At my best friend, Drie’s, graduation from FIDM I wore:
And Drie wore:
Anticipating L.A., Baja, and of course, the beach!
My best girlfriend is graduating from FIDM this Saturday, so tomorrow I fly out to give her a hug and pat on the butt, and then we share the drive home together with her lover. There are too many things that I’m excited for… dressing up for the airport, buying shoes at the fashion district, meeting her new boyfriend, visiting my brother in Venice Beach, and the 12 hour drive back to Colorado when the 2 weeks are up. But best of all, we’re driving down the Baja Peninsula for her “graduation trip”, and camping on the beach. Finally, I get to have a stab at winning myself a tan this summer!!
With all the built up excitement & anticipation of buying tons of new shoes for cheap in L.A., I’ve been spending tons of time gawking at Jane’s designer heels, post-after-post[-after-post]. Actually, with this awkward time between South America and L.A. and being unable to start any new design jobs, I’ve been spending a completely ridiculous amount of time on the internet. So along with Jane’s Sea of Shoes, there’s also Agent Lover’s witty little posts of cupcakes, parties, and ensembles of rockabilly outfits that make me want to shop even more. It’s OK. I’m in Pagosa and there’s nowhere to shop, so I spend my pennies at the Thrift store and usually it only takes about $4 to give me my shopping fix for the day. Oh. And then there’s PinUpGirlClothing.com who send me mouth-watering-coupons for 20% off and all of a sudden I’m checking my credit card balance twice a day, just to make sure that money doesn’t magically appear out of nowhere…
Vintage dresses in general
Sleeping in
Late night art sessions
Planning August events (shhhh!)
photo / andrew.mathewson
There are a few reasons why I choose not to eat meat. I may be the worst “vegetarian” on the planet, but every now-and-then I remember my reasoning behind first becoming vegetarian.
Animals in today’s factory farms have no legal protection from animal cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted on dogs or cats: neglect, mutilation, genetic manipulation, and drug regimens that cause chronic pain and crippling, transport through all weather extremes, and gruesome and violent slaughter. Yet farmed animals are no less intelligent or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as companions. Please take the time to read more about the cruelty to the animals in factory farms & how amazing, sensitive, and intelligent these animals are.
Healthy vegetarian diets support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including our country’s three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer, and strokes. The consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy products has also been strongly linked to osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, asthma, and male impotence. Scientists have also found that vegetarians have stronger immune systems than their meat-eating friends, and on average, vegetarians and vegans live 6 to 10 years longer than meat-eaters. A plant-based diet is the best diet for kids, too. Studies have shown that vegetarian kids grow taller and have higher IQs than their classmates. Read more about the life-changing perks that eating meat-free can give you, and about the natural human diet.
But now there’s new studies that brings up a whole new issue due to factory farming, a major issue that affects all of us. With all those personal emotional feelings & beliefs out of the way, let’s move onto to the physical impact that eating meat has on the world.
Now the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbondioxide. The agency has also warned that meat consumption is set to double by the middle of the century. Take these facts into consideration:
In terms of immediacy of action, simply devote at least one day a week to eating meet-free, or more, if you like eating meat free. “Meat Free Mondays” is a new global movement, and you can find materials to promote MFM and run your own meat free Monday’s, along with other ideas and recipes, at the MFM website.
(Most of the above information was borrowed from the extreamly informative site, GoVeg.com, which has hundreds of articles & recipies to get you started on living a healthy vegitarian & more environmentally-friendly lifestyle.)
Check out these other websites about eating meat free & global warming:
Saltañas, Empanadas & Real Sugar
I gained a lot of weight in Cochabamba, Bolivia. So much that I hope I don’t find a scale in the near future or else I’ll probably cry. The food there is out of control, with street vendors on every corner and between. When my friend Nathan found the restaurant that only made empanadas, he went every single day, at least once, until we left. They fill these little pockets with potatoes, meat, vegetables, olives, eggs, whatever, all mixed up into heavenly deliciousness for you to cradle in your palm and savor each bite with a little ‘o this sauce, a little ‘o that. And the lack of high fructose corn syrup is just fabulous; not only are all the coca-colas made with real sugar, but so is every-other soda, and the Pringles even have half the amount of ingredients!! I’m going to miss eating 5 meals a day, but I look forward to seeing my ribs again.
