Procrastination

“Distractivity is what you’re doing when you get distracted from what you should be doing. It’s generally what you want to do, often what you need to do, and arguably, what you’ll do best.”
-John Goodman from Distractivity
“The work you do while you procrastinate is the work you should be doing for the rest of your life”
-Jessice Hische, whose funny blog includes this funny graphic about the evolution of her taste in typefonts, full size image here
both via swiss-miss

Well, that's all nice for creative folks, but that's kind of like saying I should abandon my difficult but arguably useful career and what, read design blogs for a living? Bake? Write emails to my friends? Arrange and re-arrange furniture, sew clothes, clean? Please. Even if I thought I should be a designer, what about the part of me that cares about social justice and doesn't believe in accumulating more stuff, no matter how well-designed or fashion-forward it may be?

Random Music Videos

I don't remember where I came across this video, but I also like the version of the song by Eydie Gorme.

I'm trying to remember a video I dimly recall as a French young woman singing a 60s American pop song, in French. She was terrible but it was somehow so very cute and endearing.

Also, nothing can compete with how cute this video is.

Hedgehog in the Fog

My friend Claire is doing a project on Soviet children's books, and she sent me this incredible animation by 1970s Soviet illustrator Yuri Norstein. It's so good!
Also, Claire is super-smart. I hadn't looked at her blog in awhile, and wow, she is so cool. I think you forget, when you are having dinner with your cute friend and talking about boyfriends, that she speaks like 4 languages and is probably going to be a professor.

My roommate showed me this video, it rules.

Girl Crush

This is from Bakerby, I think it is the blogger herself, Cecilie, she lives in Copenhagen and is 18.

She has a really nice blog and takes good photos, but really I was just floored by how beautiful she is. Scandinavia looks like a nice place!

Stripes for Spring

Here is my mom circa 1983 wearing an awesome striped dress, holding my baby cousin. Nice hair, mom.

Fact: blog world is obsessed with striped stuff, especially blue & white or gray & white. Good thing my family is way ahead of that curve.

Example: this striped French shirt from etsy seller modaspia, found via Cup of Jo.

Joanna Goddard thinks it's a french thing, and real-life French babe Garance Dore agrees.

This picture caught my eye on Cup of Jo, and it is from the early days (July 2008) of The Selby.

Listening, Watching, Reading, Wearing, Wanting

Listening: I recently got 2 McGarrigle sisters CDs & Wust al-Balad all the way from Egypt, which I am really stoked about, also, Tina Turner's greatest hits. I would be listening to these A LOT more if I had a working computer to upload them to, which I no longer have.

Watching: catching up on this season's Project Runway, and this crazy video by Charlotte Gainsburg, who is my French alter-ego, and I am just like her only less famous. I wish that being crazy was like this video, and not scary and disorienting like it really is.

Reading: oh, school, you know. Also this book called Comfort Me with Apples, which was lying around and I read to procrastinate, but I didn't finish because I hate reading about infidelity.

Wearing: green t-shirt that I stenciled with trees at the Art in Action community art picnic last summer, old roommate's old tan sweater, the denim skirt that has gone from below the knee (high school-- I think it was a hand-me-down from my cousin) to super-mini as I get older and bolder and the slit tears further, green wool tights from mom, grey thigh-high socks from Target, heavy-duty wool socks that mom gave me, mom's Sorrel boots from the 70s, purple pashmina scarf from Dahab (actually from India), blue beret from dress-up box in back of closet at parents' house, perfect black coat that I got for Christmas this year from my mother and I picked it out at JCPenney, and its perfect because it has two rows of brass buttons and comes almost to my knees, is long in the sleeves and skinny in the cut, yet warm and cozy.

Wanting: to avoid interviews for internships next year; reservations at Ed's Potstickers for Chinese New Year/Valentines Day. Obviously the beginning of the Year of the Tiger is WAY more important that Valentine's Day. To be done with work. A computer that works. For all time to be weekend time.