It's So Funny

Finally, this school thing is starting to feel real to me. I was protecting my fragile heart from disappointment all these months, with the missing transcripts, delay delay, uncertainty about the process, the worry that it's really just too late to be relevant.

It's real. It's really happening, I am now a full time student again, it is OFFICIAL. I did it!

Crossing the line of demarcation almost effortlessly yesterday, while standing in a line for my photo ID, gripping my stack of 'welcome students' materials, smelling the strange mix of fruit gum, coffee, vintage 70s student lounge and youth in the air, I emerged a student. Say hello to the new peculiar institutional structure, go stand in long lines, there's always a few hundred people doing exactly what you want to do when you want to do it, and off-campus living means structuring my time when on campus to get more things done. But I quibble.

My hair looks fabulous. The gray was growing in fast and furious, so the fine student Emily at the Aveda School salon layered in some warm brown and light blonde to take 10 years off me, and gave me a swingy flip cut that brushes my shoulders. That photo ID card will be my constant friend for a few years, and I didn't want to scare myself each time I pulled it out. After scoping my required textbooks at the school bookstore, I came home and ordered online for a fraction of the price, saving enough to pay for half a new laptop. That student discount can really come in handy.

Most of the orientation was kind of a snooze, I'm afraid to say. It was a full force gale outside and the tour leader's voice was whipped away, and we all just followed her like baby ducks from stop to stop as her arm waved in this direction and that. Okay, there's the library, look up the hours later, here's the music building, looks neo-classical easy to remember, here's the athletic complex, check specifics later, student parking structure, dorms, health clinic, student center, engineering , let's go back check your maps. Since I hadn't waited until the very last minute to register, I skipped out on the 'how to register' section at the end of the afternoon and went to the text bookstore before the other 350 newbies headed over there. The campus looks very urban after dark while rush hour traffic crawls by at 4:30, the bus really is the best option.

It just feels so perfect, completely right, on-target, natural and fulfilling. So I'm already thinking ahead to grad school. A four year plan to getting my masters degree is the bigger picture as it appears to me from here, and it looks doable. Anything else just fades into unimportance in comparison, except the usual; animals, friends, crafting, Porch Time, and gardening. Gone gone gone are all the days and years of not feeling genuine in my own life, going through the motions. Instead of automatically reflecting back to my old retail-centric life, I'm enjoying the distance I feel from it all now, it's really fading away, too.

It was easy to close down my booth at House of Vintage, it felt like the right thing to do, and the rumor is the building is going to be sold anyway. I'd made about as much money with it as I was going to without a cash infusion to keep buying to restock it, and that wasn't happening. So, I'll keep crafting to sell online, which is no rent, and I can work on it at my own allowable pace with school and everything else. It's all good. Fabric Depot was having a 40% off sale yesterday and today, and I found some yardage I really love for a futon couch cover, so I'm going to head over there later this afternoon when the Estrogen Brigade thins out at dinner time. Why bring toddlers to a crazy-busy fabric store? It's insane. Shop in shifts and leave them home. Please.

Betty is waiting for me to call and give her the report on school updates. Better have some breakfast first.

House of Vintage Rocks!

Rainy, chilly weekend. October arrived early and started sulking immediately.

*sigh*

I went down to House of Vintage right after it opened to see how my big weekend discount sale was going, and to make the Big Decision---close it or stay open and hang tough.

Number crunching until my teeth hurt, I knew it was bad business to pull out right before the pre-holiday sales ramping started, but I thought about just cashing it out and starting something new, paying the bills and relegating the booth to the summer period.

You know what's next: Get a real job. But I have to say, I spent three hours there, going through each booth, checking out the new vendors, new merchandise at the usual vendors, seeing the shoppers and post-hangover-breakfasters moseying, buying, and marveling at the place, then going to get more coffee then coming back to look some more. And the big TA-DAH moment descended upon my shoulders---I need to stay here. This will continue to pay off more and more and supplement whatever other income I manage to free-lance upon, and be an outlet for me to sell what I make and/or accumulate for re-sale. And it leaves me free enough to do something like a (gulp) job and it upholds a huge slice of my personal values of artsy-crafting, and reduce/reuse/recycle/repurpose/resell. This was a big TA-DAH I'm talking about here.
And I found a $3 oil-cloth bag from Harrods Knightsbridge in perfect condition, perfect waterproof satchel for the next two seasons. So happy.

