I have a thing for the Library of Congress. I used to want to get married there and then I realized that weddings scare me and what I really want to do is elope in Africa or something. It’s also where I almost fainted while speaking to America’s hottest carpenter, Carter Oosterhouse. And then there’s just the fact that it’s filled to the brim with books.
What I’m really into right now is the Library’s printed ephemera collection. The word “ephemera” alone just gets my blood hot. As I mentioned, I’m a slight hoarder so I can totally understand why someone would save an interesting label from years past. After all, it’s in a library now so hoarding is good!
Here is how the Library describes their mass of ephemera: “The collection comprises 28,000 primary-source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompasses key events and eras in American history.” I highly recommend the women’s history ephemera as we all know things made for women are more attractive.
When I get back from Nepal, I plan on hiking down there (I’ll be most comfortable hiking after I become a sherpa) and demand to see this ephemera collection. My guess is that they’ll be happy to show it to me, which is just another reason why I love this town.
G-o-r-g-e-o-u-s. I absolutely love this building and the nice thing is that tourists don't really seem to make their way there. It's beauty and history for those of us who live here.
As my colleague Kelly Fisher said after I sent her the site younghouselove.com, “they have single-handedly inspired me to take better care of my living room. I now know that things are better when they’re neat!” Sherry and John, the stars of the site, met and fell in love in New York and then bought a small house in Richmond, which they completely flipped. Kelly is also from Richmond, so she feels like she’s BFF’s with them even though they’re strangers.
But I understand where she’s coming from. It’s hard not to adore Sherry and John and their story, which they spell out for you in detail. We know how they met, what they do, where they got married, how much their wedding cost, and every single step, price, nuisance and joy of flipping their house.
When I read their blog my confidence in my handy(wo)man skills shoots through the roof. Of course I can retile a floor, paint an entire house, do some stonework, and jack hammer through a wall. And then I try, start crying, have to call my Dad and it all begins again.
But still, I want to do it and even TLC and all their home repair shows couldn’t give me the confidence that John and Sherry have.
DIY here I come! I already feel one step closer to my dream claw foot bathtub.
I’m not on Gchat much. At Washington Life, I’m usually too busy to go out for lunch or write a personal email, so sadly chat is not in the cards. But there was a time when I worked from home that my friend Nate and I would chat for hours a day. We would pretty much have a constant conversation going with each other for the whole nine to five workday and never ran out of things to say.
Nate and I dated in college and I don’t remember us endlessly blabbing. I think we just spoke to each other a rather normal amount. But get us on “paper” and man oh man do we gooooo on.
But I love it. I love chattering with someone when it just flows. And with Nate it always flows. We talk about who we’re dating, about what we’re writing, and lots of Vassar gossip. But in a girl/boy way, so lots less OMGs and exclamation points.
One year for Nate’s birthday, I spent weeks printing out our Gchats. I would stay after hours at work monotonously loading conversations and hitting the print button. But man was it worth it. About a thousand pages came out of the printer, I had them bound in four volumes (after making myself a copy too) and shipped it all off to Nate in Miami.
I doubt either of us read them on a daily basis, but it’s nice to know that they’re there along with all those memories and a diary of our lives. Some of it is petty and some of it hilarious, and all of it I am happy to have sitting in a peaceful pile in the basement.
Nate and I just love to blah, blah, blah on Gchat. It's very junior high of us.
It’s amazing how dependent Stacey and I have become on WiFi with our blog. Since we started, we have never not had our posts up by the wee hours of the morning and part of me always fears my WiFi exploding at 2 a.m. and having to post later in the day. Luckily, like the tech savvy girl I am not, I scouted out all the places in my house where I can pick up someone else’s signal and at what time.
I know that between the hours of midnight and four a.m. I can randomly get on one of my neighbor’s signals from the edge of my dining room or near the back window in my bedroom. Sometimes it just seems easier to drive around the neighborhood at midnight until I can pick up a signal or just sneak into my neighbor’s yard in my pyjamas and blog from their hedges than calling for help.
So I really have to hand it to Stacey for being able to blog on time and so wittily from her life on the road. When Stacey and I first worked together at Bisnow on Business, I was always so impressed by what a doer she was. She could write five articles a day, photograph power-hungry realtors, be a great wife and a fabulous friend all while nine months pregnant. So what’s a little blogging from the side of the road every now and again?
Thanks to Stacey for keeping the dream alive while in house limbo. I’m so sad that she’s leaving DC, but of course thrilled for her new life of beach living and nautical-inspired ensembles. Bon voyage!
Here we are at Gold Cup this year. I'm going to miss Stacey soooo much! Waaaaah!
Ahhh, the WiFi steal. It has definitely saved me a few times when my WiFi was down and I just couldn't stomach a call to India at 3 a.m.
Today I trekked up and back to NYC for the greatest holiday since Christmas…the Loving Day celebration! Loving Day is a holiday my brother created as part of his master’s thesis at Parsons. It celebrates the right to love across racial lines as first set forth by the Loving vs Virginia Supreme Court Case in 1967. Before 1967, interracial marriage was still illegal in fourteen states. What! Yup, forty-two states over the course of American history outlawed interracial marriage at one time or another.
