this is how the affair began

had dinner at alta tonight and there were highlights y'all. blue crab risotto, warm veggie salad, skirt steak, lamb meatballs, and the brussels sprouts of joy.... it's hard to know when to stop eating in that type of situation.

also on my new list of hot tickets: roses. i know. I KNOW. i hate roses. but all of a sudden i love them. there are a few (gasp) bodega roses in here even, and they just look and smell and feel like a delicious meal.

mmmmmm

we would be warm below the storm

it's cats and dogs out there today. luckily i was holed up with some fancy champagne and a bevy of hotties in celebration of elizabeth's impending mom-hood. congrats e!

here was my offering:

(side bar: where can a person buy those itty bitty scissors that victorians used to craftily cut those silhouettes of their lovers with? you know, the ones you and your brother got done at disney land and are still in your parents' den? the kitchen shears aren't really hacking it)

brandy, anyone?

via mpwa. yes they were.

feel-good tuesday jam

the chills

i should not be this excited about the design elements of an abandoned autopsy theater at a state mental hospital. it's like a wes anderson bizarro land hospital fantasy. though i could probably do without the bone saw thingy in the foreground.

photographer christopher payne, managed to gain access to this gloriously creepy place, and many others like it in his new book Asylum, which has just wormed its way onto my christmas list. (via the lens)

weekend epiphany

with obvious inspiration from a california girl, and some paper scraps, it's actually possible to make invitations to a baby shower sans diapers, storks and baby animal imagery.

side bar: remember when you had to do handwriting exercises in 3rd grade and you wrote cursive for so long you thought your hand was gonna fall off, and you thought surely when you're grown up, you won't have this problem because you'll be so practiced at the art of drawing letters on paper that you'll develop super-human writing muscles? turns out it still hurts write a lot. damn you keyboards.

mary in the san fran sky

this is probably my favorite song

by what is undoubtedly my favorite band

the Defibulators - Hearty Laugh from BoB Coon on Vimeo.

helen!

jeepers! the moves! the dedication! the peel-away outfits that reveal flesh-colored mid-sections!

if i could be anything in the world, i would be helen.

Love that Lucy

i made this for my littlest friend. she's only about 20 lbs and doesn't

say much, but the girl's got moxie.