Alternate Universes

I said vehemently that I wasn't interested in having my own store. And repeated this to anyone who was nearby and probably not listening anyway. In renting a booth space at House of Vintage, I was splashing in the kiddie pool of a shop-thing, but not really committing. 'Easier than a continual yard sale, yadda yadda' and felt fine with this. Fine, I said. Really.

But that's all changed now.

Thanks to CRAFTzine's blog, I am now hopelessly in lust for my own funky green/sustainable/vintage fabric-textile-fiber-sewing shop.

Rhett, whatever shall I do now? There's no hope for me.

This picture is from Ambatalia, a fabric nirvana in Mill Valley CA, and I'm so beside myself with love and inspiration and envy that I may need to walk around the block a few times and eat ice cream or something. Good god. Like the time I first stepped into the former Hexafoo retail space on Belmont and felt faint and pierced like St Ursula with raptureous pain. Here is my ready-made life, just with someone else's (husband's?) money and some sexy younger woman living it. And a small artsy staff. Maybe I can re-adjust the time-shift sequencer and do this again slowly...

No good. The owner of Ambatalia is named Molly, and her inspired visionary oasis has classes and things for kids and moms and non-moms and our ilk of fabric fanatics; anti-mall, anti-plastic, pro-sustainable and renewable, un-crassly-commercial, very creative and unique. She begins her store blog last October 31st by talking about her reluctance to throw up the usual obnoxious Xmas window display, and how her store is so not about that. I hugged my monitor. There's lots of pictures of Molly and her store and her amazing staff, and her beautiful goods, and the website is fun.

I think it was the crappy weather this past weekend for the Hawthorne Street Faire that sort of deflated my hot air balloon of love with Groovy Rhubarb, that I didn't get the sales and turn-out that I was hoping for and honestly, counting on for revenue for August. I was kinda blue-ish and not on fire this morning to whip up stuff. I spent an hour with Sunday's job classifieds, drinking what felt like really bitter coffee, but that was just my mood. Another gray chilly day, blah blah blechh. Where's my Muse today? Should I abandonez-vous?

Then I opened the link on CRAFTzine to Ambatalia's weekend fabric sale, and I decided to live again (with deep envy) and stay on focus with my own funky alt-business. If Molly can do it...

Belly Full of Beans

Another rapturous morning moment spent in the local Garden of Eden, surveying how the midnight rain refreshed K & H's plantings. So I can be forgiven for grazing on some tender green beans while singing to cats and other Deva garden spirits? I'm keeping your Mojo going while y'all are away. There's plenty of time and many sunny days ahead to replenish your stock by the time you get back. Then I returned home to water the porch planters that were teased by the rain but got no love, and then polished off a few handfuls of gold and red cherry toms. I like this hunter-gatherer stuff. This was truly a Breakfast of Champions.

The tide has turned on this summer, it is really noticeable in the evenings now. Not being one of those folks who hungers for autumn anymore, I am hanging on to this cooler and gentler summer for dear life, the green that lasted throughout, the earth unscorched for a change. Maybe we in the Willamette Valley can slide slowly slowly into a two month Indian summer, some spicy notes, some golden hints in the trees, lots of southern sloping sunshine and crisp blue skies, liquid honey sunsets. No rains, no frosts, no permaclouds, no gray windows, not until November anyway. The tomatoes can last that long without frosts, the ones that were on their way to ripening before the sun fell away. I wish.

This year we are thinking about enclosing the porch with the kind of panels that come down in the spring, so the front porch is another room for all but the coldest winter days. Keeping the cold winds out, and letting the warming sunshine through, almost like a public house biergarten.
What else would we be doing out there in the cold? There are three home brews on the schedule---Rubus Maximus, a ruby IPA for our girl Rhubarb romping in the Elysium Fields;
Zephyr Golden Ale, beautifully clear and bright, but packs a wallop; and Bruno Bitter IPA, a dark and robust strong flavored brew with a handsome head. This Autumn will see us swimming in hoppy heaven, so if you are on your way over and hear Jimmy Buffett's live CD and people singing along to "Cheeseburger in Paradise"---you're at the wrong house. But park any where you find a space.