Of course in our day and age this seems absolutely crazy, but a clause that prohibited “marriage of a white person with a Negro or mulatto or a person who shall have one-eighth or more Negro blood” was removed from South Carolina’s state constitution in 1998. Yes, 1998. It wasn’t enforceable because of the Loving Supreme Court case, but it was still on the books until ‘98. Alabama had a similar one until 2000. So it seems we still have a bit of a ways to go.
Ken’s idea was to have Loving Day celebrate the right to love, and I think irregardless if you’re in an interracial relationship or not, it’s great to have a day that celebrates love and being in love. Loving Day was featured in Time magazine on Friday and has been getting amazing press in the Washington Post, BBC, NPR etc. But the celebrations, like the one today in NYC, are the very best press. There’s free beer, free burgers, and baby can you ever feel the love.
A great photo from the NYC celebration.
The view from behind the DJ today.
My wonderful friends from Vassar, Jamilyah and Keisha, were kind enough to come to Loving Day and gossip with me. I miss them!!
The World Cup has started! And I’m not in South Africa to watch it. Alas…Luckily espn.com is streaming it live so we were able to watch it at work while writing about cocktail parties. Kelly had the game on her computer and though the people looked like pixelated robots, we watched as the teams from Mexico and South Africa tied. Personally, I love a tie. I absolutely hate watching people loose. When I watch the Olympics I want everyone to tie for the gold. I mean they just try so hard!
But there can only be one winner at the Cup and of course my fingers are crossed for the US of A. I might be torn between rooting for the US and Belgium, as I am also a citizen of the latter, but sadly little Belgium did not make it to the World Cup this year.
In 1994, when the US was the host country, Belgium was in the Cup and yours truly got to march in the opening ceremonies here in Washington. How did I get this gig? Was it because I passed a series of vigorous physical tests? Or proved my child might over other rug rats? Nope. It was simply because I’m Belgian. And since there are very few Belgians (I’m surprised we haven’t been declared endangered), I was granted the right to march for my (other) nation before a major sporting event, in ceremonial dress. That’s right. My mother, all her Belgian colleagues and their offspring, ran around the stadium with our trusty tri-colored flag and medieval velvet dresses on. In the heat of summer. Got to love a northern nation.
Thanks mom for giving me your Belgian-ness and thanks Belgium for having such ridiculous traditional dress. Made the whole situation a lot more memorable. Let the games begin!
The love of the game! And the love of goofy outfits.
I loved inventing things as a kid. It usually led to a small kitchen fire, but you know, a child’s imagination should never be quelled! The invention I had the most faith in was “Karin’s perfect pancake maker.” Here’s what I did: I made perfect little round pouches out of tinfoil, filled them with Bisquick (and rainbow sprinkles for good measure), put the whole kit and caboodle in a frying pan, heated it up till the outside burned, and tah-dah! A perfectly inedible pile of carbohydrate mush. There were still a few kinks to workout, but I thought it was a sure fire hit. No batter to spill, no pesky utensils to clean – perfect for a modern day mom on the go.
Since my days of burning down the kitchen, the inventions I would most like to create are books. Books fueled by the adventures I could have if I quit my job and pogosticked across America naked. Every Friday during the summer, I get so close to just giving my two weeks and heading for the hills. There is just something in me that craves wacky adventures so I can write about the good ‘ol life. But then I chicken out and keep on tap dancing for the man.
But not my friend Lee Brenner. Though I like to rub it in his face that I sang college a cappella andhe didn’t, my boasting really stops there. Lee was an editorial producer for CNN (mainly the wolf man blitzer), director of political programming for MySpace, founded an accessories company, and is now starting a website that is basically an orgy of HufPo, CurrentTV, The Daily Beast, and The Daily Show for 18-35 year-olds with content created by 18-35 year-olds too. It’s called HyperVocal.com and launches this summer. I advised Mr. Brenner to use some punchy headlines like Cosmo does (77 Positions in 77 days = genius!), and he seemed receptive, so it will be a sure-fire hit.
Of course when Lee talks about his projects it’s with the stress level of a tween on vacation. It’s like he’s telling you about his latest haircut. No stress, no worry, just calm calm calm. And that’s what’s great about it. I feel like we all have an idea or a dream that we have kicking around and want to just say “damn the man” and give it a whirl. But it’s so much easier said than done. Stacey and I certainly were rather intimidated with the 365-days in a row aspect of Naked Thanks, but now more than six months into the project, it’s the most satisfying part of my day. And all this entrepreneurship, the dreams and then taking the risks, is probably my favorite thing about America. A place where you really can quit your day job and give it the old college try. Don’t worry Dad, I don’t plan on doing it soon, but one of these days…
This is how Lee roles. You know, just a little chitchat with the Prez. What probably intrigues me the most is that they are the exact same height. Why? I don't know. But it fascinates me.
