A Perfect Pair

Lately, I keep finding myself daydreaming about Carven. What strikes me most about the label is how it seamlessly blends vintage shapes with modern textures and details. It seems that, when it comes to pretty much anything these days, there is a constant pull towards nostalgia, a constant desire to ressurect the past. And I presume, from the standpoint of a writer, the ultimate goal is to find a way to reconcile that with the present and the looming future.

xoxo

P.S Here's a Neruda poem to get you daydreaming:

Always

I am not jealous

of what came before me.

Come with a man

on your shoulders,

come with a hundred men in your hair,

come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,

come like a river

full of drowned men

which flows down to the wild sea,

to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all

to where I am waiting for you;

we shall always be alone,

we shall always be you and I

alone on earth,

to start our life!

Hey, That's My Grandma's Brooch!

Here's to my first fashion post EVER!

Growing up, I was never the prettiest, or the most popular, but I always had one of the most outrageous closets (arguably!). In the 4th grade I wore an oversized white Calvin Klein turtleneck I stole from my grandma every day, for example. And it's always been, next to music, the biggest way I express myself. And my favorite form of shopping, vintage of course! Growing up in the San Diego suburbs leaves little to be coveted when it comes to fashion. It's either Forever 21 at the mall or bust! Especially pre part time job and drivers license. So in high school the big thing was to catch a ride to the local thrift strip where all the local churches had a store and stock up on grungy loafers, floral print dresses, and all the old lady brooches you could want! As I grew older, a drive down to Hillcrest would do just the trick. Buffalo Exchange, Flashbacks, and antique stores became my go to places. Now I have a job AND a license, but I still choose thrift shopping over normal shopping most of the time because I purely enjoy it more. I love recycling clothes and sifting through musty racks of rejects, despite the icky flourescent lighting. It's just a hunt, and the best way to find the most unique pieces, which are my favorite kind. So here's an ode to dressing head to toe in what someone else could not see the beauty in! An homage to a college girls pursuit to dress the part despite having a college girl/small business owner's budget!

xoxo Yaz

P.S Even if you couldn't care less about fashion, the awkward photos are enough of a reason to look.

Shorts and top vintage, Wacoal bralette, Mom's vintage Ferragamo shoes, Jewelry from H&M, Forever 21, Topshop, and RawEarth Studios

New York and Almond Butter

Spring Fever has set in folks. Full swing. So please excuse how lax I've been with writing. It seems the nicer the weather becomes, the more impossible it is for me to focus on anything besides my daydreams. Add a Spring Break spent in New York city, and it all makes sense. I experienced falling snow for the first time while there. On my way to Serendipity for some pre-flight frozen hot chocolate, snowflakes began to catch on my eyelashes. There's nothing in the world quite like that, that could make you smile and beam so much you swear the whole world could see the light shining off of you. For awhile there, something had changed in my brain. In the way that I thought. My heart felt full even though there was no one to fill it. Whether it was the auspicious slew of client meetings, or Alexa Chung's Instagram feed, or my discovery of almond butter that balanced out the wavelengths I don't know, but I found myself thinking less and less about...everything. But a glass of cheap wine, some stolen mardi gras beads, and a house party later and I was right back where I started. And it's been a strong tidal wave. The kind that pushes you to watch Blue Valentine twice in a day even though you grind your teeth the whole time. The kind that makes you listen to that song your ex-flame showed you even though it only makes you want to throw the bowl of blueberry muffin mix you worked so hard on. The kind that makes you want to Google image search, "Ryan Gosling and his dog" all night. This brings to mind the one time I forgot to take my birth control pills for three days and couldn't stop thinking about babies. Some people say love is to humans what water is to flowers. And I believe it. Because without it, I don't grow. I only spiral in circles. I lose myself. xoxo Yaz

Remember When I Was a Babe?

Here is a poem by William Blake:

I have no name,

I am but two days old

What shall I call thee?

I happy am,

Joy is my name.

Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!

Sweet joy about two days old.

Sweet joy I call thee;

Thou dost smile.

I sing the while-

Sweet joy befall thee.

