Friday Links (Fancy Dress Party Edition)

A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.
- Robert Hughes

Boy golly. I just got thrown another wrench, ducklings. Although this is largely a good wrench it is still necessary to recalibrate some plans – which is rather turning out to be my constant state of existence these days. Details about this good wrench to follow pending some scheduling and finalization. My we’ve gotten secretive here at Small Dog Headquarters!

Anyway, I’m editing more website copy and banging out a last minute press release and then reveling in a marathon phone call with Marie. Tomorrow Margot is throwing herself a going away party with dinner and drinks at a favorite restaurant and then going to see what Peregrine called “THE STUPID FLAPPER MOVIE, YAY!” Long pearl necklaces and dark makeup encouraged.

This hotel. “I want to go to there.” American hotels make a big song and dance about their continental breakfasts – usually consisting of stale donuts, separated juices, and crumbly cereal. A real continental breakfast (on the actual European continent) is a magnificent thing by contrast. I can’t wait to have one again.

I may not be a fashion maven, but I am a beauty junkie. No. Honestly I’m not even that. But if it came down to choosing between good clothes and flawless skin, I’d take the latter every single time. And a tube of really good red lipstick.

First Richard III and now this, all archeologists should probably report to British car parks immediately, quite possibly just in Leicester. (And of course I get Douglas Adams stuck in my head for the rest of the day. “The car park! What are you doing in the car park?” “Parking cars, what else, dumb dumb?”)

Here’s a tribute to one of the masters of stop motion animation. Which, since it produced Wallace and Gromit (among other great wonders) I will hear not a word against. That plus Jason and the Argonauts is another childhood favorite that everyone needs to see.

Know your insult.

Margot’s throwing a 20′s themed going away bash tomorrow: dinner, drinks, and The Great Gatsby. Tiffany designed several pieces of jewelry for the film and apparently there was an intense amount of security on set. Lots of it isn’t my favorite, but I admit that Daisy’s diamond headband is so unbelievably over the top that I kind of love it.

People. People! Like any other app or site it’s a tool. I don’t have Pinterest angst, but I can see how people can get it by forgetting that it’s a tool and thinking it’s a competition. (Which can sum up a lot of life and cultural problems, frankly.)

How cool.

Mothers’ Day

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
-Spanish Proverb

My mother, as has been established, is certifiably awesome.

Some of my favorite memories with her have been the day trips we took together, when I finally got out of the twerpy teenager phase and could really appreciate them. When we lived in Belgium she and I went down to Versailles together overnight, just the two of us, just because. We also wandered through Antwerp, Ghent, and Brugges. In the UK we did Cambridge regularly. It was great fun and I didn’t appreciate them close to enough at the time.

But I’m going to make darn sure I do the same with my spawn. Those hours or days, just the two of us that she carved out just to be with me, we’re just extended “I Love Yous” with hyper impressive scenery.

Maman à Versailles.

So, just in case I didn’t say it enough then, I love you back, Mum.

Friday Links (Every Day I’m Hustlin’ Edition)

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
― Confucius

I have neglected you. In my defense I have been editing/tweaking website copy, knocking together an article for a Hawaiian magazine, and creating blogs and posts for DC startups. I’m literally working one end of the country to the other! That and the cold that plagued me for all of April decided to make a return visit, much to my irritation. Here are your links, tell me what you’re up to this weekend!

In honor of both Friday and that Jazz Age movie, you may have heard of it, that I can’t decide if I want to see in theatres or not.

 

Loved this short article from Elle. I’ve been thinking a lot about clothes the past year. We’ve invested in building Jeff’s new work wardrobe and I’ve been paring mine down to get rid of old, worn, or out of date pieces. I read a book that really made me rethink my clothing choices and have since been looking to build a wardrobe of high quality clothing that will last long, wear well, and age appropriately – which feels ridiculously difficult in an age of fast fashion to start, compounded by the fact that at my heart I am a jeans and t-shirts kind of girl. I’ve fought it, but there it is. I can do that or a little black dress, but precious little in between with aplomb. It’s a work in process.

