I have no title.

DIY sidewalk chalk is particularly amazing :)

I love this store in Oakland that is dedicated to the ethic of reuse. They cater to teachers and artists, people who might benefit from supplies en masse. I like to buy a lot of envelopes when I'm there, stickers, pins. I've never bought as much as I want though, because I have to carry it all around the city.

I would love to start a store like this in my city, a non-profit dedicated to reducing waste and encouraging reuse in creative ways. There was a composting bicycle service for a few years that also had a worm farm, but for some reason they couldn't sustain it (time, energy, manpower), and they went away.

I wish that I could do it all, compost all the restaurant waste, create a place where people could recycle crayons and hang with like-minded thrifty people. I wish I had my own store. But the rummage sale made me think otherwise. It made me think that I don't have the emotional acuity particular to running/operating a thrift establishment. Or maybe I do, but I would definitely need a partner. I have a friend that I could work with every day and not hate it, but I'd have to import her.

btw, today has not been awesome, but I'm getting into Parks & Rec, so yeah.

Wasteland.

Joanne Sibley watercolor print - She often paints the Caribbean area.

Wasteland (Almega Projects, 2010), a documentary largely conceptualized by artist Vik Muniz, is about trash and landfills in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's interesting in many ways because of Rio's focus on general cleansing (e.g. running gangs out of the slums) as they prepare for the 2016 Olympic Games. The documentary focuses on the people who work and survive on the landfills, recycling all of that which can be recycled (as Rio has no separate recycling pick-up services), and even using the food to feed themselves (in very impressive, and non-disgusting ways, I will add).

This film sat on my Netflix queue for ages, as it seemed like something I would like (i.e. it was about trash, and my fantasy destination: landfills!), but I never got to it. Every time I considered it, I felt depressed, and found something funny to do instead.

Eventually, I watched it. It was that moment, when you've been waiting to do something for ages, but just waiting for the right moment. And it was beautiful, full of real human experience and emotion, and the deep raw-ness of working with trash, of being trash, and what that means to a person's soul. It's a beautiful film, both emotionally and aesthetically. Philosophically, it brings the hidden secret world into view, and exposes it for the truth it truly brings to the world and the human experience: those who live off the landfill are the most beautiful people you can find.

I don't know if the experience of these filmmakers could be recreated across the world in other landfill worker colonies, but I'm glad that they took the time to really see the people they researched. They made something beautiful in a dirty, ugly place. They found beauty that was already there.

Mug share :)

Doesn't this remind you of truck-drivers?

I don't know why this mug thing has taken such a hold on me, but it has. It's my thing, and I like having a thing. Maybe when I have a bigger place, I'll have room for some sort of bizarre incongruous collection. I try not to get attached to things, though, so that keeps me from making collections of anything.

The mug only holds a little liquid - false bottom :)

Severe hoarding is a way to hold onto things that we have lost, a tangible way to hold on to the intangible. I've always been super reticent to hang onto things. I occasionally get rid of things, just to make sure I'm not holding on too tightly. That makes me sound somewhat paranoid, now that I think about it. Maybe that's not so healthy, the not wanting to hold onto things.

Somewhere out there is a matching mug that says "me"

I guess I try to walk a fine line between keeping and throwing away, but I don't think I'm very good at it. Just when I think I've figured it out, the pendulum swings in the opposite direction.

Anyhoo, let me know if you collect certain mugs, and I'll be on the lookout for you :)

Mug share :)

B. Kliban Cat skating mug

Kliban mugs are pretty popular. I myself am not very fond of cats. I've become less fond of them as time has gone by. Dogs are better. That's how I feel. Deal with it. Cats are selfish, self-centered, egotistical, etc. They serve no purpose. Rant over. However, if you live on a farm, and the cats take care of rodents, then I rescind my rant, and find them to be quite useful. Not hypocritical. Pragmatic.

Boynton beaver dam mug

I don't find Boynton mugs as endearing as a lot of people, but they sell well, and I enjoy sharing them with others. I'm pretty flush with mugs this weekend, got a good healthy stash going. Storage is always an issue, but they stack fairly well, and can be seen pretty quickly. I had a moment a few weeks ago when I thought about making my Etsy shop into a vintage mug shop, but that seemed to be too much work for the moment, and I'd miss the eclecticism that I've got going, so I've put it off for the moment.

Anthropologie initial mug

I have a coworker who always drinks out of this mug (with her initial on it), so I knew it as soon as I saw it. I'm not as fluent in Anthropologie brands and symbols as other people are, so I lucked out this time. Some people are all about brands whilst thrift shopping. Me, less so.

I am, however, having a lot of trouble dressing myself lately, which is anecdotal at best, but really important to my everyday functioning. Maybe it's the cold. I'm just having trouble with my current sweaters combined with pants, combined with tops, and then I feel like I'm a freakish color wheel with no sense of matching, and then I only have black tights which don't go with much, except black and then I look like I'm in mourning, but I don't want to wear bright colors, because then I'd look even more discombobulated. Or maybe observers think I'm a genius who's too brilliant to be understood. This lack of appropriate matching is only worsened by my hair, which has reached epic levels of fro-ishness, and it's making me have some identity issues.

I'm currently hooked on The X Files, which is awesome. All is well :)