From my window this heavy gray bank of clouds looks like snow, as we used to say in Michigan. Coming from the coast, they look like waves and waves rolling in on the black sand. Two blocks over I can see the top of a maple tree already beginning to go gold the top three feet. This is a huge Japanese maple with small leaves that look like baby dragon feet, and it turns earlier than any other tree in the neighborhood. More accurate than a calendar, with black bark like wrought iron fingers, the tree hovers for a few days as a glowing lantern, before they all fall at once. Sure enough, it's usually the third week of September, and the other trees seem to take the cue.

Not such great weather for the Hawthorne Street Faire this weekend, however. Cool is okay, chilly and rainy is not. Dang. Lots of pedestrians the past few days, and the street renovation is officially done (fanfare) with new crosswalks that drivers still zoom through, and two more lights to snarl up 5pm traffic. I love it that the #14 is a straight shot downtown, but it takes 45 minutes during rush hour to get between downtown and 39th St or vice-versa. So let's add a few more lights...But I digress. Since the turnout at House of Vintage might not be what we all planned on, I hope once the sun returns this coming week, the newly arriving college kids needing STUFF will come here and stock up on funky with mom & dad's SUV to take it back to the pad. Forget about that Scandinavian Nightmare by the airport, don't go! Don't conform!

Keep the Local Love Happening, my brothers and sisters. Peace.

Gemutlichkeit

Taking a break from the number crunching...

One of my favorite blogs is Poppalina, in the now wintery land Down Under. She's a woman named Shula that I've mentioned on my blog many times, and I check her every day. She doesn't post four times a day, but that's about how many times I check to see if she has. So we inadvertently drive up each other's hit counters. (I don't have one, too early in the game) Shula has been doing this serious yoga-mama thing, becoming a yoga teaching person, and it sounds grueling. Oh, and she's a single mum with a 13 year old girl. Sounds like someone else I know...

Anyway, today Shula stayed on her blog long enough to tell us she finished writing a paper for her class, and she found a great flash pic saying, "It's Bloody Finished!" in Broadway Lights. We all sent up a cheer. She hates paper writing, and does all the dodging activities I do when the paperwork is deadline due.

So I'm not going to apologize for posting twee pictures on Friday, being in a hands-on, visual mode, left brain off. Today was all left brain; finances, numbers and applications, accounting of new efforts with dollar signs attached, profit dollars, blessed expenses, supplies, bills old and new and real old, and looking down the short handle of the end of unemployment.

Finally finished doing what I needed to do for Etsy and Paypal, and am waiting until tomorrow to hit House of Vintage. I'm grimacing cautiously as I write this. August will pick up, college kids renting and needing to fill apartments, houses and closets. Cautiously, I'm thinking all I really want to do is Groovy Rhubarb, throw my whole body and soul into it, get it high off the ground and then Etsy will kick in. Donations accepted. Ideas and gentle advice welcomed. It's all so clear to me, I can hear it breathing, ready to fly.

Numbers being what they are, GR has some legs, not real long now, but...it took me until May to realize what I was going to do, then the entire concept came together really fast. I'm suddenly the only boss I'm willing to work that hard for. Am I just crazy? I believe in this project with everything I have, and it's kinda lonely out here. Oh well, that's not enough to stop me yet.

Speaking with someone Financial lately, he said to me that what I'm in the midst of is usually what people 20 years younger or older than me do, I should really be focused on building security. But he has to say that, that's what I made the appointment with him for. He was kind, and didn't completely discourage me, and made a comment about the entrepreneurial personality type, being strong-headed, and clear of vision. Sometimes a girl has to write a check for some fatherly advice and effortless money computation. He shook my hand and wished me luck and I almost cried. I'm bad that way. Then I came home to get the mail, and found a totally unexpected check from my car insurance company, nothing in the 100s, but a delight nonetheless. Thank you. Thinking of my stern German grandfather, I jumped in the car and drove to the Bavarian deli, off of Powell by the Aladdin Theater, called Edelweiss, and got some wursts, sauerkraut and horseradish, and black rye bread and made our Bavarian family stand-by meal. Sometimes you just have to do that, bring yourself all the way around to home.

