is up on Flickr.]
a seven year itch
In high school, one of my favorite teachers looked around the room and announced:
“Well, according to US statistics, at least half of you will be divorced at some point in your life.”
I remember laughing nervously as young, romantic ideas of diamonds and forever...died. In the awkward minute that followed, we all either stared at our desks or snuck sidelong looks at each other, trying to pick out which of us were mostly likely to fail at happily ever after. I attempted to compile a list of half my class based on fickle dating practices, counting from the bottom up, trying to place myself higher on the marital success curve. The problem was that I had no idea where I stood on this supposed forced cuve; I was 17, had barely kissed a boy, and naively believed that love was a deliberate choice. That it wasn’t - as it would turn out - a result of hormones mixed with alcohol or just poor decision-making.
Perhaps because of this history of questionable judgment, I hesitated for about four months when deciding on a road bike to fall in love with. I didn’t want to feel any hint of doubt once I had tied that knot. I wanted something that would’t fall prey to the “seven year itch” or your typical mid-life crisis. So I chose an IF. And since I’ve had it in my possession, divorce statistics haven’t bothered me. Because I believe I genuinely love my IF. I trust it. I rely on it. I spend more time with my bike than with any other human being. I think it’s adorable every time I look at it. I love it, I really do.
But there’s one problem: it’s an IF. Which means I may never need another bike.
This realization tore through my adulterous heart as I stood in the middle of the Seven workshop last week. Actually, it started before that. As a professional [coffee] barfly at RSC, I have been in constant proximity to Sevens. There is actually enough glittering ti in that shop to armour a Humvee. But it wasn’t until I saw the Berlin Seven bike in the Seven lounge that a small hitch appeared in my mental chant of “STEEL IS REAL.”
Because, oh hi, there is a front light integrated into custom handlebars and a back light integrated into the seatpost on this bike. Ti and carbon seat stays. Swoon.
Not that Seven doesn’t do steel [they do], but they also happen to be the second largest buyer of ti tubing in the nation. We got to see the tubes [ti and carbon] in their full length glory as Joe explained how the tubes are cut, where chainstays are bent, and how the frame is carefully assembled. There’s a general sense of obsessive attention to detail at Seven, which manifests itself in constant measuring and checking, making for rare mistakes and amazing bicycles.
Although each frame is handmade, the bottom bracket threads [for steel and ti frames] are cut by a machine. Seven even figured out how to rig the thing so it could cut out the threads without having to flip the frame itself. Very cool, but not as awesome as the fact that Rob apparently used to cut the threads by hand back in the day until he got sidelined by a rotator cuff injury [kidding, kidding].
Rob also show us the inspiration for Ride.Studio.Cafe.
By the time we got to finishing and painting, I was mentally picking out which Seven I’d want first, wearing that scarlet letter like a badge of pride. But as Kanye once put it, “how he stay faithful in a room full of hoes?”
And if you had any question as to the creativity of Seven employees, well, they are also capable of putting together tall bikes, complete with disco ball, speakers, an iPod holder, and a few amps.
By the time I picked up my bike from the Seven office, I was beginning to acknowledge the possible truth of my high school teacher’s comment. Not that I have plans or funds to purchase another bike or divorce the one I have, but that doesn't mean I wasn’t lusting after a Seven. My adorable IF took the crappy roads on the way home in stride and I was glad I had chosen plushy, great steel.
But in seven years, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be feeling an itch for ti, too.
[More pictures here.]
crazy, sexy, cool
I may be dating myself in reference to this album but that’s what this week has been. A good thing, maybe, as these past few days, my fingers have been busy tapping the sides of a coffee cup, not a keyboard. But all that caffeine and hanging out hasn’t been for nothing, as I’ve been quite the serendipitous slacker of late.
crazy - the crostis descent
When people told me this year’s Giro looked crazy, I didn’t fully comprehend what they meant. With the death of Wouter Weylandt, and stages that look like they could fit into the Spring Classics, the Giro has been both sobering and surreal. To add to the general insanity of it all, comes this article, which states, in part:
The descent of the Crostis worried Contador more than the climb to the finish on the Zoncolan. He admitted he had never seen anything like the dirt road section at the top and the near vertical drop off at the side of the narrow road. “It scares me,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport who followed him during his ride.
He was told that the race organisers will erect safety nets to catch any riders that may crash on the descent but said: “That doesn’t go close to the limit, it goes over it.”
Nets? ...Really?
sexy - pave.cc
I’ve been lucky [serendipitous?] enough to meet a lot of amazing cyclists at Ride.Studio.Cafe. Last weekend, Neal regaled me with stories of climbing the French Pyrennes [with a standard double crank] and at one point jerked a thumb over his shoulder at an impossibly slim cyclist named Raphael.
“I’m trying to get him to drink vegetable oil,” Neal said, “he’s killing us on the climbs.”
A few days later, I walked in to find out that Raphael’s friend is opening Pave Culture Cycliste, a shop that has most all of the RSC regulars and employees [sorry, Rob] making plans to move to Barcelona. The store closes from 1.30 to 5.00 for a group ride that heads out at 2.15. Every. Single. Day.
Hola, Barcelona, HERE I COME!!!
cool - m. scott morton
I met Morton at - of all places - a business networking event organized by our alma mater this past week. He mentioned he lived in Harvard [the town], one of those places I have grand plans to bike to ever since discovering 1. a “Harvard to Harvard” ride on mapmyride.com, and 2. the Harvard General Store. Morton mentioned he designs and constructs furniture for a living and my interest piqued, I asked for a card.
So glad I did. Because, woah. His stuff is amazingly beautiful. I rode to RSC the next day to spread the love and Morton and his adorable son even stopped by yesterday.
And yes, when I get the legs to ride to Harvard, I’m swinging by his shop!
Enjoy the race/bike/furniture porn, and have a great weekend, guys!