…I’m listening…

It may be the packing, storing, shifting, and donating – it could definitely be the nearer and nearer move – but whatever the reason, I’ve got decor on the brain. And assuming that all of our funds will go to rent itself, decorating will probably have to be all imaginary, alas, and we’ll use crates for furniture. Which is where cute pieces like this come in.

This pinterest board exists. You’re welcome.

This week I used coding for the first time for a freelance project. It was laughably simple and small but boy I felt my face light up as it made sense. Then I read this article and tumbled straight back down a well of inadequacy.

Fascinating.

Indiana Jones meets the Wind in the Willows. I know everyone knows them as pests, but I always found it funny to come outside in the morning, when my family lived in the English country and see mounds of dirt that had sprung up overnight from moles tunneling away. The dog would go crazy trying to dig down into them.

Loved this. It’s important.

And the winner of headline of the week is…

Fun for travelers and global enthusiasts a like!

*Snort. Yeah, I can see it.

Friday Links (Working Girl Edition)

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

(via)

Well beloved minions! It’s my first Friday as a totally self employed woman and do you know – it kinda rocks. I’m still busy beyond belief, I’m still scrambling around, but the projects I’m working on are fantastic, the experience is already leaps and bounds ahead of where I was, and I’m learning all sorts of new programs, ticks, and skills.

The pay is small, the hours irregular, and the projects all completely unrelated. It’s bloody incredible! I should have gone for full time freelancing years ago! I’ve got a couple of clients that I’m doing virtual assisting for (one of them none other than incredible and incredibly prolific Caitlin Kelly!) doing everything from research, to editing, to press releases, to social media, and now on to professional networking and branding. It’s a brilliant apprenticeship! Once I get all my current projects well handled, I’ll start sending out more pitches of my own and see where I can go.

Here are you links, kittens. Even in the midst of this sea of change you know I’d never forget your need for a little light Friday reading. Let me know what you’re up to this weekend.

In case you haven’t seen it.

Librarians are awesome.

Busy as I am, I know of no one who’s this desperate. Although frankly who knows what our space in London will be like so maybe I need to look into it.

This brings back some mighty fun memories. King Mendenbar for me, please, and Edward Cullen can take a flying leap for all I care. (And with that I’ve lost a significant percentage of my audience…remember this is a safe “team” space, everyone!)

I admit it, I am somewhat conflicted about many Disney films for these very reasons.

Visions of the future from the past.

This made the rounds across media a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t think I shared it anywhere. And it very much needs to be shared.

I was a good kid who didn’t get pregnant, do drugs, or generally mess up. You’re welcome, siblings. (More importantly you’re also welcome, parents.)

Here’s a great article about the role that dance played in women’s liberation in the 1920s – possibly my favorite decade.

One of The Girls works at Colonial Williamsburg, which means I get archeological gossip before it hits the presses (the delights of historical nerdiness!) so I’ve been sitting on this one for about a week. Which is morbidly hilarious because it’s long been established in the courts of historical gossip, to say nothing of the historical record, to be true, but now they have proof, alas for those who have dismissed it as slur and slander all these years! Being an adopted Virginia girl, we learned about the Starving Time in school, but I suspect it’s often left out of other history books. Suffice it to say, looking back, I really do marvel that the US ever materialized, the odds against it at every turn were astronomical.

Friday Links (Severely Run Down Edition)

“We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”
― David Mamet, Boston Marriage

The good news: it’s not mono or strep throat. Yes, I got myself checked out this week because I’m still not over being sick. The bad news is that the doctor confirmed what I already knew, “There’s nothing really wrong except you’re badly in need of rest.” $35 copay for that advice. Blerg.

On the other hand, my dating approach to furniture sales is working! Sold my beloved exercise bike Harley yesterday, and someone is coming to check out the shelving unit we’ve used as a TV stand this afternoon. Tomorrow our mattress and boxspring will be hauled away. We hope. Please, universe, send our couches some suitors!