Fortified with gemutlichkeit and weisswurst, I dove into the numbers, thinking of my grandpa and the lecture on practicality I would be getting if he were still alive and leaning over these papers. So I had a beer. Prost!

Groovy Rhubarb Shows Positive Cash Flow

Today being July 1st, the one month anniversary of launching the booth in the House of Vintage, I moseyed over there to re-merchandise, scope the foot traffic on a pleasantly warm Sunday, and, maybe drop off a rent check.

The owner Edina was there, computating the final month of June's disbursements, and I said I needed to drop her a rent check.
"I'll have checks ready by Tuesday, come back anytime then, okay?" she said.
"Uh, okay, I wasn't sure what the June's receipts were going to add up to---"
"Oh, you made money, I owe you a check," she interrupted.
"Wow, great," I offered lamely. "See you then," and she said, "I told you you'd do okay, didn't I?"

This is so cool, and great for my confidence, and heartening to think that I'm on to something here, I MADE A GOOD CHOICE IN THE LURCH OF UNCERTAINTY!!! So I went ahead and bought a few 50-cent vintage family photos that had this older tall guy always wryly smiling, standing in front of a koi pond-kind of thing in the 1940s with rather dour older women, and in one group shot, he's sitting with a doll in one arm and a goofy rubber ball on the table next to him. I'd loved to have met this guy. Really a card.

House of Vintage was thick with customers, and I had to endure the absolute worst Rolling Stones album I've ever heard, something from the 90s I think, so I sauntered over to the bigger warehouse side with mostly furniture, and watched groups of early 20-somethings modeling for each other, squealing over rather fuggly 70s clothing, and getting into a Bowie-esque song with Cocteau Twins overtones. Much better. Lots of purchasing. Exxx-cellent.

I can be devoted to this enterprise with minimal retail baggage, and it will only pick-up when school starts and all the students return to equip their retro flats. Send me the good vibes, dig?

The Booth In the Back, In the Corner, In the Dark

We watched the Flip Wilson Show with almost as much reverence as we watched Johnny Carson...

Anyway, I just returned from restocking at the Groovy Rhubarb booth at House of Vintage, and am pleased with the weekend of moved merchandise. As the owner said, the LPs seem to be the biggest sellers, and also the books. Sold the Ouija board.
"House of Tschochskies", step right up, don't shove, get out yer money, no $100 bills unless you're taking the lot! I was inspired by a website I visited for those of us who love to make bags, and I'm going to whip up some 1960's looking beachy bags and totey bags, simple simple simple, and make'em look like those butt-ugly ones my neighbor ladies always seemed to bring back from Mexico or Florida, and I'll make some cute ones, too. I'm discovering that kids pay money for bags. This---I totally can do.

(what in the world did I do before digital photography?) Here's the new string bag, the heavy duty, go ahead and get the bottles of juice bag, that I whipped up in less than 24 hours from 100% cotton. You could use this on a trebuchet, it's so strong. I'm pleased, and want to whip up a bunch in fun summer colors and punch 'em onto Etsy ASAP, along with the button bracelets and button-encrusted bags in progress. And you thought I wasn't 'working'. There being a slight difference between what is best for Etsy and what is better for the Groovy Booth, I'm floating both series of projects at the same time, because tiny and smaller objects are better for Etsy, and larger, harder to steal things are better for the Booth. Just give me the money and let me get back to the manufacturing.

The Portland 'locally made' movement is thriving this summer, and living in Southeast like I do, I forget that there are even things known as malls. In the neighborhood reclamation movement taking over little communities here, even the blight known as 'strips' are being re-done by locally owned businesses, retro-ed or modernized, and provide us with hand-made, crafted and Pacific Northwest originated products. I so dig this. Last week Linsey and I were discussing how hot Portland is with the New York Times this year, and how instead of Portlanders going East to NYC for inspiration, NYC seems to be testing the waters out here for new concepts and areas to pirate. It makes me feel kinda smug. As long as they leave our real estate situation alone, they can buy and import whatever they want to sell in Manhattan, here's my card.