Since I was about 14 years old, I've really had an obsession with childhood, particular the innocence of childhood. When I think back to listening to the Titanic soundtrack in the back of my dad's black Mercedes convertible and daydreaming about some boy I'd seen on TV, I truly start to cry, because every thing has become so much harder. I look at pictures of myself, or see kids when I'm running errands, and I want to pick them up, hold them, and ask them to never grow up. The older you get the less immune you become to witnessing other peoples' pain, like you were slowly regaining sight after a period of being blind, and what you see is not what you had expected at all. I think I'm at an interesting age because I'm being pulled in two directions: retreating towards the past, and flying forward to the future at light speed. Every thing is uncertain at this point, and I know that over the past couple years I've earned some scars, scars that mean the innocence of childhood are fading away. Some of it has been stolen by people and things in my life without permission, boys who break your heart and make you jaded, or watching your parents cry and suffer from the hardships of a long life, or the death of a loved one. I never gave permission for life to make me grow up so fast, I never said anyone could take my innocence away from me. Yet, I realize that, although my innocence is mine, it is completely on the surface of me, and I can't control what comes of it as it weathers and chips and cracks. It makes me sad. A lot of the time. Because I am a control freak, and I wish I had a say in how fast time is going by. I only wish.

xoxo

M for Music

My musical story is a cliche that includes me singing Reflection from Mulan on a weekly basis in front of my whole family at 7 years old. I was always a musician, always wrote music and sang, always knew it was what I wanted to do with my life. I recorded an EP, played locally, and kept pushing myself to pump out songs factory style. I never thought I'd ever burn out of it because it was the biggest emotional outlet in my life, and it used to be the only thing that made me feel powerful and purposeful. But these days I fear the worst, writers block in a permanent way, like maybe I worked to hard over the past five years and didn't let myself have enough fun with it. That could be the effect of writing alone, exclusively, and about heartbreak, exclusively. I just miss being inspired. My dream is to be in a giant house with a group of people who love music as much as I do, and who have an unbelievable amount of passion, drive, ambition, and LOVE for having fun while making music. I want to write music again from that place I once used to, where I was giving all I had and putting into a song. Where did that love go?

I think it's just an inherent part of all the changes my life is experiencing in life.

Everything's got to stop shifting before I can focus my energy on any one thing.

That's the hypothesis.

Anyway, on a happier and funkier note, here is an AMAZING song by an AMAZING band called HAIM (rhymes with rhyme)

Let's dance.

xoxo Yaz

I'm always looking for myself in things. In books, in films, in songs. There are many different "me's" that I look for. Potential me's, current me's, who I was before. And there are always these iconic characters that I think most of us have found ways to identify with in one way or another. The eccentric Sam in Garden State (Natalie Portman), Clem from Eternal Sunshine (Kate Winslet), Gatsby, and so many more. It doesn't matter how much our worlds truly do collide, we are always seeing through the looking glass self, always searching for a way to connect ourselves to every experience. So imagine watching Sharon Stone, hand in hand with DeNiro, walking down the steps of a private jet in an electric blue skirt suit in the iconic Casino for the first time. Priceless. The minute you start to wonder what it would feel like to be a blonde, hustling, femme-fatale. I think for today I could get lost in that world.

I love fashion week. I wish I were at fashion week. But I'm thankful for the internet, and how it allows me to sit alone in my room and drool over Rag and Bone, Rebecca Minkoff, and so much more. Also, it really is a good time to scour the internet for great street style.

How amazing is this handmade ring I bought on Etsy?! It's becoming clear to me that i'm obsessed with triangles (i.e. my tattoo, a stack of three).

(I take no credit for any of these photos except the one with my new brass, triangle ring that I ordered from RawEarthStudios on Etsy. It's handmade!)

Secondhand Rose

I am good at thrifting. No, I am pathetically good at it. When I start to feel like I'm drowning in the banalities of every day life, the first thing I do is head to the teeny, tiny shopping center near home that is solely dedicated to housing the antiquities and remnants of cute, little old ladies whose earlobes have sagged past the point of wearing gaudy clip on earrings. I love sifting through dusty racks of clothes, even though they smell like a wet sponge that's been sitting out too long, and keeping my eyes peeled for the most ridiculous of the undesirables. Those pink velvet lined jewelry containers hold all the dearest, over-the-top pieces that probably, in the prime of their lives, proved lucrative to their owners. Maybe got them a few dates or a hot make-out session in the back of a Chevy. Each item in that store has a story, each of them ended up in these temporary homes of transition, only to end up in the greedy hands of each of us, searching for something to give meaning to. To ressurect. It's beautiful. It's a little weird, like the dark side of consumerism, but it's a paradox. And a lovely one at that.

Dear, Lena

I don't want to be another shadow on your wall.

I want to LIVE. The problem is, what does that even mean?