It’s also graduation day which means the population of people on campus (already in the multiple tens of thousands) has effectively doubled and everyone is getting in accidents, getting tickets, and getting in fistfights over parking spaces. The entire town is virtually shut down due to traffic and I haven’t actually been in my office since before one due to running errands. And I still have to pack up another car load of things for J. to haul to store away properly and get some freelance assignments done (why don’t people answer emails?!). As you can tell things are just a bit frantic over here so here are you links and let’s talk later, k thanks bye.

Fascinating.

Kind of a hilarious photo gallery. I find teenage determination to refuse to enjoy anything hysterically funny now, but I know I was just as bad a perpetrator as any of them.

As the lifelong human companion of a particularly valiant and devoted teddy bear (who incidentally linked up with me the day I was born and to this day sleeps on my bed and is transported in my carry-on luggage because I will not trust her to baggage claim – and regarding all of this I have no shame whatsoever) I heartily approve this Facebook post.

A very smart adult literacy campaign.

Ever wondered who makes the Queen’s headgear? Wonder no more.

Oops.

Semi-funny photo aside, it’s amazing to think about

Interesting article about confidence in general and women in particular (in response to that Dove ad that took over my Facebook page for a few days). Thoughts?

I am an unabashed Game of Thrones fan. Here’s a fun piece about creating the languages for the series – bet you didn’t know we’ve all be pronouncing Khaleesi wrong.

If ever I design my own house, I am definitely throwing in some hidden nooks and crannies.

I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major Theatre Geek

“Oh Frederic, can you not in the calm excellence of your wisdom reconcile it with your conscience to say something that will easy my father’s sorrow?”
“…What?”
“Can’t you cheer him up?”
- The Pirates of Penzance

Ah yeah, ladies, you want this.

Without doubt, one of the best things about working for a university with several renowned performing arts programs and groups, and the talent they manage to attract – is coupling all that with the sweet staff and faculty discount I get on tickets. I’ve seen at least one opera or musical and play every year I’ve lived here (The Magic Flute was painfully mediocre – although the witch trio was amazing, Die Fledermaus was one of my favorite comic performances ever, The Phantom of the Opera could have been mistaken for a Broadway or West End performance, Love’s Labour’s Lost – set in WWII France – was brilliant).

Today I bought my last tickets as a staff member: a summer performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance (the movie version of which starring Kevin Kline and so delightfully, purposefully camp was a childhood favorite). It felt bittersweet tucking my last discounted ticket envelope into my bag.

Then I got an email about next year’s lineup for touring performers. John Lithgow, Audra McDonald, and Joshua Bell. As well as a Middle Eastern group performing an adaptation of Hamlet in Farsi, a marionette troupe, and some really great looking Shakespeare.

Bittersweet to just bitter, alas!

…But then I think about how I can go to performances at The Globe and in the West End…and I’m mollified.

Packing has commenced (and all that implies)

“A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour.”
- Elbert Hubbard

I think that makes us a committee. My house looks like this:

Disaster zone.

And as I type this a strange man is attempting to free style rap outside my door in an extremely nasally voice. Less than a week, minions.

Sick. And Tired.

“Sickness is the vengeance of nature for the violation of her laws.”
~Charles Simmons

A child lives above us and it’s been affecting me, not in cute baby ways. This baby must have something wrong with it, possibly really bad colic, and it screams for hours at a time, day and night – but mostly night. I haven’t had three hours unbroken sleep in weeks, but lately it’s been getting even worse both as to noise (which was pretty loud to start with) and duration (which was nothing to sneeze at either). I’ve tried moving to every room of the flat to sleep except the bathroom but it doesn’t work, nowhere is safe.

This whole past week I was sick from lack of sleep. I lost my voice for a while and had to call in for two days, apparently one day leaving a supremely loopy message on my supervisor’s answering machine much to the hilarity of my coworkers. Today I slept until nearly two – completely spacing a lunch date with a friend – who, weirdly enough, had a prophetic dream in which I had to cancel and then saw from a Facebook post from a couple days ago that I was ill and when I didn’t return texts to confirm assumed I was knocked out cold. Which I was. Apparently some of her ESP rubbed off on me because I woke up mere minutes after her phone call and was able to grovel appropriately and reschedule for an early dinner, but I missed a phone call from my sister-in-law inviting us to a nephew’s birthday party dinner tomorrow.