Today my coworker Kelly sent me a really funny blog that I am now totally obsessed with called Hyperbole and a Half. Allie Brosh, who writes the blog, most recently wrote about a big NCAA track meet she ran in Texas when she had a temp of 104 and actually stuffed ice down that heinous little bathing suit thing you have to wear when running competitive track. Her hilarious post brought back sooooo many memories of having panic attack after panic attack before running races in high school. I was a sprinter and mostly ran the 200, 300 and 400 meter dashes, the latter being the most hellish race ever invented by a human being, save perhaps the marathon. And of course, being the hoarder that I am, I still have the shoes I wore to run all those races. That’s right! More than a decade later I have those Nikes sitting in a prime little box in my closet.
My memory sneakers, as I like to call them, are perhaps the smelliest shoes that exist in America today. If you peed in your shoes and left them in your room for a year, they wouldn’t smell this bad. I think the problem with the shoes is that I tried to cover up the lovely odor with a wide array of household goods over the last couple years.
I have doused them in Febreeze, baking soda, overpriced perfume, Clorox bleach, etc.. I even burned sage leaves like this Native American shaman once did on my outward bound program. But nothing. It just smells like several small rodents have used them as their home for several generations. Like since the dawn of time. But I love them still. I even unearthed them for a road trip I took in Romania because they fold up really small.
While in Romania I wore them to do other very smelly activities, like milking a cow and feeding a small goat. The stench did not get any better. But still I held on! These are the shoes of a warrior! I ran myself a silver medal in the bad boys, and while I have no idea where the medal is, I still have the shoes.
Here they are!!
A picture drawn by Allie Brosh for her blog. This is pretty much what you want to have happen when you're about to run.
Sadly this was more of her reality. Ice down the pants and a fever. Got to hand it to her for trying though!
THREE DAY WEEKEND! I am so excited. Like shout from the rooftops and kiss strangers excited. BBQs, one-day-only sales, and my two favorite words: free time. I haven’t been at home for the past two weekends and am just thrilled to become one with some weed killer and turn my lawn from neighborhood eyesore into something that might not cause Martha Stewart to vomit.
I’m also looking forward to having some time with Craig. Lately, I have only spent quality moments with him while asleep. But that’s all going to change this weekend. He’s still at work, but I just bought a $100 worth of Cajun style chicken gumbo ingredients and plan on actually cooking something for us to eat, instead of making him live off party hors d’oeuvres. And I am also spending a great deal of time on my new favorite website, cosmopolitan.com. How on earth did a liberated gal like me not peruse this site before?
“The top 10 places to have sex (besides your bedroom!),”Today’s featured video – would you do him outside?” “My online boyfriend wasn’t real!” and “77 sex positions in 77 days.” Yes, those are all current headlines on cosmo.com. Wow! Who needs the A-section of the Washington Post. Clearly all the news that is fit to print is on cosmo.com.
As I read all about what guys think about my hair, I noticed two beige anatomically correct stick people going at it on an inner tube. What on earth? Well, it’s Cosmo’s position of the day – the Tawdry Tube! According to Cosmo, this is why I will love it: “This face-to-face position is seriously intimate. Since the tube is hollow in the middle, the splashing water created by your thrusting hits both of your down-there domains, adding to the titillation.” I mean, what’s not to love? Seems I will have to go buy an inner tube. But if I don’t have time, there is always the “Row His Boat,” the “Octopus,” the Cosmo Cat,” and 361 more to keep me entertained. Good thing it’s a long weekend. Let the games begin!
The Beach Ball Booty. A private-ish beach might be necessary for this one.
The Tub Tangle. A must do on a summer day in my opinion.
Tonight was the opening of the Buddha Bar in DC, complete with velvet ropes, big bouncers and all the things that are decidedly un-Washington. I have very fond memories of the Buddha Bar in Paris as I spent quite a bit of time there in my early twenties sucking face. So when I found out Washington Life was sponsoring the party here in town, I was all for it. Now I can smooch under the eyes of a large golden Buddha in my hometown. Yeehah!
Of course, the concept of the Buddha Bar works so darn well because the Buddha is rather trendy right now and doesn’t inspire guilt as you smack your boyfriend’s arse or down buckets of Veuve Clicquot. I mean, what if it was the Scientology Bar or the Jehovah’s Witness Bar? Just don’t think they would have the same marketing power.
As I was contemplating all this, my friend Cynthia of Essence Magazine fame and I started discussing the coolness of Quakers. All the peace and understanding, not to mention the oats and the furniture. She told me that on beliefnet.com there is a quiz you can take that tells you what religion your credo lines up with and that she came out as 100% Quaker. What! How amazing. So as soon as I left the land of short skirts, flashbulbs and enormous Buddhas, I scurried home to take the quiz myself.
And what did Belief-O-Matic say about me? Well, turns out that I am 100% Unitarian Universalist. And luckily, my second match was Quakerism at a whopping 94%. Feewf. Of course out of 27 religious results, Roman Catholic (my religion since birth) was my second to last! Err, maybe it’s time for a little self-reflection. Thanks Belief-O-Matic!
The Buddha Bar. One just opened in DC tonight and the place was packed. If there was a statue of a pagan or a fiery Jesus, would it have been as raging? I think not. Buddha is just so hot right now.
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