My Powerball numbers weren't even close this weekend, so I'm going to hit up Craigslist again today, and drop off some clothes I sorted out of the closet this weekend that are not booth material. Jeans that I've given up on. Odd gifts from B. that I will never wear. The thinning of the house inventory is a great feeling, and again shows me how much my tastes have changed in even the past 7 years, since moving to Portland. What I can't sell I'm donating, even books. Yep. There was an episode of "Mission Organization" that was a woman setting up her sewing studio that was an epiphany for me, except for the wall color and $1500 worth of plastic organizer thingeys, on how much inspiration and productivity increases when you have all your materials easily at hand. Grab and make it! So, I'm making progress every day, and hopefully, making money, too. I may not be selling Harry Potter volume 7 this summer, but I'm plowing ahead nonetheless.

Raj is watching these local pigeons in the back yard cherry tree, and he chatters at them as if they will mosey over and say hello.
So he can snap their cherry-eating little heads off. Neek already had a go at them this morning, and is resting in the bedroom, so it's Raj's watch this afternoon. Later, when the squirrels come back for cherries, it will be utter madness. It can't be any better than this.
(well, I could somehow find myself rescuing Bentley the Dobie across the street and be a dog owner, but that's not likely)

Love That 'Completion' Thing

Going to ship off tomorrow morning to arrive in time for Betty's birthday next week.
The fastest I have ever completed a knitting project, it fits, I only had to rip out part of one sleeve, and this shot shows the blues and purples the most accurately.

I LOVE NORO YARN!!!

The t-shirt style took 8 and a half skeins of the 10 I got, so there's enough for me to make a little trophy piece of this yarn that I love so much. Maybe short fingerless gloves. With a thin leather palm for driving. Girl Genius works overtime even when unemployed. (Why am I writing in the imperative?)

Beginning week 3 of Groovy Rhubarb at the House of Vintage, and I am the only used LP vendor anywhere near the mid-Hawthorne shopping areas. This week it was all tourists branching out from the Waterfront Village areas (from the rain) and doing the vintage shopping trip, German tourists more than from anywhere else. Anything with a rose motif was hot, and I sold a lovely teapot set, big ticket item, ding ding! Since the urgent gift knitting is done, I am now launching full tilt into the crafting of the merchandise for the Etsy site, scrounging for more items for the booth, and desperately trying to finish organizing my work room. The coolest thing in the whole world was liberating some cardboard shelf trays from the recycling bin of the hippie grocery store on Hawthorne, which I painted a lovely French Blue, and now they all match, look like something from an organizing store, and suit my need for visual consistency in tools for stashing materials. And I truly dig dig dig French Blue, which is white and blue kids' tempera paint mixed together. Really. Basically free. I bought those quart bottles of tempera paint at Jerry's Art-a-Rama in Deerfield Beach at least 10 years ago. (shut up)

Along the lines of the 'Completion Thing', the Rose Festival is over, so I'm going to segue into Mock Oranges for the gallery this week. If possible, it's almost a jasmine-orange blossom blend, and 300% intoxicating. And it's been a cool spring the last few weeks, so everything is still in bloom instead of bolting and withering too fast. With glowing skies until 10pm and later for the next month or so, the perfume settles back onto the porch in the evenings, and it feels like being in a Maxfield Parrish painting. Or so it feels to me.

Congratulations to Linsey for completing her apprenticeship in horse gambling, slapping down and taking names, so she can get on with the tattoo artist apprenticeship. Or was it the Reading to Gifted Toddlers charity summer? Cruise Director for the Naughty Secretaries' Wham-Bam Whirlwind Tour of Patagonian Nite Clubs? Something publishing? Her blog kills! Read her brilliance while she guest blogs about crappy bookstores.

Peg did the gravity tests on the WWOTP IPA #2 and we are clear for take-off. The Summer Slug-a-Chug party is this Saturday, when the suspecting public will be sampling the new batch, lining up for more, and stopping the presses to make our brewery famous. It was suggested that the new finished basement space would make a perfect pub. Not by me, but I do agree. Since it would be down a small flight of concrete stairs, I'm thinking "The Fall On Inn". Or maybe "Den of Iniquity". I'll stop now.

Fait Accompli !!

Zee Szveaterrrr----she is done!