It's sort of like losing weight. If you just focus on the numbers, and how ten steps forward ends you three steps back, it can seem like an impossible surface to cross. So you made a leap, then you messed up, and now you are lying on your floor listening to Call It Off by Tegan and Sara and licking cake crumbs off your face...again.

That's why I love Lena Dunham's TV show, Girls, so much, I think. Because it makes me feel better about embracing my insecurities and failures, well, perhaps embrace is too generous, but co-exist with could work.

I have to learn to be fine with the fact that sometimes I will go to school wearing a backwards baseball cap and hot pink lipstick and feel an unwarranted amount of sexy. Or that I can wear my Huck Finn novel on my head like a hat, forget about it, then have my professor remind me, and my whole class, in the MIDDLE of his lecture.

Even if every thing confuses me, I still feel OK about it most days because It keeps me curious, it keeps me moving, because I don't have my bearings and that freaks me out, so I move. I move and move and move and run into people and inanimate objects. I forget to moisturize, and spend what little money I have on black turtlenecks and Astrology For Dummies. But it's all in good fun.

This blog is a direct reflection of where I'm at right now in my life. So exhausted from 19 years of over thinking, and feeling embarrassed by myself constantly. I'm just tired of it. Life is messy, and I think by now it's socially acceptable to live that mess with a bit of freedom. It is, after all, a part of the skin we're in.

xoxo Yaz

Tonight

Here is a poem. Because for once in my life, I don't have too many thoughts in my head.

Always we pull our shoulders back

Stand up straight so they know,

"Know what?"

There is no outline

Only a glimmer of who

you should be

When the lights go off

and you're standing behind a

white sheet

Shadows, shadows

Is that all that you are?

My shadow

My shadow

Is that all that you are?

Earrings and Ambition

I've had the same problem my whole life...I have too much ambition and no self control. As a child I would run into walls, fall, and do it again. It didn't matter how much it hurt, or how much I finally realized I could not walk through walls, I was going to do it until I succeeded...or more likely, passed out. And now as a psuedo-adult living a pseudo-adult life, my problem remains unchanged. For example, right now at this juncture in my life, the career plan I seem to be aiming for sounds a lot like photographer/amateur jewelry maker/part time florist/freelance writer/unprofessional travel blogger/pastry chef/college professor.

And no, I have not made any attempts to whittle down this title. Because, like I said, too much ambition and little to no self-control.

So this Monday morning, do I wake up and go to American Lit?

Nope.

Instead, I wake up, find a screwdriver, a handful of broken jewelry, a mixed media wood fixture my dad and I started months ago in my carpenter phase, four old license plates, and some metal clippers.

I actually screwed stuff into my walls. Like with an actual screwdriver. In the hands of a 5'4 1/2" girl, what could this possibly begin to mean?

And then, immediately after I relinquished the power tool from my hands, I sat down and made earrings.

So my point, if I even have one, is that at 19 and a half years old you are going to make A LOT of mistakes. Change A LOT of plans. Date A LOT of people you probably shouldn't. Pick up A LOT of great talents and hobbies. And give your parents a headache as they try to keep up with the side effects of your growing pains.

But this year I'm just going with the flow. Because this feels like change, and I'm always up for change (as long as it includes lots of cupcakes and power tools).

xoxo Yaz

Les Fleurs

Ever since I can remember, flowers have been a defining part of my life. My Mom started her own business when I was just a little kid, opening up a flower shop and learning the ropes from the ground up on her own. Pretty soon her business became a full-fledged event planning operation, housed in....our garage!

Plastic buckets of hydrangeas, alstroemerias, and dusty miller greens took the place of our cars, and her friends joined in the process to help put the magic together. I would sit on overturned buckets and watch these women speak in spicy Farsi and delicately place each stem where it belonged until there was a delicate, whole, and intentionally pieced floral arrangement or bouquet on each shelf.

I guess we all grow up saying we want to grow up to be exactly the OPPOSITE, or at least as close to it, as our parents. At least in respect of their occupations. We see the stress, turmoil, and long hours on their faces and think of how we can diverge from whatever genetic inevitabilities that string us along with them in order to live more comfortably, less a prisoner of our jobs.

BUT...I guess that was never to be the case with me.

Working with organic, living things is so gratifying. It is ephemeral art that connects you to the Earth, AND in turn connects two other destined-to-be-together people.

It's magic. And that's how everyone should feel about their jobs, right?

xoxo Yaz