family.

My cousin Bennett, whom I've recently become closer to, has started a blog (http://www.sonixperience.com/). It's exciting because of how much he wanted to do so. He aims to write about music as unpretentiously as possible.

His mission statement:
Our purpose is simple. We aim to document the experience- both physical and spiritual- that accompanies a melodic occurrence. Be it listening to a record for the first time or the hundredth, going to see a band for the first time or the last, we hope to capture the essence of the moment in a few choice words and images.

While our musical tastes might dance within the boundaries of a few select genres, we seek to expand the comfort zone of our auditory palate. We are not here to be seen, we are simply here to listen. We are equally interested in what “was” than what “is”. Perhaps most importantly, we seek to avoid the chatter and noise typically associated with this form of media, focusing in on the truth of the experience rather than how that truth might be perceived.

Thank you for reading. We look forward to the experiences ahead of us. See you there.

Well, the particularly nice thing for me is to look at his blog and see posts about my brother's band, Amazing Baby. I really appreciate seeing family come together in different ways---something that has been fairly absent from my life.

I hope to someday fit myself into the mix...working with gentlemen who've known me since before I was the little girl to the right sounds lovely.

clothes.

I was going to write about the newest addition to my household today: Fluff, the cat. She's been in my family, bouncing from house to house, since I was twelve. Now I get the opportunity to have her around and begin the transition into crazy cat lady (which I've always not so secretly believed is my destiny). She's fat, she's cute---just not worthy of an entire entry...I suppose this means that my transformation to CCL is not complete.

Moving forward. I've known about a blog called The Sartorialist for a little while but have never taken the time to really check it out. This changed a few days ago when a friend sent me a link (in hopes that I'd expand my internet horizons). She knows how much I like pictures, so it seemed fitting, and it was. Since I started looking, I have gone back through all the archives, beginning in September 2005.

My friend's timing was quite fortuitous. With my new apartment comes a new, very large, closet and dresser. I can now actually see all the clothes and shoes I own. Looking at The Sartorialist's pictures from the streets of New York, Paris, Milan, etc., I have been inspired to use my wardrobe to its fullest potential. I don't think I'll be strolling the streets in the number to the right, but the movement in the picture is fantastic.

That's right, just look at how the garment moves.

(image courtesy of thesartorialist.blogspot.com)

guilty pleasure.

Sometimes I feel bad about smoking; sometimes I feel bad about drinking. However, I would not consider these to be guilty pleasures...vices, if anything. Because I am young, I don't think I ought to feel guilty about most of the things I do (that doesn't mean that I don't...it just means that I know I shouldn't). From what I can tell, I have a good thirty years before ice cream would even qualify as a guilty pleasure (thank you, commercials targeted at middle aged women).

Something I do spend some time thinking about is how I navigate the internet. I'm not someone who is terribly interested in picking up a newspaper, therefore you can guess that the hard-hitting, information saturated sites aren't at the top of my visiting list. I am not proud to admit that most of my news comes from jezebel.com or perezhilton.com, but you know what? They have their moments. Plus, Jezebel's "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly" gives me a daily gallery of eye catching togs. These sites are tabloid magazines updated by the moment. Awesome.

Now comes the admission of my guilty pleasure: my third favorite blog. It isn't updated as often as the others, and maybe (considering my affinity for Martha Stewart Living) you won't be too surprised. I love designmom.com. The "Design Mom" is a woman named Gabrielle Blair and, according to her, she is: "a designer/art director and mother of five. [She posts] on where design and motherhood intersect." It's true. Her posts are either about her children, decorating a family home, or parents' date nights. I love it.

There is little-to-no reason for me to read what the Design Mom has to say, but somehow she fascinates me. I know way too much about her life: from the details of her recent move to Colorado to what her siblings like to post about on their blogs. She may or may not be a mormon, but she's certainly pretty cool in a mildly out of touch way. My appreciation might, in part, stem from the fact that I've tried more than once to have her post about the website I work for (definitely in her league of postable items) and she's never responded.

Congratulations, Gabrielle Blair. You are an enigma to me.

P.S. She's in Chicago right now.

(image of Chicago courtesy of designmom.com)