(pause for Colbert Report-style ovation)

Now we await the reaction from the recipient after she receives it, and I'm just not going to stress about that. Waaaaay too much to do for that.

And the WWOTP IPA---I came downstairs yesterday morning to find a rather large mason jar on the hall table, golden with the hoppy nectar, ready to be savored. Peg worked her alchemical magic and did the bottling mid-week, and another home brewed batch of Wicked Women on the Porch Imperial Pale Ale is about to be consumed. Not quite this early in the morning, I'm only on my first cup of coffee, but definitely towards sundown.

And The Goon Squad was here almost the entire day yesterday, and it smelled like they were priming something, and are almost done with the basement renovation. No ovation for them.

Busy day ahead this morning, so I won't dilly-dally too long here, I have a trip to the House of Vintage right away to restock and re-merchandise. Being a lovely cool morning in the low 50s, it is a sharp contrast to a week ago setting the booth up, when it reached 90 inside the shop by noon, and just went up from there. Rose Festival tourist overflow is winding its way along Hawthorne, and Hawthorne is becoming known for its great hub of thrift shopping, and I have many more treasures to provide those bargain shoppers. And some nice books to sell to Powells. (heh heh heh)

No time to gloat over the bee-utiful Noro sweater---I'm going to take a sunny picture of it later today, and of course, will share it here. Since it's a new yarn from the Japanese Noro company, the nice people at the Yarn Garden said I should bring it by for them to see when I finished the t-shirt style summer weight sweater. Okay, I'll gloat later, too. Gotta go!

Oh good, rain is coming

I say that not because I am a native Pacific Northwesterner, or because I'm tired of the beautiful early summer weather we've been having, but because the garden needs a really good rainwater soak, and I need to stay indoors and really get some work done.

There were these 15' high walls of windows at my middle school, mostly 7th & 8th grade, and they looked out over these rows of big maples, elms, a playground (before the parking lot went in) and rolling spots of sun-dappled grass to sit and have intense conversations with your best friend. It was in those classrooms that I realized what a window-gazer I am, perched two or three stories above the ground and looking out and away into the blue sky and canopy...I'm out of my body and hovering there in mid-air myself.
The rotation of the earth has its way with me and I have to be outside, that's all there is to it.

There's that feeling like I have piles of neglected algebra or geometry homework to do and Mr. Rolf is going to get all tight-lipped and stern with me.

Pa-shaw, it's only some laundry to fold, paperwork to finish, some dishes and vacuuming, the usual suspects. How can you toss your satin black cat off a pile of pink sheets fresh from the dryer when he looks so adorable nested in them? He always picks the pink ones, and all my sheets are cotton, so that's not it. Another photo op.

Update on the Noro Betty sweater: finished the front piece this morning, now just two short sleeves to whip up, then piece it together. My left index knuckles are going wonky with all of this tiny intense knitting, and moving that huge bookcase on Friday with 90lb Edina, the House of Vintage owner, sent my knuckles into walnut-sized. But. Must. Finish. Sweater. Then---I will allow the knitting to go on a summer hiatus, while I work on the button carding, jewelry making, sewing projects, sweater embellishing, and over-all turbo charged production of all things Groovy Rhubarb. and also painting. And writing. And more photography. Which reminds me---

Check out this new 'zine, called LAB. Many of the talent and references are Portland-PNW oriented, is it here in PDX? Not sure, but one of the contributors is an intern at Wieden-Kennedy ad agency, did work for Nike, and some logo work familiar to folks up this way. Doug Fir, for instance. I downloaded both released copies of this new 'zine and spent some time reading, marveling, and seeing into the future of print/web-based art. Guess that makes me a wanna-be, but I'm getting it started, and am certainly in the right town for this kinda thing. If you want to be amused and baffled and inspired, link to LAB. I found a page from Keri Smith's book, The Artist's Survival Guide, that radically cheered me up on a blue day and reminded me why you should never tell anyone what you're doing unless they also tend to bubble over and tell you all sorts of project ideas. Or your tractor will be up to your head gasket in swamp. Surely a metaphor everyone can understand.

Must press on, end in sight, stay strong.

(fanfare) The Booth is Open!!

Da-ta-ta -dah!!!