Lake Titicaca
At 12,000 feet above sea level on the border of Peru and Bolivia, Lake Titicaca is the highest and largest lake in South America. On the Bolivian side of the lake, the Isla del Sol was the first island our group visited, and is one of the largest islands in the lake. There are over 180 Incan ruins there, and according to the Incas, it is the island where the Sun God was born. Amoung the 30+ natural islands, there are about 40 artificial islands (Uros) that were man-made from Totora reeds that we got to visit for a whole 30-or-so minutes while the sun was setting. Supposedly it’s a pretty popular tourist destination, and I was a tiny-bit disappointed that we didn’t get to ride in a reed-canoe taxi.
Little Cholitas
If needed, please take a moment to laugh at me in this picture, and then read on. On our way to the island of Amantaní the winds picked up and our boat was riding waves that were a tinsie-wiensie bit too big for a safe sun-set journey. Entonces, we had to park our boat in some reeds on an unknown peninsula and find families who would put 17 students up for the night. 5 of us girls ended up staying with one large family (8 daughters and a son), and after dinner they shoowed us off to our rooms to “get ready for a party”. There were big skirts on our beds and immediately the oldest daughters began to dress us. 3 skirts, 1 wool jacket, and a mini-bowler-cap later, I was giggling hysterically with the rest of my room-mates. We hoped we were the only ones dressed up for the surprise party, but when we got there our entire group was wearing traditional outfits. So, the party started at about 8:30 and then they made us dance until 11:00 [in our wool!!] until we were finally allowed to go back to our beds and giggle ourselves to sleep. It was a night of a lifetime.
Machu Picchu
We didn’t hike the Inca Trail, and maybe if we did I would have actually cried when I finally got to see the ruins, but I did not. Our trip was amazing, and after lugging my tubby belly around the country all month, up mountains and through the jungle, I’m glad we didn’t have to backpack our last few days up and down the vertical Incan trails. When our bus made its way up to the national park of Machu Picchu, my heart was racing and I thought I might explode from the anticipation of the spiritual enlightenment I was about to experience… but, alas, when we finally made it through the line [of eternity] at the gate, I wanted to lie down in the middle of the stone path– any stone path. There were 32987 stone paths!! The ancient city was huge!! I had no idea how impossible it had been for any photographer in the history of Earth to capture the immense size of Machu Picchu. Our tour guide was a native to the lands surrounding the ruins (he claimed to be able to run the Incan Trail in 4 hours, 10 minutes), and had some crazy facts/theories about the ancient culture. One of my favorite ideas that he shared with us was the fact that the Incans only had 4 ages in a person’s lifetime, and the transformation from one age to the next was based on psychological stages instead of physical. The sad thing was that our guide spoke entirely in Spanish, so I missed 63% of what he was saying. After our tour a little group of us strayed away from the 50-year-old-tourist-infested ruins of Machu and hiked up to Wayna Picchu where we found all the twenty-something world-travelers, and looked out over the tiny world below.
When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?” ~ Howard Ikemoto
Pilar and Daniel Weinberg’s son was baptized on the coast. The baptism taught him what was sacred. They gave him a sea shell: So you’ll learn to love the water.They opened a cage and let a bird go free: So you’ll learn to love the air. They gave him a geranium: So you’ll learn to love the earth. And they gave him a little bottle sealed up tight: Don’t ever, ever open it. So you’ll learn to love mystery.
~
El hijo de Pilar y Daniel Weinberg fue bautizado en la costanera. Y en el bautismo le enseñaron lo sagrado. Recibió una caracola: Para que aprendas a amar el agua. Abrieron la jaula de un pájaro preso: Para que aprendas a amar el aire. Le dieron una flor de malvón: Para que aprendas a amar la tierra. Y también le dieron una cajita cerrada: No la abras nunca, nunca. Para que aprendas a amar el misterio.
- Eduardo Galeano, from Walking Words
These are my favorites out of the collection Hagebutten gathered.
Actual children’s answers to the question “what is love?”
“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.” – Billy, age 4
“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.” – Chrissy, age 6
“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,” – Nikka, age 6
“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.” – Noelle, age 7
“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.” – Tommy, age 6
“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.” – Mary Ann, age 4
“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.” – Rebecca, age 8
“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” – Karen, age 7
“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.” – Jessica, age 8