As I type this now, in the mid afternoon, the infernal child is wailing.

I’m exhausted, and I can’t even imagine how the poor parents are coping! I’m pretty sure at least one of them is a student at the university and this is finals week. This is not how I imagined wrapping up my last couple weeks at work and packing up the house…

Friday Links (Kind of a Terrible Week Edition)

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

This has been a rough week, kittens, lots of bad things happened in a lot of places, some of which are still shaking out. Stay safe out there, everyone, and here are your links:

How David Sedaris works.

An article on the perpetual love for the Longchamp Le Pliage bag – I’m an admitted devotee.

People. Inherently decent.

I can’t even stay upright on skis!

I watched this Frontline episode this past week. I’ve joked in the past that we are poor, but never again. Not after watching this. I’ve lived in truly poverty stricken areas of the globe before but it’s been a while and I honestly think I forget how grim it was for the members of my various communities, even those who bore hardship with stunning grace and resilience. My pay might be small now, and about to go from regular to project based, but except for a couple of hurricanes disrupting things in my teens, I have never gone hungry in my life. I have clothes on my back, a roof over my head, and the ability to provide for myself, I am never going to refer to myself as poor again unless I am facing the challenges these kids face. Perspective. Also looking into some volunteer opportunities this summer because I can do more.

I’d try some of these recipes.

Please consider giving a blood donation to your local donation center if you can. Chronic blood shortages are pretty common, but it gets worse after any large tragedies.

The semi-occasional sheep.

Friday Links (“Constant Vigilance!” Edition)

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.
~ Richard Rorty

Yep. Still true.

This week was long. My trainee requires constant supervision and the universe seems determined to keep me from getting my personal projects done in other ways too. We received a phone call out of the blue yesterday asking to see our flat, and when I stated that I had not advertised it, the caller said, “Oh, yeah, I got your number from your managers.” A conversation about private information and the sharing thereof needs to happen, I think. In any event we spent over an hour cleaning frantically and in the end the prospective renter never even showed up. Two and a half weeks, twelve business days…

Here are your links and tell me what you’re up to this weekend in the comments! We’re going to start the first phase of deep cleaning and packing up for our move and I am going to get my work done! All I’ve managed are phone calls and a few pdfs and this changes now – Saturday at sunrise we attack!

As we get closer to it’s release, I’m not sure that the latest incarnation of The Great Gatsby will actually be good (and this from a woman who adores Carey Mulligan). But I am sure that the sets are going to blow me away, and I’m already drooling over the costumes from the previews. What say the minions – eager to see it or not so much?

Language is much trickier than most people think. I took a psychology class in high school where the teacher explained how it’s possible to fake out your brain by simply putting syllables together that sound correct but are actually meaningless. Here’s the fabulous John Cleese to demonstrate. Bonus fun! Turn on the closed captions and watch it try, poor thing, to do its job.

Photos from lavish New York private homes during the first half of the last century.

I have many questions about North Korea and what goes on there…but I admit, in the Trivial Category, why soldiers are wearing these tops the list. I thought this was only a thing in comic books and films where the director has no desire to portray reality. (Sidenote, heeled boots happened in The Avengers, and not just for Black Widow, and I was disappointed in Whedon.)

As a Gemini, I call BS. Although I find it funny because J. is a Scorpio, because of the two of us he’s the one with the best chance at a decently lucrative career. You can tell exactly how much stock I put in this sort of thing, but I can never resist checking my horoscope in magazines just for kicks.

Hat tip to Savvy, this tumblr is hysterical.

I’m suspicious of any hotel that doesn’t show pics of the bed and bathrooms. Doubly so here.

This is a really clever campaign. Oh, you don’t get it? Quick, to Netflix!

Cats have taken over everything, we must accept it.

The semi-occasional sheep, demonstrating how I generally feel about life and being overwhelmed at this moment.