Yes, I've become a resale tycoon in the making. It is a modest little booth. Pricing things you remember paying full price for 25 years ago is tough, but some things are actually worth more. Not kidding anyone, just mining this accumulation of riches for some liquid assets is worth it, no matter how much that Japanese Import Roxy Music album was in 1982. Some vinyl junkie could spy that, and get on his cell and tell all his friends to come down.
I did snap a few pics, but first I have to figure out how to get them out of my phone.

Remarkably, it was so easy to just pile LPs into the big canvas book bags and lug them to the car, I thought it would be harder. Friends tried to get me to leave them behind when I left Boca Raton, but no one would have given me a dime for a bunch of 70s & 80s LPs there. And I wasn't emotionally ready to part with them then, still inhabiting my mental 20s on the cusp of 40. Well---I'm truly on the other side of that dilemma now. I also have a great tall book-sized shelf in the booth, so I can start with the book-age as soon as I can start boxing them up.
After years of wanting to surround myself with wonderful and meaningful things, this spring I want to create SPACE. Space for new ideas, new projects, new identity, new work, new pals and friends, new meanings. As my old pal Matthew would say, "There you go, all woo-woo again," and he would be right. He too is proof that there is Life After Borders.

Speaking of...I found a stash of business cards from just a couple of years ago in an old purse, and as I looked through them while tossing them in the paper recycling basket, I realized that none of the Borders business cards I had from colleagues, co-workers, bosses, and muckity-mucks were people who were still with the company. Ah---haaaa. So, The Kids Are Alright after all. Meaningless, really, but reassuring to me anyway. We all tossed our Corp frame of Reference and Priorities for the next thing, whatever that wound up being, and none of that whole "End of the World As We Know It Armageddon" occurred. Those conference calls and phone trees and suits' visits all kept on happening, more new initiatives, more new incentives, more spun bullshit---and it went on without our holding it up anymore!! When I tell people I feel newly divorced, they snort and make some comment that indicates to me that I gave far too much to that company. I don't want to be bitter, or angry, or feel a loss in myself.
But I really like this Merry Divorcee thing...reputation be damned.

I have a store again!

Signed the lease today, I am now a vendor at the 'House of Vintage' on Hawthorne.

Tomorrow morning, I load up the Kia and make like the flea market of olde, except that it's inside, with 80s music and more ugly 1960s lamps than I ever saw in all of my childhood friends' parents' basements and rec rooms. With the big GothGirl space at the front.

Perseverance, and good timing. I am so excited! Starting out with LPs, some 1970s rock& roll paraphernalia, books, fabricky items, old video tapes, things that I've been carting around so long that they have become 'vintage' since I got them...the mid-40s usual realization that it has been almost 30 years since high school, ohmigod, why do I still have some of this stuff?

To sell, to sell, to young 20s hipster types to whom this era of
brown and yellow draperies or orange and olive lampshades has a delightful charm. Oh, I can show you 70s...

I considered "The 70's Will Never Die" as a great name for a booth, and it's not too late. The owner is very easy going with being creative, and encourages merchandising that increases sales, so that's cool. And since I am in a starter size space, it's small enough that I'm not in overwhelm about filling it up, and it's easy to completely change around to keep it fresh. The time commitment is minimal, so I can still do all of my other creative and money making projects, like blogging, trying to get writing jobs, setting up my Etsy sales site, and most likely, getting a part time job. I get to lead four lives at once, at last! And there is that new novel idea that came to me yesterday, a murder mystery, no less, increible!

There's still time, I keep saying to myself. All of these interlayered happenings feel more genuine than most of the work I've done over the last few years, yet the experience along the way taught me so much that I know will help me run my own business. Fifteen years ago I would have wanted to do my own little bookstore, maybe a spirituality artsy poets dragged through Asia a few times kinda store. But things are different now, after the bookstore manager's experience. I don't want a little cafe or restaurant of my own, either. So already have done that, too. To feel really in tune with all my interests and expressive needs, I need to do an assortment of things. Perhaps this summer is the time and the right mix of circumstances for me to really launch this muthaship. Six months ago I found out I was losing my job. And it certainly was not the end of the world. This summer is going to be so cool!!
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